TMax 400 in Xtol very low contrast

Greetings, all: I've recently tried some TMax 400 (2TMY, 135 film), exposed at 400 ASA, developed in Xtol 1+2 @ 20°C for 12:30 minutes, ~1/2-minute agitation. The results show details from deep shadows to brightly lit clouds in one scene. I'm impressed in deed, apparently the ultimate compensating film-developer combo.
However, upon printing I find myself using anything from grade 3 up, sometimes, on low-contrast scenes, 5 is not hard enough to get a decent print...
Thanks in advance for any suggestions how to improve a bit on contrast without seriously compromising the film's latitude!
Pitt

I think that you should test the TMax 400 in Xtol to get your EI of preference. I suspect that its true speed in XTol is lower than 400 and hence the low contrast. Try it at EI 320 or increase the development time.

You need to address two things.

a) was the Xtol fresh?
b) time and temperature is dependent on the enlarger light head, double condenser, single condenser, diffusion etc. Eg try 10% longer to see if you get any negs at grade 2 on next film.

Then you need to keep a record of the most extreme shot in the 36 and increase or decrease development to encompass, you need to stay clear of extreme grades... To allow for goofs.

Did you fog the paper? An increase in dev. time as X-mas stated would give you more contrast, but looking at the times at the Massive Dev. Chart. you already did push the film nearly one stop. This leads me to the conclusion that you might have slightly fogged the paper or that the paper dev. isn't very active. Open a fresh paper and mix a new dev. and try again.

Good Luck

MDR said:

Did you fog the paper? An increase in dev. time as X-mas stated would give you more contrast, but looking at the times at the Massive Dev. Chart. you already did push the film nearly one stop. This leads me to the conclusion that you might have slightly fogged the paper or that the paper dev. isn't very active. Open a fresh paper and mix a new dev. and try again.

Good Luck

Click to expand...

At 1+2 12 mins at 20C I'd expect nominal contrast for diffusion enlarger the MDC is notorious for being wrong...

Kodak's data sheet has 1+1 12 mins for a push...

OP
i had similar experiences as you.
decided after a year + of trying to get usable negatives out of xtol,
nothing i did remedied thin film,
i stopped using it, and decided to use something else.
the only thing i like about xtol is when you mix the 2 parts the orange color disappears.
but it isn't as much fun as the ansco130 fizz

good luck getting the kinks out of your system !
john

ps mix it with distilled water, stuff in regular tap water doesn't like xtol sometimes ...

What agitation method do you use?

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

At that dilution it's really easy to go over the edge of not having enough developer in the tank. Based on the data sheet you'd need at least 300 ml total solution for one roll.
The Germain PDF datasheet that includes Kodak's times for 1:2 may still be around, they dropped the recommendation from the current English datasheet.
I tried out the 1:2 thing for a bit, but stopped because I didn't like the results. I use it replenished now.

Xmas said:

At 1+2 12 mins at 20C I'd expect nominal contrast for diffusion enlarger the MDC is notorious for being wrong...

Kodak's data sheet has 1+1 12 mins for a push...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the warning about mdc times, but according to the Kodak Datasheet (F4043) I just downloaded from the Kodak Website XTOL (1:1) 12 1⁄4min @ 20°C E.I. 1600 meaning a 2 Stop push they also write that no increase in dev time is necessary for a 1 stop push.

There seem to be quiet a few complaints about Xtol used with higher than 1:1 dilution. Maybe the OP should use it Stock or with a max dilution of 1:1

In 2001 (after some 5 years of complaints about inconsistent results, sudden death, etc), Kodak stopped supplying the 1L kits and strongly recommended not using Xtol at greater dilutions than 1:1 as it performed poorly at high dilutions (1:2, 1:3) in water of varying quality.

Kodak also made particular emphasis to agitation (hence my previous question) stating “Agitation should consist of 2 to 5 cycles, depending on the contrast you need and the type of tank.” and what they mean by cycles is inversions, twisting with a Paterson type tank or rolling the tank over about 1 foot and these should be every 30 seconds.

My own tests with Xtol (last time tested was 2002) led me to conclude that it produced negatives of very low contrast (for my preferences anyway) and was a rather 'picky' developer - despite using the same basic processing methods for over 30 years, the Xtol results that I got were too variable (despite my consistency of approach in terms of time, temperature, agitation, etc) for my purposes.

