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More malarkey on this thread than in a British pot pie!
Why all the dislike for tabular-type films?
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Pictures of Lily
Mine too!
It's film. Put it in your camera, capture some photons and make something great.
If you can only do that with this or that film developed in this or that magic brew you're missing something.
IMHO
:munch:
Mine too!
I'm going to assume you mean "scan and show a crop" rather than print. Therein lies the problems that many of us have been trying to get you to see across various and sundry threads.
1) The change from a physical artifact (from a negative or print) into a digital form changes the character of the result, period. Hell, printing a film to a paper hides much of the film curve from the viewer, scanning a print adds yet another layer of manipulation.
2) The negative is an intermediate medium. If you and I are looking at a positive image, physical or digital, it has been manipulated to get to that point.
Sure, the digital version of a physical can be manipulated to get close but it won't ever fully match, not on screen nor on paper printed from a digital file regardless of what machine prints it.
I am not making a claim as to which medium is better or worse. All I'm saying is that switching mediums manipulates the result. Once the results are manipulated they are no longer comparable.
Good eye, see below...
So, originally this was about being shot the same, they would essentially be similar.
So, in the barns-only image, I did use a Red filter ON BOTH, and have 2 stops difference between them (adjusting for the same filter factor for both)
In the tree image, I used a Yellow filter, and gave 2 stops between them (and again adjusting for filter factor)
My original purpose of this shoot was to test the response of the films edge effects on a rotary processor, since I have switched to that and so it wasn't about spectral response as much, but how each films edge effects reacted in a normal shooting situation I might come across, to which in a scene like this I would personally use filters...
I don't think that using filters negates the fact that they both look similar with only slight differences in highlight and shadow response. Which can be attributed partly to each films response to color wavelengths (so to a small degree the filters used) but ultimately I don't think the look of the two images is so starkly different that one could say that the T-grain image is better or worse than the traditional grain image.
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mark
zoomzoom
no matter how many times this is suggested, it is ignored .
this is probably the 15th time this "stuff" has been posted / said &c ...
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No, what I'm saying is assuming that you are printing a 30 x 40 image, and then take it to the fountain and expose a smaller 8 x 10 or 4 x 5 piece of paper but using the size of the 30 x 40 actual printing, so you will get a crop of the original image on the paper. The detail in the crab should still show the magnified effect of the place of film on a larger piece of paper, and scaring with any scanner even a crappy one would still show the grain issue differences between the two films at that amount of magnification.
It's certainly at least a better solution then "hey you should just walk into my gallery over across the other side of the world and see my prints because that's the only way you're going to see" which to me it just sounds like a total cop out.
MattKing
Moderator
Just wanted to emphasize one thing in Simon's post - modern Tri-X makes no use of tabular grain technology - it isn't a "hybrid" in any way.
It does, however, make use of other recent improvements. As a result, it is a lot less grainy than it once was.
It does, however, make use of other recent improvements. As a result, it is a lot less grainy than it once was.
I was going off what the darkroom cookbook said about it being a kind of hybrid (see I read stuff!) although the author can be wrong as well... Or my memory of how the statement was phrased...
Stone, you are thinking digitally.
Where you gonna go to see the original, real, bonafide Mona Lisa?
Is there any other place on earth you can see the Mona Lisa in person?
Can any photo match seeing the real artifact that is the Mona Lisa?
In traditional printing every print that goes through the developer changes the developer, and the prints that follow. If the dishwasher kicks on while I'm exposing a print the exposure changes. If I switch the dilution of my paper developer, LPD, the tone of the print changes and with it the overall look. If I tone the print contrast and max black changes. When I wave my hands or my wands between lens and paper it is rare that the burn or dodge matches from print to print. A slight change in exposure changes the relationship of the film curve and the paper curve. If I bleach the whites in the print that work is going to vary from print to print. All of these things change how the grain looks and manipulates the relationship between negative and positive.
