Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:54 AM 2/16/99 -0500, you wrote: >I love to hear about the film/developer combinations that work for other >LUGGERS. Unfortunately, Tmax has made it very difficult for me to consider >Kodaks products. Perhaps I am not handling it properly. TMax film is different than other modern black and white films. It was specifically designed to be sensitive to development, agitation and temperature. You have to be very precise with development or you will blow out the highlights. I'll bet your problem with it is burning down the highlights in the darkroom. Right? I had that problem at first for two reasons. I had gotten used to Tri-X in HC-110 dil. B which is very soft. Then I tried TMax 400 (before it was on the market) with HC-100. No good. So I tried TMax developer which was also in the testing phase, and D-76. At the recommended times, I still got very hot highlights. Then I remembered reading Ansel Adams' books and started adjusting development. I ended up reducing development by 30 seconds at 75 degree (which is the temperature that TMax was optimized for) to 5.5 minutes instead of 6 as Kodak recommends. In high contrast for TMax 400 I use 4.5 minutes at EI 200. Absolutely gorgeous highlights and wide open shadows. And invisible grain! Well, practically at 8x10 it's invisible. Agitation is critical to no overdo. And keep all fluids at within 5 degrees (even wash and photoflo). With that, you can et absolutely stunning images from TMax. As for developer, with TMax 100 and 400, you can't beat Press Maxx developer - made by Unicolor. It gives Tri-X tonality with TMax grain. But it's horrible with TMax P3200. Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch Is reading in the bathroom considered Multi-Tasking?