If a dilution of 1:2 does indeed add to these problems (plus making you susceptible to unpredictable influences from your water supply) then it would appear that you should avoid further experiments at this dilution.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

PittP said:

Greetings, all: I've recently tried some TMax 400 (2TMY, 135 film), exposed at 400 ASA, developed in Xtol 1+2 @ 20°C for 12:30 minutes, ~1/2-minute agitation. The results show details from deep shadows to brightly lit clouds in one scene. I'm impressed in deed, apparently the ultimate compensating film-developer combo.
However, upon printing I find myself using anything from grade 3 up, sometimes, on low-contrast scenes, 5 is not hard enough to get a decent print...

Pitt

Click to expand...

Based on the 1+1 times 12.5 mins doesn't look as if the film should be under-developed but where did you get the time and dilution from? It might help if you scan a couple of negs as negs and prints as prints from those negs. Use a grade 3 neg and a grade 5 neg that you mention

pentaxuser

Kodak have dropped the 1+3 dilution for Xtol from their datasheets but I preferred 1+2 with developers like ID-II/D76, Perceptol as it gives better contrast than 1+3 and it works well with Xtol normally. The 12½ minites should have been OK.

Ian

I never liked T-Max in any developer for just this reason. Some people can make it contrasty, but I never was able to and gave up on it. Get yourself some Tri-X and develop it in D76 at stock solution, and you will see a huge difference in contrast and tonality. I usually shoot mine at 200-250.

I see that your location is Nairobi. I'm always impressed at how global APUG is.

Is there any chance your XTol has suffered through shipping damage?

A lot of people have a lot of success with XTol and TMax 400.

I would try a roll at a Kodak recommended dilution, for a Kodak recommended time. If you get good results, you will know that the problem is the dilution.

I ran TMY400 in XTOL 1:3 for a couple of years and never had any problems at all.

You will get better results if you develop in stock XTOL or better yet replenished XTOL. Also you may want to increase your development time by 15%.

Xtol and T-Max films produce beautiful midtones and the combo has a very smooth tonality. The lack of grain sometimes makes the film look less sharp and contrasty than other non t-grain film.

Regardless of the dilution, you still need 100ml of stock per roll. At high dilutions, you may exceed the tank capacity. Did you observe the 100ml guidance? I generally use 1:1 and have no problems...

Dear All, thank you very much for the overwhelming response and the many useful hints!
I'll see how to get organised and have a few negs scanned. Not feasible with my (old and trusty) flatbed scanner. The prints hardly tell tales as a 100 other issues may be involved (see posts).
Context: My stock of APX100 has run out, so I've been looking for alternatives. And since I'm not getting younger (like some of us) I eyed at faster films, and 2TMY looked interesting. My APXes in Xtol 1+2 look good, are easy to print (well the very last ones showed some aging and reduced speed).
Paper fogging: Fresh paper (Foma), tested, no issues for over 3x the normal handling time.
Paper developer: My be not at the optimum ... but not the cause of my observation.
Development: 120 ml Xtol per film, i.e. a total of 360 ml solution; Xtol stock prepared with deionised (battery) water and sterilised, diluted to use just before use. I had consistently satisfactory results (safe my own blunders) over the years with APX 100, APX 400 (a bit soft, too), FP4+ and occasionally Trix. Here: The new 2TMYs were developed with Xtol from the same batch as the last APXs - and the latter came out rather a bit too contrasty (I'd pushed the old stuff a bit).
Dilution: I had the impression that stock made softer negs than the dilutions. The 1st 2TMY in stock was very soft, too. Then I tried in 1+2 - quite the same result: Hyper-compensating combo.
Development time I figured out from Kodak and various sources, and basically, I feel I'm quite in the ball park.
My issue is:
At first sight I was really impressed by the film's latitude - detail from deep shadow to bright highlight!
However, this comes with a somewhat flat appearance of the neg (which may be enhanced by the fairly dark film base), and the lights appear less dense as e.g. in an APX-neg (even the last one).
Thanks for the patient and considerate reader who made it up to this point!
I'll follow your advice and will "waste" a roll on serious testing, notably for dilutions and dev times.
Cheers, Pitt