Tri-X 400 pushed to 800 with D76

Does anyone have experience with this combo? If yes, how many minutes should i develop? Does the time change when developing two rolls at a time? As for agitation, i do the first 30 seconds in a 45 degree angle in each side (NSEW) and then every minute once. Is the agitation rhythm still recommended?

Thanks!

The data sheet doesn't have a suggested time for a 1 stop push, so their recommended starting time is 6:45 at 20C for full strength D-76, and 9:45 for 1:1. You would use the same timing for two rolls together.
For a two stop push (EI 1600), Kodak shows 9:30 for undiluted, and 13:20 for 1:1 at 20C

Much depends on the lighting, if it was contrasty with strong highlights you might want to stick with the standard time, otherwise perhaps add 20% to the standard (EI 400) time.

KODAK PROFESSIONAL TRI-X 320 and 400 Films - Kodak Alaris

hi odot
all the developing times published and not published
are starting points they are not really set in stone
if you have the luxury of doing a test run
i'd shoot a roll in similar lighting conditions
and take scissors to it ... develop 1/2 of the roll at the
recommended ( no change ) time and agitation scheme
and 1/2 the roll for 30% more ( rule of thumb is 30% more or less for push/pull / stop )
also rule of thumb ...
depending on the light ( or lack of it ) less and less exposure and more and more processing
yields less and less stuff on the film ..

have fun!

Odot said:

Does anyone have experience with this combo? If yes, how many minutes should i develop? Does the time change when developing two rolls at a time? As for agitation, i do the first 30 seconds in a 45 degree angle in each side (NSEW) and then every minute once. Is the agitation rhythm still recommended?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

There is no rule with agitation generaly.
Yes - I know - some may say :"Agitation has to follow the advices given at xxx.."

THE same is with times/temperatures/delution of developers.

Your task - special with beginning developments - should be to find your own rules.

AGITATION : Every form of agitation is ok. There is a special development often mentioned with :No agitation (stand development).
THE question is : "Wich result is the best from your personal oppinium - you should find out soon? "
If you will agitate 45degree the first 30sek. after this every minute it is on yours.
You only should know : A first agitation the first seconds (more than 15 sec. make sence - it should be also done if you choise "stand development"
After this you may agitate every 30/45/1min./1min.30sec/2min.
But it should be clear : An agitation every 2 min. is not a great idea if the whole development is just 3:30..... !

What is the need with agitation generaly?
THE need should be to find your personal way after this you shouldn't change it because agitation is allways in relation to developers times.
Next is to push development : All times recomanded from manufacturers are allowed to change. It is just a little basis
(starting point) - because it differs concerning to temperature/delution/agitation.
I would give you following hint :
Why pushing to ISO 800 ? Why not have a try with ISO 12800????
MAKE JUST A SERIES OF SOME FRAMES WITH FOLLOWING E.I.s
ISO 200/400/800/1600/3200/6400/12800 it will cost you just 7 frames.
Next is a try with D76 and times recomanded on push development + 2 steps (in your example it is E.I 1600).
After this you should look at your first test-film tri X 400.
Answer yourself following questions :
IS there a result with E.I. 12800/6400 ?
How much would tri X 400 go via pushing on max. level with longest times/delution ?
What about the best characteristics from grain/tonals (at what E.I.)? IS it more with E.I. 1600 or is it on E.I. 200 ?
And at last : Never forget your results.
Next step is a second film to verify if your choice is on E.I 400 (perhaps best characteristics ) or with E.I. 800 (you may stand on that pushing option )
But perhaps you may find out E.I 1600 isn't so bad with tri X 400.
(Next step would be to compare with Hp5,Delta400 - to find out what is indeed the best film.....)
In short : You have to find out and you should realize : YOU ARE THE EXPERT

with regards

bdial said:

The data sheet doesn't have a suggested time for a 1 stop push, so their recommended starting time is 6:45 at 20C for full strength D-76, and 9:45 for 1:1. You would use the same timing for two rolls together.
For a two stop push (EI 1600), Kodak shows 9:30 for undiluted, and 13:20 for 1:1 at 20C

Much depends on the lighting, if it was contrasty with strong highlights you might want to stick with the standard time, otherwise perhaps add 20% to the standard (EI 400) time.