Your example doesn't work because it is normal for each and every traditionally printed photo to be slightly different, few if any are true copies (as is possible with digital).
Somewhat like the Mona Lisa, each traditional print is an original. If you want to see what any original looks like, you have to physically go see the original wherever it is.
Edit
As an alternate example insert "an original Karsh" http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections?ft=karsh&ao=on&noqs=true
Relatively close to you Stone
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So in other words your results aren't consistent and are afraid to share....
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Stone... paper "sees" the film differently than a scanner, or even a microscope. And it all depends. What might look like a "grainier" film might
in fact look smoother in print under certain circumstances (and not rare circumstances). There are all kinds of variables to this. Same goes with
the subject of acutance.
in fact look smoother in print under certain circumstances (and not rare circumstances). There are all kinds of variables to this. Same goes with
the subject of acutance.
As is HP5 and Delta 400 or Tmax 400 (in the case of HP5 larger formats). I don't mean negatives will be similar bur my interpretation in the darkroom will be extremely close.
Peter Goldfield a disciple and for a time assistant to Minor White was a very early exponent of T grain films, when I first met him on a workshop in the mid 1980 he waxed lyrical about Tmax 100 and APX 100 in Rodinal, extremely fine grain, very sharp and great tonality (tonal range). The results and later my own confirmed this, maybe there's less latitude but I've always shot all films with the same tight tolerance you need for transparencies.
Any deviations from a tight exposure and processing regime, including temperature deviations in processing, can lead to a significant loss in quality.
Echoing you Thomas, I don't care what film I use as long as I get the result I desired. The magic bullet is tight technique, better called craft, which comes with experience (and listening).
Ian
I think all those things are true. I also read these films will actually physically harm you and my cause permanent brain damage.
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For my kinds of use, all these films have dramatically different personalities which truly do affect the final result. Yeah, they are all fine products and will all give outstanding results once you understand them - and that means understanding their limitations too. For example,
a snow shovel might look quite a bit like a drainage trenching shovel, but just try digging a drainage ditch with a snow shovel!
a snow shovel might look quite a bit like a drainage trenching shovel, but just try digging a drainage ditch with a snow shovel!
Craft is indeed a better word than technique. I have come to a point where I just want to make more prints. All the stuff about films and developers just gets further and further removed from the realm of 'relevant' the more I do this. Just want something that works...
T-grain or not - it really doesn't matter.
Have a good weekend! I'm going on APUG break for the weekend.
David A. Goldfarb
Moderator
TMX was my main film for many years in the 1980s and early 90s, mostly for its fine grain, but then I started shooting larger formats and thinking about other things--line, gradation, spectral response--because grain wasn't so much of a factor, and my films changed. I like the look of Tri-X in its various incarnations and FP-4+ and also Delta 400.
The similarity of TMX to desaturated digital (without emphasizing one channel over another or tweaking the curve), I suspect is a factor of spectral response. Even before digital took off, I thought it had a B&W video look. It's not what I'm after, but thankfully, we don't all have to have the same look, and there are many choices out there.
In some way it has a lot to do with one's printmaking process. John Sexton, for instance, lists TMX as one of his more frequently used films in the notes to his books, but he also does a lot of detailed localized dodging and burning, and given his process, it probably makes sense to start with a somewhat neutral, maybe even flat neg, that can be brought to life through a very controlled process in the darkroom. If the neg is too "expressive" to begin with, it closes off possibilities at the printing stage.
The similarity of TMX to desaturated digital (without emphasizing one channel over another or tweaking the curve), I suspect is a factor of spectral response. Even before digital took off, I thought it had a B&W video look. It's not what I'm after, but thankfully, we don't all have to have the same look, and there are many choices out there.
