TriX@800 in Microdol X needs help

djkloss

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Help from a frustrated wannabe.
My plastic tank says you can develop one roll of 135/36 film (it holds two) in 12 ozs of developer (375 cc’s). So I mixed up the developer (Microdol X) in the morning, then developed that night. According to the Kodak instructions for Tri-X, you can develop Tri-X 400 (TriX400Professional) in Microdol –X at 72° for 8 ¼ minutes. They also say that you can rate it at ISO 800.

So, I thought I’d experiment and try all the above. My little experiment failed. Very flat…no shadow detail…underexposed… To add more info (may be of some help figuring this mess out), I used a hand held meter with my F3. I was also experimenting with the waist level finder (that’s why the hand held meter) & a non-AI 28mm lens. I wanted a different perspective for my people pictures. I got the perspective, but the results were a disaster! I’d like to try Microdol & get good results. I’m wondering if it’s the quantity per tank that I screwed up or shooting at 800 or what. If anyone can help……please……..(p.s. I already downloaded all the tech pubs.)

Thanks! a very frustrated dorothy
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Microdol-X wouldn't be my choice of developer for push processing. Generally, Microdol-X will give you less speed and finer grain than a developer like D-76. Increasing development time and temperature doesn't usually increase film speed significantly, only contrast, and Microdol-X is kind of a low-contrast developer to begin with.

If you want to get an honest EI of 800 from Tri-X, use a developer like Acufine, Diafine, or Microphen. These will give you more grain than Microdol-X, but will give you a good sharp negative with shadow detail and reasonable contrast for printing on paper of about grade 3 (by developing for grade 3 instead of grade 2, you get a thinner, less grainy neg, which is desirable for push processing, particularly with 35mm film). My own preference is Acufine.
 

Grunthos

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Hi Dorothy,

I think that what went wrong is that you rated the film at 800. Microdol-X is not the best choice for increasing film speed, since it tends to reduce actual film speed a bit. If I read your post correctly, you used full strength Mic-X at the correct developing time for the temperature used. If so, the correct film speed would have been somewhere in the range of 160 to 250. D-76 or Acufine would be a much better choice for pushing TRI-X. Most films will not give true box speed when exposed and developed under real world conditions.

If you need the high speed, I would recommend Kodak TMZ developed in XTOL (at EI 1600) or Fuji Neopan 1600 in D-76 at EI 800. I haven't tried Delta 3200 So I can not recommend it or not. Just remember that shadow detail needs to be exposed onto the film. You can not get it by developing it in.

Grunthos
 

gainer

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Sep 20, 2002
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The only way I could see TriX at 800 in Microdol X with an average or incident reading is for a scene with brightness range of about 3 stops. You would then be metering at something like Zone 3 or 4 by comparison with a more normal brightness range.

If you can scan the negative and make a reasonable digital print, the required detail is there and can be brought out for real printing by one of several inrensifying processes.
 
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