TX400 - HP5+ Shootout

chuckroast · May 20, 2025

koraks said:
That's not the case. Film developed or printing typically scans perfectly fine. That's what scanners were made for, after all.

I develop primarily with Pyrocat-HD with the intent of printing on a VC cold light head - a somewhat lower contrast light source than, say, a condenser head. That means that my negatives tend to favor a somewhat higher CI to get the output I like in a sliver print from that head.

I have never been satisfied with the film scans I get on a V800 - they never look right to me, even on a calibrated monitor, at least using VueScan which seems to be the only thing decent available on Linux, my primary working environment for digital workflow. I would note that the same machines, monitors, and editors work just fine for digitally sourced materials from a phone, my D750 or D-Lux Typ 109, so I don't think it's my video card, monitors, or calibration.

I freely admit that this might just be that I have not spent the time to get this right, but I have seen a number of comments here and there that suggest a somewhat lower CI yields far more workable scans.

loccdor · May 20, 2025

Andrew O'Neill prefers HP5 for its more luminous shadows.

GregY · May 20, 2025

chuckroast said:
I develop primarily with Pyrocat-HD with the intent of printing on a VC cold light head - a somewhat lower contrast light source than, say, a condenser head. That means that my negatives tend to favor a somewhat higher CI to get the output I like in a sliver print from that head.

I have never been satisfied with the film scans I get on a V800 - they never look right to me, even on a calibrated monitor, at least using VueScan which seems to be the only thing decent available on Linux, my primary working environment for digital workflow. I would note that the same machines, monitors, and editors work just fine for digitally sourced materials from a phone, my D750 or D-Lux Typ 109, so I don't think it's my video card, monitors, or calibration.

I freely admit that this might just be that I have not spent the time to get this right, but I have seen a number of comments here and there that suggest a somewhat lower CI yields far more workable scans.

CR, I use a VC cold light head as well. For the record, I don't own a scanner..every photo i post is an iphone foto of a print.
I'd suggest, just shoot a few rolls of your normal subjects of HP5 in 35mm ....are the print results inspiring or meh....?
It doesn't matter what the public here uses or likes....in the end it's your preference for your work that counts.

chuckroast · May 20, 2025

GregY said:
CR, I use a VC cold light head as well. For the record, I don't own a scanner..every photo i post is an iphone foto of a print.
I'd suggest, just shoot a few rolls of your normal subjects of HP5 in 35mm ....are the print results inspiring or meh....?
It doesn't matter what the public here uses or likes....in the end it's your preference for your work that counts.

That is also my practice. I print all new work as 8x10 as "workbook prints" - not exhibition quality, but substantially correctly printed. It is from that workbook I periodically select things to become wall hangings.

I do have some stuff printed from this shootout that maybe I will scan and share here.

koraks · May 20, 2025

chuckroast said:
I freely admit that this might just be that I have not spent the time to get this right

That's the issue at work here. Scanning and digital editing are crafts, just like darkroom printing. Higher CI's such as used for VC printing, even at lower grades with diffuse light sources etc, scan just A-OK. I do this all the time, and even CI's that far surpass grade 0!

albireo · May 20, 2025

Out of curiosity, I just checked the prices for a 35mm roll of TriX vs a roll of HP5 here in continental Europe. 11 euro the former vs 10 euro the latter on average.

That's a much smaller difference than I thought. Has Kodak reduced prices? I seem to remember Tri-X was about 2x its competitors at some point, but at this price are there any reasons apart from personal taste or brand loyalty to save the 1 euro/roll and go for HP5?

loccdor · May 20, 2025

Tri-X and HP5 were both $4 in the USA when I started film photography in 2010. But you could get Tri-X at $3 from a rebrand. Now they are both around $10. They have usually been pretty close to one another here at least. I think there were some times during Covid where Ilford was much more competitive than Kodak.

GregY · May 20, 2025

B&H shows Tri-X 35mm at $8.99 and HP5 at $10.99
In Canada Tri-X is 15% more than HP5.
I've always chosen Tri-X ......but currently using Delta 400 (since i don't care for HP5 results)...due to political friction

RalphLambrecht · May 20, 2025

chuckroast said:
I have previously not used either of the above extensively in 35mm, though I have used TXT and TXP a fair bit in 120 and 4x5 ... which are probably different films entirely.

