Tri-X 400: best shooting speed?

As the title implies...
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

200-250


DD wrote:
As the title implies...
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

DD writes:

As the title implies...

Somewhere between 200 and 4000; depending on your goals and
requirements.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

400 - I believe it says so right on the box

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:47:05 +0200, DD wrote:

As the title implies...

I always shoot Tri-X at 320..


--
Colyn Goodson

http://www.colyngoodson.com

Dominic Richens wrote:
400 - I believe it says so right on the box

That's the ISO, not to be confused with 'best shooting speed'.

"DD" purportedly wrote:

As the title implies...

It depends on the developer and the effect you are looking for. A good
place to start is the "Massive Dev Chart", which gives possibilities
ranging from 50 to 3200.
http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.html

The commercial labs I use offer a choice of TMax Developer and Ilfotec
DD-X.

--
Michael Benveniste --
Spam and UCE professionally evaluated for $419. Use this email
address only to submit mail for evaluation.

I've gotten fantastic results at EI 200, EI 1600 and nearly all steps
in between. A good lab, or a good working knowledge of your own
processing technique is the key; TX400 is fairly elastic when it comes
to pushing or pulling.

Michael

I generally shoot it at ISO 320 and develop normally. This is for scenes
with normal contrast. Best is to experiment with your camera/meter and judge
by the results.

Doug

"DD" wrote in message
...
As the title implies...
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

DD wrote:

As the title implies...
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

The older b/w film people will remember the mantra for exposing b/w
film: 'expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights'.

This was based on the premise that development affected the highlights,
i.e. the blacker parts of the negative, more than the shadows, or less
dense parts of the negative. If your exposure was sufficient to record
the shadows satisfactorily, then optimal highlight density was dependent
on your enlarger, and your printing style. The enlarger could be either
condenser-illuminated, or diffuse-illuminated, and the two types yielded
quite different tonal values in the print, particularly in the shadow
tones separation, due to the 'Callier' effect (something for you to look
up).

I suggest that you choose a suitable subject of the type you want to
photograph, e.g. a landscape, and take a series of exposures from about
160 or 200 ISO up to 800 or so, and then process the film. Look for
shadow detail and density first, and note the speed that gave you the
best result - not too dense, but good tonal separation.

Next, look at the highlights in that frame, or the print from that
frame, and decide if the tonality is ok or not. If the print is too
harsh, reduce ( or get your lab to reduce) the development time by 10%,
or if the image is flat, increase by 10%, and go round again.

The commonest mistake less experienced photogs made was to underexpose
and try to correct in development, specially if the shot was at the
rated film speed. It wasn't unknown for film makers to rate their films
at a somewhat higher speed to gain a competitive edge, and if the camera
shutter was a but fast, or the lens lost a bit of light, the result was
underexposure, and the usual response was to increase development time
when the proper response would have been to lower the effective ISO.

This relationship between exposure and development time is the key to
getting outstanding tonality from b/w film, and it's not fixed, as the
indicated speed and development (and modern color film processing) would
have you believe. The camera (internal reflections in the body),
shutter accuracy, aperture accuracy, lens flare and transmission
percentage (some older lenses can have significant transmission losses),
meter calibration and method of use, and subject type all have a bearing
on the exposure/development combination.

Ansell Adam's Zone System is built on these premises. Of course with
roll film you can't individually treat each negative, but you can try to
take the same sort of shots, not mix landscapes and portraits, for
instance, on the same film, and if you have established optimal
development times for different subject types and process accordingly,
the results will be fabulous.

Of course, this approach won't make a lot of sense to younger photogs
who have grown up with machine processing of color films, but it was the
way it was done in the past. Aaahh, the old days ... but I wouldn't
swap my digital camera and computer for those days now.

Colin D.