The mystery - the magic - I sure wish they still made XXX

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Well if there's something I miss it's APX 100 in 120. Yes, I know all about Rollei Retro 100, and even bought a big wooden box of it a while ago, but for some reason it wasn't the same. The APX 100 base in 120 had much less fog than the 35mm one, and somehow it seemed as if I managed to make better pictures with it.

In a way, I don't think I could ever get that particular feeling with an unearthed trove of APX. It was probably just because I was starting photography, and my first successes were tied to that film.

Now I found solace in TMAX 400 in 120, but I've also stashed a little bit of 320TXP in 220 because it is indeed a particular film that I will be sorry to miss in that format. Nevertheless, I should be able to make do with TMY and good old 400TX.

In the final analysis I'm not sure it's the film I miss; it's perhaps just the innocence.

 

[clayne]

Love TMZ as well.
As far as a similar example/analogy to the TMX/PTX thing: I prefer Neopan SS 100 over Acros 100. Even though the latter is far and away a technically better film - SS has more *feel*.

 

[rwboyer]

Well if there's something I miss it's APX 100 in 120. Yes, I know all about Rollei Retro 100, and even bought a big wooden box of it a while ago, but for some reason it wasn't the same. The APX 100 base in 120 had much less fog than the 35mm one, and somehow it seemed as if I managed to make better pictures with it.

In a way, I don't think I could ever get that particular feeling with an unearthed trove of APX. It was probably just because I was starting photography, and my first successes were tied to that film.

Now I found solace in TMAX 400 in 120, but I've also stashed a little bit of 320TXP in 220 because it is indeed a particular film that I will be sorry to miss in that format. Nevertheless, I should be able to make do with TMY and good old 400TX.

In the final analysis I'm not sure it's the film I miss; it's perhaps just the innocence.

Yea - I definitely miss the feeling when the film "turned out" back when I was first learning everything all at the same time - it seemed like an impossible mission to get everything right - so many variables and mysteries in the equipment and the settings and the chemicals and the materials and how light worked. When it worked reasonably well it was like magic.

The funny thing is "perfect" is still the same level of impossibility but all of our own expectations rise and even the very definition of "perfect" every time we even get within striking distance of our naive vision of perfect. We master the controls that seemed so impossible - then we discover that all of that stuff was the easy part....


RB

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

We master the controls that seemed so impossible - then we discover that all of that stuff was the easy part....

What a great line.

It's not the materials that make great photographs. I used to know a photographer in a now defunct web forum that quit photography all together when Panatomic-X was discontinued. Even then, as I was just beginning to understand the mechanism that photography is, I swore I would never become too hung up on the materials, and focus all my energy on the craft, training my eyes, lighting, composition, etc - all the factors I can control, basically.
The rest will fall into place. And it has.

 

[Black Dog]

Well said-I mourn several films [VP, APX, Polaroid, but especially VP] and papers [Record Rapid, Fortezo, PWT and Ektalure-luckily I still have stocks of the latter 3] but materials/techniques are just a means to an end. It's your way of seeing that really matters IMO. Photography isn't a technical challenge- important though technique is, it isn't and shouldn't be more important than that vision thing. But oh, the way prints from VP in PMK just glowed...

 

[37th Exposure]

In the final analysis I'm not sure it's the film I miss; it's perhaps just the innocence.

Good old Tri-X 400. I know it's still made. I don't quite like the pictures I get out of it but I still buy and shoot it over and over in huge quantities. Maybe because it was the only black and white film I could get when I was a kid. I know about and use Arista Premium but often I'll splurge just to get the Kodak box. It has changed a lot but it brings back memories. That is sort of what photography itself is all about I suppose.

 

[alan doyle]

if tmax was such a revolution,why does the u2 spy plane crews still use aerial panatomic x.
the military used and still use some great stocks, if your shooting the ground from 60,000 feet they clearly prefer these old timer stocks than the so called new generation improved recipes.

 

[2F/2F]

Efke IR820 I will show you prints from that and HIE - if you get anywhere near 50% right of which is which I'll give you a dollar

There are a few major differences:

1. Spectral sensitivity in the visible light range is vastly different! Kodak HIE was not sensitive to a large chunk of the visible spectrum. Don't ask me the exact wavelengths, but it was green light.

2. Spectral sensitivity in the IR range is different! Kodak is exposed by higher wavelengths.

3. Kodak is a faster film.

Due to numbers two and three together, Kodak got a noticeable near IR effect even with a #25 or #29 filter, thus could be used hand held while still achieving an IR look.

Due to number one, the Kodak looked very different even as an unfiltered film.

IR820C is a great film that can be used as a replacement for tripod shooting (because what the hell else are you going to use as a replacement?), but it does not really look like the Kodak. Not at all.

 

[fschifano]

if tmax was such a revolution,why does the u2 spy plane crews still use aerial panatomic x.

I'm reaching here, but doesn't Aerial Panatomic-X have an extended red sensitivity? That would be important for photographing from 12 miles up. Something to do with being able to filter out all that atmospheric haze while still maintaining a usable practical film speed, you think?

 

[ntenny]

if tmax was such a revolution,why does the u2 spy plane crews still use aerial panatomic x.

Could be as simple as "it's a huge pain to change the specs for anything done by the government". Seriously---somewhere there is, no doubt, a set of formal specifications for U2 operations that includes the specific film to be used, and getting it changed would involve mobilising a little army of functionaries to update that specification and everything derived from it and propagate the changes down the supply chain and nudge Kodak to make whatever guarantees of production they need apply to TMX instead of to Pan-X, and someone needs to figure out the effect on the specifications for processing of the film, and so on, and so on. Much easier just to stick with something that already works.

Seriously, never underestimate the role of inertia in government operations.

-NT