TMAX 400 vs Delta 400

[138S]

TX is short toe, TXP has a longer toe

True TXP, is long toe here, you are right, but TX is medium toe, not short 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.

Of course, as you say it depends on exposure, but I feel TX peak grain is in darker greys than with HP5

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

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.

 

[Ian Grant]

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.

Well yes the finer grain and higher resolution does result in smother "cleaner" tones, grain can be used to give the illusion of greater contrast and superficial sharpness even though the actual negative contrasts may well be the same.

Its an important choice to make in terms of which way you want to go and some don't lke T-grain and similar films. It's a personal choice.

Ian

 

[138S]

I fully agree, totally personal...

I guess we have two factors, in one side grain can be a powerful aesthetic tool or something we don't want.

In the other side we may want TMax linearity for a flexible negative that has open possibilities in the printing or we may want the TXP curve to solve most of the tonality in the capture, taking advantage of lesser linearity.

So this tool has two edges, one is grain and the other one is curve.

 

[DREW WILEY]

"Look more digital"..... what on earth are you referring to, Alan? I can make TMax films do all kinds of things, but never once has anyone ever accused me of making a print look digital, thank goodness. Neither imitation nor mediocrity is my cup of tea.
Digital capture can't even come anywhere near the contrast range b&w film competence anyway, esp TMax, unless someone resorts to fake-looking stacked exposures like the current fad, and even then the detail and nuance capacity if inferior. Edge acutance of TMX100 can be improved with special dev, and is excellent in TMY400 to begin with; so I routinely get crisp detail, and not just lots of detail. And should one deliberately want conspicuous grain, the real deal sure looks a lot more enticing to me than any pixelated imitation effect.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

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.

I like Delta 400 better than TMY, but I like TMX better than Delta 100. I don’t think Delta 400 looks like Tri-X, but I do think it has a contrastier look than TMY, or maybe I’d say better line definition. These are all personal aesthetic choices. The only way to find out is to shoot some film.

 

[DREW WILEY]

TMY digs deep down into the toe of shadow repro far better than Delta or TX, so for all practical purposes is a faster film too, since a boost up onto the straighter portion of the curve isn't need via overexposure. I also find the edge definition in TMY better, at least using a staining pyro formula. Not so with TMX 100 speed. In that case I resort to a different dev trick to improve edge acutance. Both TMax speeds can be boosted to a higher contrast gamma, while retaining a relatively straight line, with an appropriate developer regimen - quite important for color separation work, which is how I learned this fact. But there are certain similarities indeed. I think it's safe to say the T-Max products are a lot more versatile, since they were designed that way to begin with. The respective "look" can be reasonably matched with modest changes in exp and dev. Kinda a plum vs pluot flavor debate, or in your part of the world, different flavors of guava perhaps.

 

[markbau]

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.

 

[Lachlan Young]

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.

 

[138S]

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.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh my. Yes, different versions of Tri-X have somewhat different renderings of the bottom of the curve, the toe. But this is relative, and in either case the straight line does not extend nearly as deep into the shadows as either species of TMax, let alone now discontinued "straight line" films like Super-XX. HP5 is more similar to TX320 in this respect, though quite dissimilar in other respects. Plus X Pan sheet film was once favored for high-key studio portraiture due to is exceptionally long toe and ability to finely distinguish the upper zones of tonality at the expense of the lower.

 

[Lachlan Young]

First we see in those curves is that developments from Henry book are not matching because CI is quite different, same developer ?

As far as I can tell, it was all D-76 developed to "a CI of about 0.56".

First two things to bear in mind: it was all done on 120 - if you have hours to waste, you could compare the relative b+f for 120 TXP, sheet TXT (the contemporaneous sheet product) and current sheet TXP; secondly, I think Henry's x-axis is more compressed than Kodak's - squeeze the x-axis of the Kodak curves & see how they look compared to Henry's.

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 - they give plots for 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8 C.I.'s (or something similarly comparable). Extract both 0.6 curves for TX and TXP, superimpose/ overlay them and the significantly sharper toe of TX becomes much more apparent - on a quick visual inspection, it looked to me to be about a stop of difference in the point that the straight line definitively kicks off the toe (not a huge surprise, given the usual rating recommendation for TXP). While you are doing this, extract the 0.5 curve for TXP and see if (by matching the point the straight line leaves the toe) you can match it (more or less) to the 0.6 TX curve...

Once you're done with all this, go and pull the 0.6 curve for TMY-2 in D-76 (the 8 min curve in f4043) and superimpose it on the TX 0.6 curve - you'll discover something very interesting about the toes of both films...

 

[138S]

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.



In fact both films have more similar curves that usually is though.

 

[DREW WILEY]

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.

 

[Lachlan Young]

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.

You might also want to try the same with Delta 400 (published curve is for close enough to 0.6), Pan-F (definitely short toe, yes the published curve is dev'd in HC, but for the purposes of looking at toe characteristics, it's fine) and Delta 3200 (again, curves are DDX & Microphen, but apart from the speed increase, they're very much in the D-76 family) to see how it uses much harder shadow contrast and much softer highlight contrast, relative to design G-bar/ CI.

Some developers like HC-110/ HC will upsweep harder and the conniptions that some people go through with TXP and HC-110 are to try and lower the overall gradient and highlight density while still overexposing enough to get off the toe at the lower CI.