KODAK PROFESSIONAL TRI-X 320 and 400 Films - Kodak Alaris

Click to expand...

Hey, i found something on page 5 of the D76 data sheet where it states the following:

When you expose the film listed in the table at a speed 1 stop faster than the rated speed, we recommend that you develop them for the normal time. The underexposure latitude of these films is wide enough to give you good results with finer grain than you would obtain with push processing.

I'm confused.

According to the table listed, for 20°C (68°F) and EI 800 (Normal Processing) : 8 minutes - in a small tank.

So what does that mean?

Why would they specify is as small tank if the tank size doesnt matter? While we at it, the definition of a small tank is nowhere listed. Is a paterson two reel tank considered small?

what that means is develop the film normally when you expose tri x at 800 instead of 400.
( at least in d76 full strength ) it is a recommendation, and usually what happens is
you get OK negatives that are a little thinner than normal box speed negatives.
kodak says this for a lot of their films, to give you the lee-way / latitude to over and underexpose
your film by 1 stop on a roll. you need to remember these developing recommendatoins are done
in a LAB, so your own exposure and processing style might not yield the same results as kodak's lab ..
they may be better or worse ..

You can develop Trix shoot at 800 at the same time as ISO 400 with loss of shadow detail, or the standard rule of thumb for pushing is to add 50% for each push, no matter how you push you will lose some shadow detail, just the nature of the beast. With modern Trix you will find that adding 50% will tend to blow out the highlights. Other rule of thumb when pushing, expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may. I have pushed in Trix in D76 stock with good results, using 1:1 1:2 or 1:3 extends the developing time and may add some base fog form extended development times.

My recent experience is that Tmax 400 pushes better than Trix, I have gotten 11X14s from Tmax 400 35mm pushed to 1600 an 8X10 pushed to 32400, grainy, high contrast, the right shot looks good. I have use standard agitation, first 30 seconds, 5 inversions every 30 seconds. Currently I use old Unicolor film drums on a rotary base, reduce times by 20%.


So at 68 degrees D76 stock 6.75 mint. or with 50% for 1 push 10.00. I would start with standard time then extend time until you get the best time for your preferences.

Paul Howell said:

You can develop Trix shoot at 800 at the same time as ISO 400 with loss of shadow detail, or the standard rule of thumb for pushing is to add 50% for each push, no matter how you push you will lose some shadow detail, just the nature of the beast. With modern Trix you will find that adding 50% will tend to blow out the highlights. Other rule of thumb when pushing, expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may. I have pushed in Trix in D76 stock with good results, using 1:1 1:2 or 1:3 extends the developing time and may add some base fog form extended development times.

My recent experience is that Tmax 400 pushes better than Trix, I have gotten 11X14s from Tmax 400 35mm pushed to 1600 an 8X10 pushed to 32400, grainy, high contrast, the right shot looks good. I have use standard agitation, first 30 seconds, 5 inversions every 30 seconds. Currently I use old Unicolor film drums on a rotary base, reduce times by 20%.


So at 68 degrees D76 stock 6.75 mint. or with 50% for 1 push 10.00. I would start with standard time then extend time until you get the best time for your preferences.

Click to expand...

