Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/27

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Subject: Re: T400CN
From: ted grant <75501.3002@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 10:44:08 -0400

Donal Philby  Kauai Hawaii  (hows the weather? :) wrote,

<<<I am  about to shoot some T400 and wonder if anyone has experience over
or under rating it and compensating with developent  >>>>>>

Hi Donal,

So far I have had excellent success with this film from ISO 100 to 800 and
in some cases on the same roll. I just take it to the lab, get it souped
and contacted and every frame is quite comfortably and quality printed in
my own darkroom later.

At slower ISO the neg is denser, but grainless, well there isn't any grain
in any event as it's a "dye cloud" that captures that image without
actually having traditional silver grain.

The lab made a few 30X40 prints from ISO 400, which KODAK say is it's
normal rating and any pro who saw the prints thought they had been shot on
medium or larger format and found it hard to believe they were from 35mm.

I think it's still a film a lot of guys amd gals will screw around with
figuring out what the true ISO is, but that's almost a waste of time in my
humble opinion.  Simply because what is it really?  When I do all my
documentary work with it at 800 and the prints are very nice and grainless,
to the extent that the scenes and prints look "too perfect" and almost give
an impression they are "studio set-ups on a larger format":)

Can you imagine saying they give an appearance of "too perfect" when
shooting by available darkness on 35mm?  Quite amazing! :)

Have a good shoot and you'll find extremely long range tonal effects with
much details in the shadow areas without even trying.:)

ted