What film and developer combination for hard light (medium format)?

[John Wiegerink]

TMax 100 has very fine grain and tremendous capacity for detail, but often fails to look sharp due to poor edge acutance. TMax 400, which does have excellent edge effect, can actually look sharper up to a certain degree of magnification. Lots of variables. Surprisingly, even the edges of details enlarged from 120 Delta 3200 can look crisp, even when grain itself is quite apparent.

When Tmax 100 hit the market in 1985 or 86(can't remember) I thought this was the answer. The only films I had used prior was TRI-X, Plus X and a small dap of Panatomic X. I won't count the Tech-Pan I shot. I found out real quick that I wasn't ready for this new film. I had to learn to develop differently and even tried "hot" developing it, but still didn't like it as well as Plus-X. It's a better film now, but I still don't use it. Drew, I found the same thing with FP4+ and HP5+ that you found with the two Tmax films. I shoot only 120 and find all my HP5+ shots to be sharper looking compared to FP4+ when enlarged past 16x20. I develop in Xtol-R and grain is not an issue. The HP5+ shots just seem to have that "bite" to them that FP4+ lacks. I'm certainly not saying FP4+ is bad by any means, but I just like the looks of HP5+ better. Maybe if I were using a different developer it might be the other way around? JohnW

 

[DREW WILEY]

I now mostly use PMK developer. But I've not only experimented with various other pyro tweaks, but have plenty of experience with most of the usual suspect: D76, HC110, TMaxRS, Perceptol, D23, etc