 

[Bill Burk]

Also notice Henry gave curves over 5.0 exposure range while modern charts only show the 3.0 range that amateur photographers typically use.

And professional goes up to practically 4.0 - that’s something a professional can use that maybe is overkill for everyone else.

 

[138S]

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.

See TMY datasheet, page 8 has curves for both D-76 and TMax developer, you won't gain 1/4 of stop.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Has nothing to do with speed; curve shape is affected. TMax RS will give the straightest line, but it's now discontinued, followed by HC-110. But I use pyro for general shooting. You should know by now that I never made a densitometer plot of any of this - I've made hundreds of them ! In my mind, it's not at which point the airplane leaves the runway as much as the angle of elevation gain. But for the record, I shoot TMax films at box speed, which is an exception. Both TMax emulsions are remarkable for the degree the curve can be manipulated depending on specific developer regimen.

 

[Bill Burk]

Hey Drew,

Most people cannot reach their toes... flare turns any film into what is “effectively” a long-toed characteristic curve.

You only really achieve the abrupt drop to 0 in contact printing... which you might have seen in your color sep work.

 

[138S]

Has nothing to do with speed; curve shape is affected. TMax RS will give the straightest line, but it's now discontinued

TMax RS is not discontued, https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/TMax_RS/Ntt/TMax+RS/N/0 , but the small bottle is "Store Pickup Only"

You may also use the non replenishment version "non RS" TMax developer that's the same result, but it is not recommended by kodak for sheets because it may deliver dichroic fog in some cases (Water kind? Agitation?), but reportedly some people use it without problems with sheets.

Both TMax emulsions are remarkable for the degree the curve can be manipulated depending on specific developer regimen.

You can do the same with any regular BW film in a similar way, if you make the calibration curves and you'll see it.


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.

But I use pyro for general shooting.

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.

Then a pyro dveloper may be benefical to solve that problem, as high densities in pyro have an strong stain then more blue light is selectively blocked in the highlights, if you print in VC paper then highlights are printed with a lower contrast grade, this helps depicting textures in the TMax highlights.

Still it has no sense praising TMax linearity in the highlights if later having to use pyro to shoulder the response on VC paper.

Film linearity it is a great feature, but also it is an S curve. YMMV.

 

[Lachlan Young]

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.

HP5+ and the TMax films look dramatically different - granularity, sharpness, shadow scale, colour rendition - and they are not small differences. It may be that you are not sensitive to these, but plenty of people are. I quite actively dislike FP4+ because of its tonal/ colour response, find Delta 100 and TMY-2 much better and Silvermax best of all.

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.

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) and you will discover that they usually come in with better separation than those squished by the shoulder - as can happen pretty readily on Tri-X. There is usually not a whole lot of difference between how HP5+ (ok, it eventually shoulders) or FP4+ prints in the highlights & how something like TMY-2 or Acros does. Hypotheticals rarely hold up to practical necessity.

 

[138S]

HP5+ and the TMax films look dramatically different - granularity, sharpness, shadow scale, colour rendition - and they are not small differences.

granularity, not a problem in 8x10" negatives , in xtol also not much seen in 6x9cm

sharpness, not a problem in 8x10" negatives

shadow scale adjust with exposure/developer

colour rendition adjust filtration

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've been wet printing, amateur, since 1985, and I've teached high school students in the basics for two years. I'm not a good photographer.

I have not had problems with getting highlights on these films to print in (and usually without resorting to time consuming extended techniques)

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 .

--------------------------------------

Have you a doubt that pyro helps to print TMax highlights on VC paper ?

Look, if you use TMax developer you get this insane sky rocketing in the highlights beyond +3, other developers do it a bit less but anyway you go high in the sky:

(don't tell that you weren't aware !!!!)

 

[StepheKoontz]

I quite actively dislike FP4+ because of its tonal/ colour response, find Delta 100 and TMY-2 much better and Silvermax best of all.

And I quite actively like FP4+, especially with older cameras like my Leica IIIa/Summar. It definitely has a different look than Delta 100 or TMY, just as the uncoated Summar does over "better" modern optics. So much of photography is subjective.

 

[Ian Grant]

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 .

That's an extremely misleading and condescending comment.

I shoot in the UK as well as Turkey and Greece, Surprisingly in Turkey/Greece I have no issues with highlights, shadows etc even with marble around, and that's been with Tmax100 & 400, Delta 100 & 400 and also HP5. Now the light is usually excellent in Turkey.Greece very intense sunlight but there's also so much light bouncing about that shadows aren't deep and normal exposure and development is all that's required.

Ironically it's the sunlight in the UK that's tends to be harsher and there's a greater difference between highlights and shadows particularly in the Spring, Autumn and Winter when the sun's quite low anyway and there's less overall light bouncing around so the opposite of your comment. Of course it's different on overcast days anywhere.

Ian

 

[Bill Burk]

Of course, as you say it depends on exposure, but I feel TX peak grain is in darker greys than with HP5

Peak grain is in the skies when there are not enough clouds to make them interesting (insert smiley face that means you know what I'm saying is painfully true).

I studied grain in the thread "Want more Grain" and my most convincing demonstration is the picture of my daughter

( http://beefalobill.com/images/giantlot.jpg ).

( https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/want-more-grain.105314/ )