It's an old school grainy film for sure, although the 35mm and 120 versions have been re-tweaked somewhat. The 320 sheet film retains the more classic look. You either like the grain or you don't.
What you have keep in mind is the film curve itself. If you want very bold shadows, use it around box speed. But in order to get more tonal gradation down there (at least in high contrast scenes), you have to give the significantly more exposure to boost them up above the toe onto the straight line. Then if you want to develop for full midtone tonality, you risk shouldering off the highlights.
I'm not going to get into Zone System talk or TX sheet film usage for UV processes which favor a dense overexposed negative. The immediate discussion seems to revolve around the roll product
only. My own strategy is just to drop the shadows into blackness, then develop well for excellent midtone gradation and good highlight sparkle.
I use PMK pyro, a staining developer. Then I print it reasonably small to prevent the solid blacks from getting oppressive, or the grain getting annoying. Note that Im not trying to achieve the classic journalistic look of TX. If I was, I'd want to figure how to get even more distinct graininess.
"Micro" films are a whole different category of problem; and Pan F has pronounced S-curve and very short scale of good reproduction, though it can be lovely if intelligently used. And then you've got the slow speed issues; TX is fast.
The problem with TX in tiny 35mm format is that it just can't record a whole lot of detail. And that's where pronounced grain can help, because it potentially lends interesting character to otherwise bland portions of an image.
I like to shoot 35mm for spontaneous poetic little images. A chihuahua might have a lot of attitude; but its's never going to be a big dog. Just let little dogs do what they do best instead; thats my format philosophy.
