Today's film IS better.

Yes indeed, I do re-use the fixer from TMax films. Yes the dye fades in the fixer in a short time, and no it won't stain anything else. The dye is water soluble, and if there's any left in the film after fixing is complete, a soak of the film in processing temperature water will remove it. TMax films will take a bigger bite out of your fixer's capacity. Using only TMax films, the fixer is only good for about 60% to 65% of what you'd be able to fix of "regular" film.

Back on topic.

I don't use very much TMax, but I do reuse the fix with other films, and it has never caused a problem, for me at least.

Lee L said:

The fact that Edwal 12 isn't en vogue on flickr isn't indicative of anything. Do the APUG google search and you'll find a number of Edwal 12 related posts. As df cardwell clearly says, it's the way that you use it that counts. Perhaps you should ask him about his methods here on APUG rather than looking for confirmation from random posts on flickr.

Click to expand...

He's saying that the film you use is irrelevant if you know what you're doing (like, presumably, he does). I can't find anything, on Flickr or here or elsewhere, to demonstrate what he's saying about TMY with Edwal 12, and he doesn't seem terribly willing to share beyond putting people down for not being darkroom experts like he clearly is.

I know that you can flatten the top of TMY's curve a bit with D76, and possibly XTOL (never tried it), but if you can actually get a TX-like S-curve out of it, that's something I'd like to know more about.

i40west said:

... and he doesn't seem terribly willing to share beyond putting people down for not being darkroom experts like he clearly is.

Click to expand...

That's a big assumption to make without asking him directly, and is losing an opportunity to learn what he knows and what you can teach yourself. I know from experience that he'll at least point you in the right direction, but you need to take some initiative and be willing to learn on your own as well. He may not spoon feed you, but he'll show you around the kitchen and give you enough pointers to teach yourself. He's already answered one question in this thread on his way of using APX and making other films look like it.

Covering all the methods of bending a film curve is too much for one internet post.

Lee

Lee L said:

That's a big assumption to make without asking him directly

Click to expand...

I thought I had.

I'd like to find one or two finer-grained black-and-white films to use once the weather stops keeping me indoors -- after upgrading back to film I've shot a lot of Tri-X, which I love, but now I have a list of stuff to try for finer grain, and T-Max is not on that list. I shot a lot of T-Max back in the day, particularly in school, because that's what the teacher said to use, but wasn't planning to try it now because I didn't like the look of it so much. So, apparently I'm wrong about that and ought to give it another chance. Great, maybe I will, if I find an approach that shows promise. I'm a lot better at this now than I was back then, after all.

i40west said:

I thought I had.

I'd like to find one or two finer-grained black-and-white films to use once the weather stops keeping me indoors -- after upgrading back to film I've shot a lot of Tri-X, which I love, but now I have a list of stuff to try for finer grain, and T-Max is not on that list. I shot a lot of T-Max back in the day, particularly in school, because that's what the teacher said to use, but wasn't planning to try it now because I didn't like the look of it so much. So, apparently I'm wrong about that and ought to give it another chance. Great, maybe I will, if I find an approach that shows promise. I'm a lot better at this now than I was back then, after all.

Click to expand...

I could only find the following question from your posts: "Does it really change the curve of TMY that much?" and you appeared to dismiss it for cost reasons and the lack of examples on flickr in the preceding and following sentences. So in context, the question you're asking already having been answered, it doesn't appear to me to be a real request for info as much as a statement of disbelief. That aside:

I think TMY-1 underwent at least one change, and TMY-2 is again different, so if you're comparing current TMY to the first offering, which is what you likely tried in 1990 or earlier, it's different. I worked in a lab doing 2,000 custom B&W prints a month on two D5's and a roller transport processor just after TMax films were introduced. Many of our customers across a wide range of skill levels shot the first version TMY and our film processing, by hand in small tanks, used Kodak's recommended times in TMax developer. With the abuse the film took from the shooters (often pushing it way too hard) and TMax developer by the book, I often had to work very hard to get good prints on the Polycontrast III RC the lab used, and I learned to dislike printing other people's work with it. I often had to print with the lowest contrast filter and pre-flash to hold the highlights. I finally got with the film processor in the next room and we ran some trials with shorter times, and I even convinced him to try less agitation, so we got things adjusted to print on grade 2 with decent people behind the camera and normal scenes. He was military trained, so the reduced agitation bit took some convincing. But after that, the films worked well and customers were happy.

