Re: [Leica] All hail Tri-X

["Mike Durling" <durling@widomaker.com>]

Ok, Tri-X is wonderful stuff.  Is it my imagination that it is much finer
grained than the stuff from years ago?  I hadn't done much black and white
for a few years but have taken it up again and have gotten back into the
darkroom.  I'm souping everything in Xtol and my Tri-X pictures are much
finer grained than my old stuff.  The grain structure is still the same but
you only see it on smoothly textured areas.  Is it the film or developer?

Mike D

- -----Original Message-----
From: Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Thursday, December 30, 1999 9:16 PM
Subject: [Leica] All hail Tri-X


>Dan S.: >>>>
>Tri-X is also remarkably resistent to emulsion scratches, dust and other
>
>pain in-the-butt accidents that can really ruin your day.
>
>Shoot a roll of Tri-X, and a roll of T-max400.  I'll just bet you'll
>have
>more specs other oddities with the Tmax.
><<<<
>
>True. AND it matches up well (or superbly) with a wide variety of
>developers and processing chemicals, is very forgiving of exposure
>errors and development errors, and offers good speed and very good
>resolution for its speed. Because it lends itself to good edge effects,
>it can look subjectively sharper than other finer-grained and
>smaller-grained films.
>
>Its BEST quality, though, its its tonality. There's almost no mistaking
>Tri-X prints. They can have a tonal beauty that is most remarkable. In
>my opinion, tonality or gradation, although discussed relatively
>infrequently (if ever), is a more important property of black-and-white
>prints than ANY OTHER SINGLE PROPERTY. And the curves it yields at
>normal development times match up very usefully with the highlight
>contrast of many of the better VC papers.
>
>If you go look at my prints in the "Collector Print Offer" this issue
>(got to www.phototechmag.com, click on "Collector Prints" at the bottom
>of the page, then click on my name), only one of those four prints was
>taken with a Leica lens, and only one was taken with Tri-X. And believe
>it or not, that one shows the best resolution of any of the four prints!
>
>And it does this without the need for altering its spectral response
>with colored filters, once considered necessary even with most
>panchromatic films. The other three pictures were taken with a K2
>(Wrattan #8) filter.
>
>One final felicity: since the advent of the T-Max films, Kodak has
>stopped tweaking TX. It's the same now, year-in, year-out.
>
>Oh, no, one more: because it's still a best-seller, it's very unlikely
>to be discontinued, at least for years and years.
>
>
>>>>All hail Tri-X....<<<
>
>I'm with that. Hip, hip...!
>
>
>--Mike J. / _PHOTO Techniques_ magazine
>
>
>