True TXP, is long toe here, you are right, but TX is medium toe, not short toe.
Of course, as you say it depends on exposure, but I feel TX peak grain is in darker greys than with HP5
TX is short toe, TXP has a longer toe
Peak grain appears at the mid-point of the film's characteristic curve - it follows a bell-curve distribution. Where that is in relation to 'reality' is a question of exposure and process. The short toe & strong s-shape characteristic curve of TX is going to place the mid-tone point of an emulsion somewhere rather different from the longer toe & later shoulder of HP5+. All you are describing is where the apparent mid-tone point of each film lands relative to your exposure and processing choices.
I wasn't only referring to grain when I said Tmax is "too clean". Too much resolution and less contrast tends to look more like digital than let's say Tri-X.How is that possible as they pre-date digital ? By too clean I guess you mean less grain but that's what some of us want..
Ian
I wasn't only referring to grain when I said Tmax is "too clean". Too much resolution and less contrast tends to look more like digital than let's say Tri-X.
I'll start off to mention Im mostly a Kodak user, as Ilfords films often left me flat. But when I saw pictures taken on Delta 400, I was surprised how well they looked. Am I correct Delta 400 has a contrastier look then TMAX 400? Also Delta 400 has more grain, with TMAX 400 being smoother -cleaner in look? TMAX 400 seems brighter as well. Delta 400 pictures have a darker rendition then TMAX 400. Even though TMAX 400 is said to be the sharpest film for its speed, because of the contrast on Delta, Delta looks sharper? How are you finding these two films comparing? Also would Delta 400 look a lot more like Tri-X, other then grain size?
Developer will be ID11, and done at the lab.
Thought this might be of interest, from the Henry book.True TXP, is long toe here, you are right, but TX is medium toe, not short toe.
Of course, as you say it depends on exposure, but I feel TX peak grain is in darker greys than with HP5
Thought this might be of interest, from the Henry book.
View attachment 237404
Henry pg. 194, "Kodak Tri-X Pan film has a short toe and a fairly short straight line portion before the shoulder is reached. Kodak Tri-X Pan Professional film has a long toe and a long straight line portion before the shoulder is reached."
The numbers in 6-28 are from outdoor grey card exposures - and on pg. 197, based off real world imagery tests, Henry states "In every instance clearly there was more shadow detail visible with Tri-X Pan and somewhat more highlight detail with Tri-X Pan than with Tri-X Pan Professional." Further down pg. 197, "Clearly, Tri-X Pan film should be superior to Tri-X Pan Professional film where significant flare may occur and where detectable delineation of zones as high as possible is desired. These conditions are those existing in outdoor scenic photography." He also discusses Super-XX's characteristics on pg. 195 & it isn't a hugely wayward line you'd need to draw between Super-XX and the tone curve characteristics of the TMax films.
First we see in those curves is that developments from Henry book are not matching because CI is quite different, same developer ?
I don't understand that side by side, compared to the curves in present TX and TXP datasheets that I'm posting:
TX400 sports a remarkable toe that clearly is a mid size toe.
TXP sports an extra long toe, but developer is different for its graph, HC-110, which is the approach I use to get similar effect on HP5. A classic portrait recipe is TXP at EI 80 with HC-110 1:31 5min, but some LF studio shutters substitutd TXP by HP5 because of TXP high price.
So to me TX400 can be considered mid toe, with regular D-76 developer, not short toe at all, this would be Neopan, for example.
There's a TXP in D-76 graph bottom left on pg.9 of f4017 -
True...
If superimposing TX400 curves on TMY what we see is that TX400 vs TMY have similar toe at high contrast buy developing low contrast TX400 has more toe and TMY is more linear there, much less that I was thinking, still there is some difference.
View attachment 237421
In fact both films have more similar curves that usually is though.
The shows what happens with D76. There are other developers which will bring out the significant distinction in toe between TMY and TX. That's one reason I don't consider D76 an ideal developer for TMax films - you get a sag in the curve.
Has nothing to do with speed; curve shape is affected. TMax RS will give the straightest line, but it's now discontinued
Both TMax emulsions are remarkable for the degree the curve can be manipulated depending on specific developer regimen.
But I use pyro for general shooting.
TMX and TMY are fantastic films, but for sheets price is crazy high for me, so I discovered how to empower HP5 to do the same. In rolls I use both kodak and ilford, but with announced price increases I will think it.
TMX / Y are not much shouldered in the highlights, with the risk of reaching too high densities in the highlights that are difficult to print optically.
HP5+ and the TMax films look dramatically different - granularity, sharpness, shadow scale, colour rendition - and they are not small differences.
This statement is either based off secondhand hearsay, a lack of printing know-how or a lack of useful optical printing experience with the current flat-grain films - can you please tell us which it is?
I have not had problems with getting highlights on these films to print in (and usually without resorting to time consuming extended techniques)
I quite actively dislike FP4+ because of its tonal/ colour response, find Delta 100 and TMY-2 much better and Silvermax best of all.
It depends on the highlights and glares you want print, the SBR and the texture you want. In glasgow you have a soft box in the sky so you don't see much the sun, then you sometimes use an HLM if you need it... so YMMV .
Of course, as you say it depends on exposure, but I feel TX peak grain is in darker greys than with HP5
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