When I did try the TMax films for myself and found the developers (not TMax) and methods that suited my taste, I liked TMX, TMY, and TMZ just fine, and I was a Verichrome Pan, Tri-X, and Panatomic-X shooter. John Sexton, who was a major product tester for the TMax films, preferred D-76 and the RS version of TMax developer in 1987. http://www.largeformatphotography.info/articles/sexton-tmax.html

Try TMY-2 in Edwal 12 replenished. Buy two liters and refresh from the second liter, or if you're just trying it out one roll at a time, just split one liter and replenish from the second 500ml. It needs about 4-5 rolls/liter run through it to season properly before you start replenishment. Edwal 12 was designed to give a little boost for flat, gray midwestern winter shooting on the films of about 70 years ago. I found that reduced agitation could bring the contrast down to a Zone System normal or perhaps lower. This also lowers the shoulder a bit.

Getting what you want from a new film requires learning how to implement all the controls, exposure, developer, dilution, agitation routine, time and temp to make it do what you want. It takes time and testing. No short answers and everyone does it a little differently. Only you will know if Edwal 12 will give you what you want with TMY, and then only if you give it a shot.

Lee

A recent APUG post on TMY-2 found with google for anyone who cared to search:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

and a curve attached thereto that might be instructive:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Lee

Lee L said:

I could only find the following question from your posts: "Does it really change the curve of TMY that much?" and you appeared to dismiss it for cost reasons and the lack of examples on flickr in the preceding and following sentences. So in context, the question you're asking already having been answered, it doesn't appear to me to be a real request for info as much as a statement of disbelief.

Click to expand...

I think reasonable English speakers would interpret that as a request for information, not merely a request for a yes or no answer.

I think TMY-1 underwent at least one change, and TMY-2 is again different, so if you're comparing current TMY to the first offering, which is what you likely tried in 1990 or earlier, it's different.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's what I said at the outset: I haven't tried the current version. I have looked at the curves Kodak provides, though.

Try TMY-2 in Edwal 12 replenished. Buy two liters and refresh from the second liter, or if you're just trying it out one roll at a time, just split one liter and replenish from the second 500ml. It needs about 4-5 rolls/liter run through it to season properly before you start replenishment. Edwal 12 was designed to give a little boost for flat, gray midwestern winter shooting on the films of about 70 years ago. I found that reduced agitation could bring the contrast down to a Zone System normal or perhaps lower. This also lowers the shoulder a bit.

Click to expand...

That's good information, thanks. I was hoping to find examples -- after all, if it's so good, someone must actually be doing it, yes?

But since I've left my house once since last Thursday, and the damned snow is coming down again, and I seem to now live in an arctic wasteland, experimenting is about all the photography I'm likely to be doing anytime soon, so here's something else to try. I'd prefer to not be shooting totally in the dark, but hey.

Ray Rogers said:

Exactly what are you saying the "3 T-Grain films" can do...
that the "2 traditional films" cannot?".....

Click to expand...

TX and PX can do a lot, but they filled particular spots in the old range.

But the T-grain films are different. Because of their MTF, speed, and tone curve flexibility, they perform as if they were PLus-X or Tri-X... Super XX, Panatomic, Verichrome, TP, the lot.

When TMX came out, for instance, I was able to use it to do a graphic art job instead of using HC copy, photomicroscopy instead of TP, and a wedding instead of PX. All in the first week. That was 25 years ago.

i40west said:

...he doesn't seem terribly willing to share beyond putting people down for not being darkroom experts like he clearly is.

Click to expand...

In the 6th post of this thread, I wrote:

The chart is no more than a mathematical description of what the film is doing. Here is Kodak's glorious Portrait Pan, Paul Strand's favorite film, long and gone these many years. You can reproduce it exactly with TXP. When we run out of TXP, you can do it with TMY2.

TMY2 in Edwal 10 or 12, or HC-110 or DK-50 ? Exact match.


Edwal 10 and Edwal 12 are excellent developers that are pretty obscure today. They do a an excellent job with T-Grain films if you are willing to play with them. Home brews aren't for everybody.

HC-110, however, and the classic DK-50 ought to be in everybody's comfort zone. They all compress TMY2's shadows a bit, and lift the highlights, and it isn't hard to fine tune the highlights to get a response from TMY2 that is like TXP.

While were on the topic, any of the old Glycin-Carbonate developers will do the trick, so will Pyrocat in a 'hotter' dilution. Dektol 1+10 probably will do a good job, but it might run a little grainy.