Paul - nevertheless Tmax 400 is the better film for pushing - I would agree.
Nevertheless 8 x 10 inch is the best format - but with E.I. 32400 it should be a little grainy?
What about contrast and tonals - would you realy recomand it ?

with regards

PS : Delta 400 is also a good film at E.I ISO 1600 from my point of view (fine grain and exabtable tonals)

I guess E.I. with ISO 6400 is meant?
That would be the max. I could imagine T max 400 is able to work with ?
But I realy can't say - perhaps E.I. ISO
12800 would give results ?

with regards

Increasing development doesn't make a meaningful difference to the sensitivity of the film - it just increases contrast. An under-exposed film will tend to have muddy shadows, so increasing the contrast may make those shadows and the adjacent mid-tones render in a more pleasant way, but that improvement in near shadow and mid-tone appearance is often at the cost of highlight rendering and detail.
As highlight detail can have the largest effect on how prints appear, Kodak's recommendation is to not increase the development of one stop under-exposed film - preserve the highlights and sacrifice a little in the shadows.
Small tanks are the ones that you might agitate by hand or in a rotary processor. Deep tanks are the ones that hold several litres or gallons of developer, which tend to be used with film on racks.

Years ago, when I was pounding through lots of film and in this situation, I had good luck with Tri-X and HP5 @ 800 in D76, double the time at 1:1, but limit agitation.... Very gentle, very slow inversions for 1 minute, then 2 minutes between 2 slow, gentle inversions. It drew a bit more shadow but seemed restrained enough to keep the highlights from blowing out. They were quite printable with very little manipulation.

When I was a working PJ in the 70s and early 80s I pushed a lot of film, used Diafine, Acufine, pushed in D76/ID11 , HC 110, even Rodinal, used TriX or HP4 later 5, in the early 70s GAF 500. As noted by Matt King pushing does not change making film more sensitive to light, pushing, extending the development times makes use of any exposed latent silver, at the expense of shadow detail which has less exposed silver. In the day when available light was the rage, newspaper photographers and PJs wanted to shoot without flash, the higher contrast worked well with the old newspaper printing process. The trade off is grain, and lots of grain depending on the film and developer. Yes TMAX 400 at 3200 is grainy, takes the right subject to make it work. In general most manufactures error on the side of caution, their stated ISO is often a full stop on the low side, take TriX and Tmax for example, Kodak recommends the same development time for both ISO 400 and 800. But the old TMax 3200 and Ilford Delta 3200 are really ISO 1600, in my experience 3200 is a push. Some feel that both are closer to 1200.

In terms of practice, shooting Tmax or Trix at 800 has little downside, some loss of shadow detail, need to be careful with highlights, grain is manageable. Pushing 2 stop, or more, unless you are looking for that 60s to 70s photo journalist look, high contrast with pronounced gain, use a flash.

The recommended is to develop as normal. I've done that and never liked the results. Negs are thin and harder to scan. I go with the 'ol x1.5 and it does alright by me.

Just take it easy!
Massive developing char, this is the only source I'm using to find out times and dilution for film and developer. As it was mentioned above - suggested times. And then I fine tune for my taste.
All I have to do is to google what I need, like "Kodak TRi-X 400 in D-76" and google will find it from massive developing chart as most common one in use.
Here it is, first line in goggle search:
https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=Tri-X+400&Developer=D-76&mdc=Search
It looks like almost no difference with 400, so agitation is the same as in the note for 200.

Pushing TRI-X was common among known street photographers, they did it at 1000 or 1200.

MattKing said:

Increasing development doesn't make a meaningful difference to the sensitivity of the film - it just increases contrast. An under-exposed film will tend to have muddy shadows, so increasing the contrast may make those shadows and the adjacent mid-tones render in a more pleasant way, but that improvement in near shadow and mid-tone appearance is often at the cost of highlight rendering and detail.
As highlight detail can have the largest effect on how prints appear, Kodak's recommendation is to not increase the development of one stop under-exposed film - preserve the highlights and sacrifice a little in the shadows.
Small tanks are the ones that you might agitate by hand or in a rotary processor. Deep tanks are the ones that hold several litres or gallons of developer, which tend to be used with film on racks.

Click to expand...

This... True film speed is pretty much built into the emulsion with standard developers and processing. "Pushing" is just underexposing and overdeveloping with the to be expected results, especially in high contrast lighting situations, i.e empty shadows and blown out highlights. Luckily high speed films like Tri-X have a fair amount of latitude in flat/low contrast lighting conditions allowing for higher EI's then.