Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The US magazine PHOTO Technique has an interesting web page (www.phototechnique.com) and there is one set of pages that will interest you. It is called the 25 best b+w films. Regarding what you want to know it can be summarized as follows: Delta 100 is the best film in its class, Delta 400 is quite good too, especially in Xtol. Tri X has a unique tonal signature, excellent sharpness and a distinctive fine grain and HP5Plus is a must-try film with a very high subjective sense of sharpness. A bit off topic they say more or less that Xtol is -the- best general purpose developer. I agree with everything they say. >Not to beat a dead horse ... okay *to* beat a dead horse on a slow news >day... viewing Ted Grant's book has given me new inspiration to get back >into available light B&W after a 15 year pause. In the old days I had a >Canon FTb with a 50/1.8 lens and shot Tri-X @ 200 and developed in HC110 Dil >B. Worked pretty great at the time for outdoor photography. > >I've recently been doing a bit of T-Max 100,400,3200 in T-Max developer and >printing on Forte Multigrade developed in Ilford film dev. The negs are a >tad thinner than the old Tri-X but perhaps a tad smoother (modulo film >speed). Recently I've been reading about Ilford's 100,400,3200 lineup in >Ilfotech DD-X developer and the consensus of the articles seems to prefer >Ilford. In particular, the October issue of the U.K Practical Photography >compares the films and the Ilford appears a bit sharper than T-MAX. On the >other hand the test setup used of all things a cheap zoom lens (albeit >stopped down and in the center). It seems to me that what I can see as >differences on the test shots are more due to focus, contrast and developing >differences than real film differences. Given that both are about the same >price etc, is there a real difference between the two? Is either sharper or >easier to work with, print etc? > >I would and plan to test the two myself but I fear that at this stage in my >regained darkroom experience and differences might be more due to my errors >than real differences. What do people with more experience think about >Delta/DD-X vs. T-MAX/T-MAX using sharp lenses with high local contrast? > >Jonathan Borden - -- christer almqvist eichenstrasse 57, d-20255 hamburg, fon +49-40-407111 fax +49-40-4908440 14 rue de la hauteur, f-50590 regnéville-sur-mer, fon+fax +33-233 45 35 58