In some way it has a lot to do with one's printmaking process. John Sexton, for instance, lists TMX as one of his more frequently used films in the notes to his books, but he also does a lot of detailed localized dodging and burning, and given his process, it probably makes sense to start with a somewhat neutral, maybe even flat neg, that can be brought to life through a very controlled process in the darkroom. If the neg is too "expressive" to begin with, it closes off possibilities at the printing stage.
Oh so today you are a psychiatrist.
Stone, until you decide to print your own negatives with an enlarger and print them on your digital track and try to match them yourself, I'm done trying to help you.
When did the tabular grain films come on the market? I did some googling but the earliest reference I could find was to tabular technology first being used in VR1000 color film in 1982. John Sexton's article about getting best results with TMX, still available on the LFP site, appeared in 1987. I thought they came out in the mid 80s, a long winded way of saying "wasn't it later than 1980 you had that conversation?"
No real matter though.
Mark is right about the variables in darkroom printing but they are pretty insignificant (or if they aren't you really need to improve your process) for what Stone is suggesting and the argument is sort of specious to me. What Stone suggests is actually reasonable, and I'd do it except that I don't think I have any t-grain negatives in 35mm or 120, at least that aren't very old so I don't trust my process back then or the films to be the same, nor any conventional ones in 4x5! Oh, I do have some Foma 400 in 4x5, even some of the very same scene shot at the very same time in the same light with the same exposure (though developed differently) as TMY-2, but comparing TMY-2 to Foma 400 isn't fair to either. If one wants to make a comparison like this it should be to HP5+. TXP is, as folks have said, rather different.
I can tell you what it would show though - if developed to similar contrast the tabular grain film will be finer grained and that's about the only difference you'd see in well exposed and processed photos. Getting them well exposed and processed is a bit different though in that the tabular grain films do have an amazingly long straight line portion in their curve so are incredibly forgiving of exposure as long as important shadows don't fall completely off and as long as one doesn't mind the increase in grain with more exposure, and conventional films build and lose contrasts less quickly with changes in development time and temperature making them more forgiving of small errors there.
The comparison of FP4+ and TMY-2 illustrates this perfectly. They look so much alike but with a couple of stops speed difference which just points out that tabular films are less grainy at a given speed - 400 tabular grain is comparable to 100 speed conventional grain - but otherwise look similar. Yes, most tabular films and especially Acros and TMX have less reciprocity failure too, which is important for some work and not for most. Some films have different spectral response, particularly Acros, but I think this has less (maybe nothing?) to do with tabular versus conventional grain and is more a design decision with the emulsion and sensitizing dyes.
This is also why my "non challenge" that I didn't want to bother with stopped at 11x14 from medium format. At that size you won't see the grain from either without a magnifier. Make it 11x14 or even 8x10 from 35mm and you probably will. Make it 16x20 from MF and you might, from 35mm you definitely will (from 4x5 you won't though.)
Excellent work can be done with either style. Pick a film or two and get on with it.
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Roger... I get all kinds of flak from people who don't encounter the kinds of lighting situations I routinely do. Take a walk in the redwoods and
everything is soft and misty, then the sun comes out and there's twelve stops of range. Want crisp separation all the way thru the highlights
into the deep shadows? Gotta get real picky with film and developers at that point, or life will be miserable in the darkroom. At that point, TMY
and FP4 are very different animals, and I've shot lots of both. They also differ signifcantly in filter response. Or you can grab another allegedly
"general" (whatever that means) neg film like ACROS, do your homework, and find out it's not even officially a pan film, but something else which
makes the rules of filtering very different indeed. Now start getting crazy and try making something like color sep negs from these various films and the differences become dramatically apparent. And a contact printer might take great exception to the generalization if he attempts
to push certain films significantly. A few of them are cussing over the loss of Super-XX in this respect. I'll agree with you that sticking with
something until you learn it is perhaps best. But at that point, if it becomes hard to handle certain subjects, it might be time to explore different films and developers.
