TMX-100 and XTOL

Kilgallb · Jun 15, 2007

I am going to do a film and developer test for TMX-100 (4x5) with XTOL. I need to find a film speed and developing time.

My question, what difference in performance should I expect with XTOL versus D76. By performance I mean accutance, grain and speed.

I currently develop 4x5 in a unicolour drum and go with a film speed of 50.

Matthew Gorringe · Jun 16, 2007

What dilutions are you going to be comparing?

fschifano · Jun 16, 2007

This may sound far too simplistic. Bracket 1 stop in either direction in 1/2 stop increments from box speed. It's gonna be real close to box speed with either developer.

waynecrider · Jun 16, 2007

Between the two I like the Xtol better.

It's really subjective when it comes to developing so try both and make your own judgements, but at the 4x5 size, unless your printing way large, the differences just might be too small to call considering it's a 100 speed fine grained film. Remember to dilute well.

Kilgallb · Jun 16, 2007

I develop 4x5 with D76 stock. I develop 35 mm Delta 100 with D76 stock and XTOL stock. My usual print size is 8x10 and 11x14 with the occasional 16 x 20

What is the effect of dilution?

fschifano · Jun 16, 2007

With either developer, grain will be a little sharper and more pronounced when used diluted. For your purposes, the difference will hardly be noticeable, if at all. You are using 4x5 film and when printing up to your maximum size of 16 x 20, we're talking about a 4x linear enlargement. That's not enough for the differences to become obvious. If you compare two prints side by side, one from a negative made in dilute developer against one from a negative made in stock strength developer, the differences start to become noticeable when you reach 8x to 10x magnifications. Film speed, or rather shadow detail which is what we're really talking about here, isn't going to change very much.

Early Riser · Jun 16, 2007

Kilgallb said:
I am going to do a film and developer test for TMX-100 (4x5) with XTOL. I need to find a film speed and developing time.

My question, what difference in performance should I expect with XTOL versus D76. By performance I mean accutance, grain and speed.

I currently develop 4x5 in a unicolour drum and go with a film speed of 50.

Xtol will yield finer but mushier grain and film speed about 100-125, D-76 will have better acutance and a more defined tonality. About 7 - 7 1/2 minutes in xtol 1:1 at 68 degrees with rotary agitation and a 5 minute water presoak should yield a normal neg, but your MMV.

Peter De Smidt · Jun 17, 2007

My normal development time with 4x5 TMX and Xtol 1+2 gave a film speed of 64. My experience is that Xtol gives a teeny (less than 1/3 stop) more speed and very little, if any, difference in grain size and sharpness than D76 at the same dilution.

Snapshot · Jun 18, 2007

For those of you using XTOL, does it have reduced acutance when compared to D76?

Thomas Bertilsson · Jun 21, 2007

I'm not sure that I can speak from experience, but I think the Xtol developer is a solvent developer, I think that means it acts deeper into the emulsion. From a purely print quality standpoint, the D76 looks sharper to me at high enlargements due to increased acutance, or edge sharpness.
Xtol to me looks sharper at small enlargements, and the grain becomes pretty ugly or mushy at high degrees of enlargement. That's my personal opinion, and the large print from Xtol may look good to some. It is definitely not as sharp looking as the D76 however.
So, it depends on what you want to do with the negs.
- Thomas

Dave Krueger · Jun 21, 2007

Thomas Bertilsson said:
I'm not sure that I can speak from experience, but I think the Xtol developer is a solvent developer, I think that means it acts deeper into the emulsion. From a purely print quality standpoint, the D76 looks sharper to me at high enlargements due to increased acutance, or edge sharpness.
Xtol to me looks sharper at small enlargements, and the grain becomes pretty ugly or mushy at high degrees of enlargement. That's my personal opinion, and the large print from Xtol may look good to some. It is definitely not as sharp looking as the D76 however.
So, it depends on what you want to do with the negs.
- Thomas

Not to hijack the thread, but I think I might be seeing that effect when comparing prints from 35mm films (TMX as well as Pan F) developed in XTOL 1:1 versus Tmax RS. The prints from negatives developed in TMax RS seem to have sharper grain than prints from negatives developed in XTOL 1:1. So, would XTOL have more of a solvent effect that might account for this?

Peter De Smidt · Jun 21, 2007

TMax RS is not a fine-grain developer. It will, ceteris paribus, produce larger but "sharper" grain than both D76 and Xtol undiluted. Both D76 and Xtol used "straight" are considered solvent developers because of the concentration of sulphite. By diluting them, the sulphite percentange can be lowered so that they no longer fall in the solvent developer category. If you like fine grain with good film speed, use D76 or Xtol. If you want slightly more film speed but larger grain, dilute them. If you want fairly large but sharp grain use something else, such as TMX RS, Rodinal, HC110, PyroCat...

Comparison tests between various films are quite hard to do, as you have to match densities, and if there are different film curve shapes, as will usually be the case, there won't be an exact way to do this.

Dave Krueger · Jun 21, 2007

Peter De Smidt said:
If you like fine grain with good film speed, use D76 or Xtol. If you want slightly more film speed but larger grain, dilute them. If you want fairly large but sharp grain use something else, such as TMX RS, Rodinal, HC110, PyroCat...

That's very useful information. For the most part, I didn't notice a difference between the XTOL and Tmax RS on 8x10 prints, but I did on 16x20s. However, all the Tmax prints were done before I moved into my new darkroom and all the XTOL prints were don't after I moved in, so there could be other varables involved (although all the eequipment is the same). In any case, I can test this by printing some Tmax RS negatives in the new darkroom.

TMX-100 and XTOL

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