Thing is, it is pretty easy to work it out once you know to work, but there is no substitute for doing the swat and the grind to make it work. It really isn't about what you know.

hrst said:

T-Max films have nothing to do with "digital look". Saying that will only reveal that the sayer knows nothing about the basics of film or digital. I hate it when word "digital" is used here as a weapon to attack against different opinions. Tmax is film and looks like film. It's just a bit faster at same grain and you can control it like you can control any film. And if you don't know how to control it, it will give unique, "tmax-like" results, like any film gives it's own character. You may or may not like it.

Click to expand...

I think a lot of people say that TMAX looks like digital, because the grain is very fine and it appears to respond to a greater range of the tonal spectrum than the traditional films. The response curve is also a lot more linear, like that of a digital capture device. Quite often TMAX looks a lot closer to something like the C41 B/W films or digital than let's say Tri-X does.

So, is not exactly a statement that can be traced to ignorance or plain old stupidity.

That said under certain circumstances TMAX and TRi-X can look very similar. I use a 2 bath developer and under flat daylight conditions they are difficult to tell apart at first glance. To me the difference is far more obvious in direct sunlight and under these circumstances TMAX tends to look a lot more modern than the old style emulsions.

"TMAX looks like digital because the grain is very fine" is completely wrong to begin with. Yes, TMAX400 has finer grain than Trix 400 in the same developer, but there is also TMAX3200P which is also a TMAX film, and TMAX films can be developed in grain-increasing acutance developers like Rodinal. And there are "traditonal" films which have finer grain than TMAX400, they are just slower.

You get what you want to get, if you know how to get it. If you don't know and buy fine-grained film even if you want coarse-grained, and develop it in fine-grain developer, it's not film's fault. There is coarse-gained TMAX also available.

The same seems to go with curve shape.

The usual problem may be that people want to try out this "non-graininess" and so they buy tmax100 and develop it in XTOL and run around for a while like "wow, no grain" and when they get tired, they start bashing "it's like digital". The problem is that they WANTED the non-grainy, flat "t-max" look to begin with, because they were told that this film has this look. So they made it look like that, and then they get tired in this flat look. Not surprising.

"...the (TMY vs TX) response curve is also a lot more linear, like that of a digital capture device."

Harry, take a look at the Kodak curves for Tri-X and TMY2.
Developed normally in D-76, they are nearly identical.

How much are they different ? In a very high quality film lab,
normal variations from run-to-run would make their results identical.

How do they differ ?
The Tri-X shoulder begins beyond the white threshold of Ilford FB papers, and TMY2 begins less than one f/stop further.

Darkroom Legend #1: Tri-X is more forgiving.
If I over develop Tri-X by a two minutes, I get printable negative if I use some soft developer and do some split-filter printing. A two minute mistake in TMY2 only wants a softer filter to print the highlights. TMY2 is more forgiving than Tri-X because it changes its curve shape less than Tri-X.

When I looked at my first roll of TMY, some 25 years ago, I thought, "Gosh, this does NOT look like Tri-X !"

Times being what they were, I couldn't blame it on digital. Instead I took a walk down to my 'local', and ran into a couple photographers I knew and we talked about it. We were all shooting TMY in plain yellow boxes; they were official Kodak beta shooters, I got mine from a guy I printed for.

"Yeah", they said, "this TMY stuff acts like it's Verichrome Pan, or something". Two pints of good beer later, it didn't really seem like a bad thing. Look at the MTF charts in the first post. Even though the film curve of TMY is similar to Tri-X (in D-76), its MTF is more like Verichrome Pan: lower granularity, higher acutance, and higher definition than Tri-X.

THAT is why TMY looks different than Tri-X. Or in my world, why 35mm TMY looks like 120 Tri-X. Again, not a bad thing.

The T-Grain substitute for Tri-X is NOT TMY2, it is TMZ.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"The response curve is also a lot more linear, like that of a digital capture device."

The best 'digital capture device' has a dynamic range of 10 EV. Tri-X in D-76 is still linear at 11 EV. So, Tri-X has a longer, linear scale than digital. So does FP4 and Plus-X. And so does TMY2.


None of this is meant to be contentious. I just set out to share some of the Kodak data that disproves numerous Internet Era Errors, and to be encouraging to photographers in a panic over the pending loss of a good, old film TXP.

While good, hard data seems to be absent from most photo conversation in our forum, and all the others, misinformation and error spreads like the flu. THAT is probably a greater danger to traditional photography than digital, a poor economy, or corporate self-interest.