I wanted to compare the two for grain, sharpness, tonality, and so forth, with the possible extension of the exercise to Foma 400 and Kodak TMY.

Several things jumped out immediately, but these might be viewing errors, personal bias, or other process failure on my part. So... I thought I share here to see if others had any experience with the subject.

Both films were identically exposed at box speed of 400, and EMA processed in Pyriocat-HDC 1.5:1:200 for 30 min. Initial and interval agitations were identical.

Initial (very) preliminary observations subject to revision, correction, and/or retraction:

Both films hold long SBRs very well

The HP5+ seems inherently contrastier

The HP5+ thus likes to shove highlights up more aggressively, though they were not blocked and could be printed comfortably. I will say that the subject for this was under very bright light, so the SBR may have been longer than that of the 400TX scenes.

The TX400 seems noticeably sharper

The HP5+ has very slightly larger grain, though not enough difference to show up in a big way in a print

I specifically used dilute EMA for this because the SBRs in question were pretty long.

Other experience?

my experience with HP5 and TMY are a bit different(only shot both in MF). HP5 has a huge exposure range but is a bit low in contrast. Yes, I found TMY to be sharper as well and decided overall, it's the better film for me,especially for low or normal contrast scenes. For high contrast scenes HP5 is a good alternatives.

GregY · May 20, 2025

RalphLambrecht said:
my experience with HP5 and TMY are a bit different(only shot both in MF). HP5 has a huge exposure range but is a bit low in contrast. Yes, I found TMY to be sharper as well and decided overall, it's the better film for me,especially for low or normal contrast scenes. For high contrast scenes HP5 is a good alternatives.

Just a quick side-track Ralph, do you have any comparative comments of HP5 & Delta 400?

pentaxuser · May 20, 2025

RalphLambrecht said:
my experience with HP5 and TMY are a bit different(only shot both in MF). HP5 has a huge exposure range but is a bit low in contrast. Yes, I found TMY to be sharper as well and decided overall, it's the better film for me,especially for low or normal contrast scenes. For high contrast scenes HP5 is a good alternatives.

That's what seems to be the conclusions reached by most of the videos I have seen on HP5+ v TMY. It may be that the the two films are as near identical as makes no difference provided you adjust development to enable matching of contrast but I suspect that as far as the vast majority of users are concerned, who probably do not do what is suggested above in terms of contrast adjustment, then Ralph's conclusions above and their conclusions are the same

In terms of choice of films the vast majority's conclusions determine opinion of each film and choice of film.

pentaxuser

GregY · May 20, 2025

pentaxuser said:
In terms of choice of films the vast majority's conclusions determine opinion of each film and choice of film.

That doesn't seem of much value to the OP who is making some comparisons & decisions.....from having used LF films to deciding on a film for 35mm cameras.....

Craig · May 20, 2025

GregY said:
I'd suggest, just shoot a few rolls of your normal subjects of HP5 in 35mm ....are the print results inspiring or meh....?

For me, HP5 is often meh, yet the best print I think I have ever made was a 35mm HP5 negative. Grainless at an 11x14 print. So who knows? The stars just aligned that day.

dokko · May 21, 2025

RalphLambrecht said:
my experience with HP5 and TMY are a bit different(only shot both in MF). HP5 has a huge exposure range but is a bit low in contrast.

I think there is the potential for confusion here - TMY is the first version of T-Max 400 (the current one is TMY-2), which is very different from both HP5 and Tri-X.

Tri-X 400 label is 400TX.

Andrew O'Neill · May 21, 2025

I did a comparison video in the not so distant past. I was shocked at how similar the two films responded to scenes, and even more shocked that TX exhibited slightly less grain than HP5. As expected, HP5 had the edge in shadow separation, and TX won the high lights.

albireo · May 21, 2025

Andrew O'Neill said:
I did a comparison video in the not so distant past. I was shocked at how similar the two films responded to scenes, and even more shocked that TX exhibited slightly less grain than HP5. As expected, HP5 had the edge in shadow separation, and TX won the high lights.

Hi Andrew, I'm very interested - how did TX win the highlights? What did you feel was different/better? Sorry can't watch the video rn.

GregY · May 21, 2025

dokko said:
I think there is the potential for confusion here - TMY is the first version of T-Max 400 (the current one is TMY-2), which is very different from both HP5 and Tri-X.

Tri-X 400 label is 400TX.