everything is soft and misty, then the sun comes out and there's twelve stops of range. Want crisp separation all the way thru the highlights
into the deep shadows? Gotta get real picky with film and developers at that point, or life will be miserable in the darkroom. At that point, TMY
and FP4 are very different animals, and I've shot lots of both. They also differ signifcantly in filter response. Or you can grab another allegedly
"general" (whatever that means) neg film like ACROS, do your homework, and find out it's not even officially a pan film, but something else which
makes the rules of filtering very different indeed. Now start getting crazy and try making something like color sep negs from these various films and the differences become dramatically apparent. And a contact printer might take great exception to the generalization if he attempts
to push certain films significantly. A few of them are cussing over the loss of Super-XX in this respect. I'll agree with you that sticking with
something until you learn it is perhaps best. But at that point, if it becomes hard to handle certain subjects, it might be time to explore different films and developers.
Drew, I've no doubt YOU can see very significant differences in these films. That doesn't mean most people can or will. 
You are also doing final output very far removed from what most people are talking about with either (ah-hem) hybrid scan-and-print or conventional enlarging onto conventional VC paper with a bit of dodging and burning as needed.
And I too use several films, possibly too many. Mainly I stick to TMY-2 (with a bit of Foma 400 for grins) in 4x5 and Tri-X and FP4+ in 120 plus D3200 in 120 for low light. I could make do with TMY-2 (because Tri-X isn't really available in 4x5 and TXP not in 120 so I can't standardize on one of those, otherwise I could) and D3200, though maybe at the expense of an occasional ND filter in bright light if I didn't want the grain increase from overexposing 120 TMY-2.
You are also doing final output very far removed from what most people are talking about with either (ah-hem) hybrid scan-and-print or conventional enlarging onto conventional VC paper with a bit of dodging and burning as needed.
And I too use several films, possibly too many. Mainly I stick to TMY-2 (with a bit of Foma 400 for grins) in 4x5 and Tri-X and FP4+ in 120 plus D3200 in 120 for low light. I could make do with TMY-2 (because Tri-X isn't really available in 4x5 and TXP not in 120 so I can't standardize on one of those, otherwise I could) and D3200, though maybe at the expense of an occasional ND filter in bright light if I didn't want the grain increase from overexposing 120 TMY-2.
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I still goof around with a lot of different films, but mainly in smaller formats. I just can afford either the dollar expense or extra weight of toting
about more than one black and white 8x10 film at a time, and one color film. So I am currently preferring TMY400 just because it is so versatile
and also for speed (the wind is incessant most of the year here on the coast). With 4x5 I tend to bounce between TMY and ACROS. The latter
has a lovely natural rendering in mtn light in particular due to its orthopan response. But locally I ten to use TMY even in 4x5 cause of the
wind. But with 120 and 4x5 just depends on the look I want. If I want to make a crisp print reminiscent of large format I'll obviously choose
something with high acutance like ACROS or PanF; but it I want something snapshooerly, it could even be Delta 3200. I'm a format schizophrenic to begin with, so can't help experimenting with many different film, papers, and developers too. I just can't afford them all in
sheet film at the same time.
about more than one black and white 8x10 film at a time, and one color film. So I am currently preferring TMY400 just because it is so versatile
and also for speed (the wind is incessant most of the year here on the coast). With 4x5 I tend to bounce between TMY and ACROS. The latter
has a lovely natural rendering in mtn light in particular due to its orthopan response. But locally I ten to use TMY even in 4x5 cause of the
wind. But with 120 and 4x5 just depends on the look I want. If I want to make a crisp print reminiscent of large format I'll obviously choose
something with high acutance like ACROS or PanF; but it I want something snapshooerly, it could even be Delta 3200. I'm a format schizophrenic to begin with, so can't help experimenting with many different film, papers, and developers too. I just can't afford them all in
sheet film at the same time.
... and typical.
In that, "some people just like this and will justify it however they like, and others prefer that and will justify it however they like?"
Well yeah. As I keep saying, just pick a film and get on with it.
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