Have fun today, the sun is shining and I'm going to shoot some snow pix.

.

Again, I think it's the spectral sensitivity that gives T-Max films the "digital look." I don't think it's hard to tell the difference in a print, because the texture is different, but from a small image on screen, I think T-Max can often pass for digital and vice versa.

df cardwell said:

Darkroom Legend #1: Tri-X is more forgiving.
... TMY2 is more forgiving than Tri-X because it changes its curve shape less than Tri-X.

Click to expand...

Well THIS is nice to hear from someone who has real experience. This has always been my hypothesis.

I have some theoretical understanding and I know that color negatives are more forgiving because they have long, linear scale. If the scale was perfectly linear and infinite, then you could move the exposure around the line and get exactly the same results (only exposure time would be changed when printing).

And, as TMAX can have more linear curve, it should be more forgiving; highlights won't block up to white but they retain their contrast even in overexposure. So, less masking/dodging/burning/contrast adjusting needed regardless of original exposure.

So, I've been wondering exactly WHY people say S curve films are more forgiving in exposure. I think it's just the opposite! The S curve is on a fixed place and you have to place your exposure according to that.

But then again, I have not enough BW experience so I could rebel againt people who are supposed to know this well.

Thank you for this clarification.

(But, all of the above are exaggerations. I know that "traditional" films have also quite long linear response, at least when processed so. The theory that only a linear part of film is printed on paper to avoid overlapping toes and shoulders, and negative films are designed with long linear part, is much older than t-grain technology. T-grains only made this even more true.)

David A. Goldfarb said:

Again, I think it's the spectral sensitivity that gives T-Max films the "digital look." I don't think it's hard to tell the difference in a print, because the texture is different, but from a small image on screen, I think T-Max can often pass for digital and vice versa.

Click to expand...

Well, it's almost impossible to tell on a small, low-resolution, low-tech computer screen whether the image was film or digital, anyway. That's probably one reason why some people now prefer very grainy films; it reveals that it's film.

But I know a guy who spent a lot of time in Photoshop to mimic the grain of Trix etc. He made fakes that everyone thought was Trix shots but was digital.

hrst said:

Well, it's almost impossible to tell on a small, low-resolution, low-tech computer screen whether the image was film or digital, anyway. That's probably one reason why some people now prefer very grainy films; it reveals that it's film.

But I know a guy who spent a lot of time in Photoshop to mimic the grain of Trix etc. He made fakes that everyone thought was Trix shots but was digital.

Click to expand...

Depends. I can usually tell, and I can usually spot Photoshop attempts to mimic particular film looks, but the way that a film renders colors in shades of gray is an important part of the film's signature that most people don't think about very much, and is a matter of taste. When you look at a low resolution image or a small print, grain becomes a less important factor, but the spectral sensitivity of the film is unrelated to resolution, so it's just as visible.

Anyway, when I look at a photograph and think to myself, "that has a real T-Max look," the color rendition is what I'm usually responding to.

hrst said:

...So, I've been wondering exactly WHY people say S curve films are more forgiving in exposure. I think it's just the opposite! The S curve is on a fixed place and you have to place your exposure according to that...

Click to expand...

I'm not supposed to know well, but a linear curve (sounds funny doesn't it?) has the same contrast (more or less) throughout it's useful length. I wouldn't call that bad, but a scene with a lot of contrast becomes somewhat difficult to print nicely (also depending on skill). The information is there, but you can't just use softer filtration, it will look dull. If you try to give midtones the contrast you like, chances are that highlights will be wiped out, so you'll need to do some burning. On the other hand, an S shaped curve will give you good midtone contrast, but gradually reduced highlight contrast. That means that you'll have an "acceptable" print without a lot of effort. If that's acceptable or not depends on taste. Some people like it, some don't. Anyway, I don't have a densitometer to fully back my statement, so take it with a grain of salt.

Anon Ymous

A linear scale doesn't mean you get a frozen contrast, or a 1:1 relationship to the scene. It means only that you build density in proportion to the exposure. The difference is important.

First you establish the gamma ( or slope of the curve) by development.

Secondly, different paper/developer combinations have different curves.

Finally, the relationship of development time to agitation will (with many developers) allow you to shape the curve to your will.

To me, that is the greatest asset of the new films.

Finally, that Tri-X or TMY have linear curves in D-76 (and XTOL) doesn't mean you will only get linear curves from those films with ALL developers. Different developers can change the curve shapes with certain films.