TMax 400 is still referred to as TMY even though it is version 2..... Just as people refer to HP5 as HP5 even though it's been improved over time +.

MattKing · May 21, 2025

GregY said:
TMax 400 is still referred to as TMY even though it is version 2..... Just as people refer to HP5 as HP5 even though it's been improved over time +.
View attachment 399063

I would point out that that packaging is at least 15 years old, and would have been current at a time about 3 years after the TMY to TMY-2 update.
Here is an excerpt of the data sheet that references the change:

As we are now nearly two decades into the current product, the need to show that it is the "new" version has basically disappeared.

The most recent datasheet is from 2016, and the reference therein is to: "KODAK PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 400 Film ⁄400TMY". The only "2" you might find is in a product or catalog code that shows as 400-2TMY.

This is from the problematic batch of film - thus the "P" in felt pen - I still have around from the period of time where the wrapper offset issues beset Kodak - so 6 years more recent than the example shown by @GregY .

If you have some more recent packaging easily at hand, feel free to share.

MattKing · May 21, 2025

Here is the 2017 packaging that wouldn't upload to the previous post:

GregY · May 21, 2025

MattKing said:
Here is the 2017 packaging that wouldn't upload to the previous post:

My bad.....but that's the photo i just nabbed off B&H's website. Be that as it may...photographers (some) still differentiate between 100/400 as TMX/TMY.... just as folks don't always call Ilford films FP4 plus or HP5 plus. Since the comment was about Ralph Lambrecht's post...I'm sure he's referring to current films.

MattKing · May 21, 2025

GregY said:
My bad.....but that's the photo i just nabbed off B&H's website. Be that as it may...photographers (some) still differentiate between 100/400 as TMX/TMY.... just as folks don't always call Ilford films FP4 plus or HP5 plus. Since the comment was about Ralph Lambrecht's post...I'm sure he's referring to current films.

Not bad - understandable!
Adorama uses the same photo, and Freestyle may be using one from the same batch - just turned slightly so that you can see just "20" and possibly a following "1".
I've come to realize that you have to be really careful about relying on internet listing photos!

For a while, the Kodak datasheets for developers listed both versions of the long names for both versions - "T-MAX 400 Professional and PROFESSIONAL T-MAX 400" - but they don't show that way in the most current versions.
And yes, I expect Ralph was referring to current films.

RalphLambrecht · May 21, 2025

GregY said:
Just a quick side-track Ralph, do you have any comparative comments of HP5 & Delta 400?

No, I don't have sufficient experience with Delta 400.

Steven Lee · May 21, 2025

What do you all mean when you say "film X has higher contrast"?

Is there a definition of "contrast" I'm not familiar with? AFAIK films don't have contrast. Contrast is a development target, not a property of film. I can take film A and develop it at 50C for an hour for insane contrast. I can also take film B and develop it at -10C for 5 seconds and give you super low contrast. And it's not just me being stupid. The classic Kodak chemistry datasheets state that the development times for varioius films are given for the same contrast index.

Back to TX400 and HP5. I have, due to development errors, gotten all kinds of contrast levels with both.

So, again, where does the "high contrast and low contrast films" talk come from?

MattKing · May 21, 2025

I'll mostly agree with @Steven Lee 's previous post, except to say that certain films are designed/optimized for significantly different contrast targets.
The films designed/optimized for reproduction use are an example.
As are the films designed/optimized for aerial photography.
The same applies to films designed/optimized for motion picture use, due to the historical workflow that was part of a camera film contact printed to intermediate editing stock which is further contact printed to projection stock.
Of the films designed for closer to typical pictorial use, the special "3200" emulsions are an example of a film stock which is designed to have a native low contrast, because it is intended to be uses in a workflow where the native contrast will be boosted - "pushed" - in order to obtain a result with relatively normal contrast, while maximizing its usability when light levels are low and what would otherwise be under-exposure is required.
In addition, some films are particularly temperamental when you attempt to increase contrast in a controlled manner, while others are predictable and forgiving when you do that. That sort of behavior is also very developer dependent.

Steven Lee · May 21, 2025

@MattKing Wowza! Since when you started using the word "stock" instead of film? Too much youtubing and redditing lately? Shocking! Shocking! Enough Internet for me today, I'm going to put my laptop stock on the desk stock, and take my dog stock for a walk stock.

TX400 - HP5+ Shootout

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