TMY2 is unique in that it can give you a stark upswept curve, an S curve, a straight line, or varying measures of shoulders.

Color sensitivity

Gosh, David, I don't know if the difference between TMY2 and TX color rendition is worth talking about. TMY does have a little bit higher sensitivity to yellow-green than Tri-X, along the lines of FP4.

d

df cardwell said:

Anon Ymous

A linear scale doesn't mean you get a frozen contrast, or a 1:1 relationship to the scene. It means only that you build density in proportion to the exposure. The difference is important.

Click to expand...

Ok, there's a language issue here, I meant exactly what you said.

df cardwell said:

First you establish the gamma ( or slope of the curve) by development.

Click to expand...

Yes, obviously.

df cardwell said:

Secondly, different paper/developer combinations have different curves.

Click to expand...

I've got limited experience in that field because of poor availability of different papers/developers. There's not much to chose from here...

df cardwell said:

Finally, the relationship of development time to agitation will (with many developers) allow you to shape the curve to your will.

To me, that is the greatest asset of the new films.

Finally, that Tri-X or TMY have linear curves in D-76 (and XTOL) doesn't mean you will only get linear curves from those films with ALL developers. Different developers can change the curve shapes with certain films.

TMY2 is unique in that it can give you a stark upswept curve, an S curve, a straight line, or varying measures of shoulders.

Click to expand...

I know, I've seen your article. Very nice work, thanks! For the record, I've used TMY2 at 200 (pulled) and 400, in different lighting conditions, developed in D76 1+1. I must say I'm impressed.

df cardwell said:

Color sensitivity

Gosh, David, I don't know if the difference between TMY2 and TX color rendition is worth talking about. TMY does have a little bit higher sensitivity to yellow-green than Tri-X, along the lines of FP4.

d

Click to expand...

It's part of the overall look. I think it's more visible in an image than the chart suggests. Why might a musician have a strong preference for one of two instruments made by the same maker? The differences might be subtle but still undeniable.

I don't want to single out anyone's images, but usually when someone posts what great results they're getting with T-Max films, I usually think, "yeah, they look like T-Max--works for you, but not for me."

There are some interesting exceptions. For instance, John Sexton has done a lot with T-Max, but I think he does so much local manipulation at the printing stage that it doesn't matter what film he uses. I think he wants a negative shot in relatively flat light rendered relatively neutrally on film so that he can dodge and burn, bringing out subtle features of the light that are there and suppressing elements that he finds distracting, and T-Max works for that approach.

I'll chime in here b/c I've in the last 6 months began to use TMY-2 alongside TX. I've shoot a good deal of both. Mainly portraits and fashion, if that matters.

In the end, after I've learned them and how they work in the developers I use, there is SO little difference that it is nearly a mute point. That is if I want to match them. With that, they both have a few personality characteristic that can be accentuated more easily, and this is why I use both. But I'm talking about subtleties in grain and curve that I'm not sure anyone else even sees...

The biggest difference I can see consistently is TMY-2 has less grain at a similar EI, and is much much much sharper than TX.

Out of curiosity (and maybe for Cheryl Jacobs' sake) I'll ask this question:

"What steps would you take to make TMY-2 behave like TXP-320 in T-Max developer?"

Matt

The TXP I've shot is processed in replenished Xtol, a developer that gives great shadow detail and beautiful modulation of the highlights, which fits like hand in glove with the TXP characteristics.

In order to get the TMY-2 look like TXP you need a developer that doesn't give a linear response, and the one I used was Edwal 12. You want to shoot TMY-2 slightly underexposed for this developer, probably about EI 400 to 500 or so in order to simulate some of the shadow behavior of TXP. In order to get the highlights you agitate often to create as much of a shoulder as you can. Edwal 12 in itself possesses a talent for creating an S-shaped curve, and you emphasize it a bit by underexposing and agitating vigorously.

I'm pretty sure you could do the same with Rodinal, since it will also sacrifice some shadow detail, AND will build density in the highlights like mad - basically as much as you want - Rodinal is one heck of a powerful developer.

Those are two developers where you might be able to make TMY-2 look like TXP. Try it and see! But be open minded and experiment. You can do it.

- Thomas

MattKing said:

Out of curiosity (and maybe for Cheryl Jacobs' sake) I'll ask this question:

"What steps would you take to make TMY-2 behave like TXP-320 in T-Max developer?"

Matt

Click to expand...