What drew my brother to the 'old' Kodak TMax 400?

<p>My brother worked as a photojournalist in the 1980s and '90s. Interviewed in a local newspaper in November 1991, he declared a preference for Kodak TMax film. Sure enough, looking through the few surviving negatives, I found most of these to be marked '5053 TMY' in the rebate: TMax 400.</p>

<p>I'm aware that TMax 400 changed in October 2007. I've read that version 2 produces sharper images.</p>

<p>Among those of you familiar with the 'old' TMax 400, I'd like to ask: what do you think might have drawn my brother to this film? I understand that a faster film might have suited a newspaper photographer, but why TMax 400? Also, how was the old TMY viewed more widely back when my brother was taking photographs?</p>

<p>I attach an unretouched scan of one of Bruce's exclusives, shot with TMax 400 in January 1990.</p><div></div>

<p>Less grain then Tri-X of the time, a more linear H-D curve, wide dynamic range, lots of control over contrast in processing. Also very pushable.</p>

<p>TMAX films could be finicky to process, but this finickiness usually meant that they responded noticeably to changes in developing.</p>

<p>Thanks for these responses.</p>

<p>John, I'm still struggling with the characteristic curve. Does a linear curve mean that negative density is more predictable over a range of exposures? As regards dynamic range, does this mean tone range?</p>

<p>Mike, when you say finicky to process, does this mean that there is little margin for error with developing times?</p>

<p>When I started working for newspapers in the mid-1970s, Tri-X was the standard film and had been for probabably 10 years or more. At 400, it was the fastest normal film available, and speed was more important to a news photographer than grain since grain would be hidden in newspaper printing anyhow. It was the standard film used every day by every news photographer I knew. Nobody ever shot anything slower, and if you needed something faster you pushed your Tri-X.<br /><br />The only exception to this was that some people would shoot Ilford HP5, which was for all practical purposes the same thing, and sometimes Fuji 400 speed film (I forget the name). The reason, however, was usually that the newspaper got a good deal on these as opposed to any preference on the part of the photographer. (I am in the U.S.; I assume Ilford or Agfa might have been the dominant film in Europe and Fuji in Asia.)<br /><br />When Tmax came out in the 80s, a lot of photographers began to switch to it because it had finer grain. And as John says maybe it pushed better. I really don't think the curve was a factor -- contrast and such could be controlled in printing. Responding better to changes in processing was probably considered a "finicky" problem than something to be desired, since newspaper processing was pretty standardized other than pushing. News photographers pretty much used D-76 or HC-110 (and later the Tmax developer). They were too busy on deadline to have time to play with subtle differences of one developer over the other for a particlular picture.<br /><br />I seriously doubt that your brother was "drawn" to Tmax. By the time he started working in news, it had largely replaced Tri-X for most photographers. It may simply have been what he grew up on, so to speek, just as older photographers like me had grown up on Tri-X. Or it may have been what his newspaper supplied. If he was speaking in terms of Tmax v Tri-X he might have preferred it for the finer grain, etc.<br /><br />Since the photo you posted shows what appear to be British police officers, I'm assuming that's where your brother worked. As I mentioned earlier, HP5 was the Ilford equivalent to Tri-X. And Ilford came out with its Delta series of film including Delta 400, at the same time Kodak came out with Tmax, and they were equivalent to Tmax. So it's interesting that he was using Kodak film if he was in England. That might have been simply Kodak's dominance in the world film market even in Ilford's backyard. Or maybe a British paper got a better deal from Kodak trying to penetrate the British market than they did from Ilford, just as Ilford might have given a better deal to U.S. papers trying to penetrate the U.S. market.<br /><br />As for the changes from old Tmax to new Tmax, probably irrelevant. Both Tri-X and Tmax have seen minor tweaks over the years, as have the Ilford films. Photographers were either Tri X fans or Tmax fans. And once Kodak made the changes in each, the supplies of the old versions ran out pretty quickly so it wasn't like you had any choice between new and old versions.</p>

<p>I liked TMY at that time. - I had shot HP5 (without the "+"!) before, tried ORWO NP 27 too and dabbled with XP1. - I never shot TriX yet.<br>

Grain wise the ORWO seemed twice as bad than HP5, close to unusable IMHO. HP5 seemed OK for a not too demanding 8x10" from 35mm at default speed and took 2 stops of push processing, at a price though. XP1 looked better grain wise but required c41 processing, which I tried at home but wasn't too pleased with the results. - No clue what I goofed up back then but the consequence was obvious: Stick to TMY which provided smilar absence of grain and appeared pushable to ISO 1600. - I didn't manage to really push the XP1.<br>

I did use delta 400 too but can't tell the difference between it and TMY. <br>

Summary: if you wanted fast film you were quite limited back then. - I believe TriX was comparably expensive so I did not care about it. - Most folks ravishing about it seem to expose it as ISO320, so it isn't really "fast" either. <br>

Conventional films might have a more pleasant tonality and some folks apparently love their grain stuctures too. - The local newspaper bought HP5 for their staff but that was probably an economically dictated decission, since HP5 was a few % cheaper and newspapers don't need very high resolution / big grainless print sizes for the pictures they are publishing. <br>

TMZ was around too and did cost a tad more than TMY. it provided an extra f-stop of speed but grain turned "cruel" on 8x10"s from 35mm again.<br>

I ended loading my TLRs with TMY 120 and pushing it. - That way I had enough speed to use filters handheld on dull days and a bit of DOF or bouncing the flash to my hearts content doesn't harm either. - Image quality appeared absolutely pleasant in my eyes. - I didn't print large but of course cropped a bit once in a while (still talking 8x10"s).<br>

A while after T-Max Ilford offered the Delta films. - I shot some but honestly can't tell the exact difference besides the obvious Delta 3200 120, while TMZ was only sold as 135. <br>

To analyze your brother: I think he must have been a photographer more than "the professional", who gets the job done good enough & as cheaply as possible. That would explain picking the slightly more expensive film, to get the best results also sellable / printable at a slightly bigger size than newspapers might have required.<br>

Back then it was common to pick some film paper etc, get used to them and stick to these as long as possible. - Knowing your materials was kind of crucial to consistently get decent results. - Of course you can jump through hoops, to print from a less than ideally exposed and processed neg too, but thats surplus hassle. - A home printing journalist would most likely have avoided experimenting with a lot of different films and developers. <br>

I know little about Agfa films. They had lodst market share against Ilford and Kodak in Germany in the 80s. - I suppose APP 400 was more push resistant than the other two? - It seems only less light needing folks than journalists used the slightly less expensive Agfa material.</p>

<p>Film choices were not quite so limited. Agfa b&w films had poor distribution in the U.S. but they were possible to get. I used 2475, also known as Recording Film. It's actual sensitivity was more than twice that of Tri-X. I shot it at 1250 but also pushed it in various developers. It was grainy but had better shadow detail than pushed Tri-X. My best results pushing Tri-X came from rating it at 1250 and developing it in undiluted ethol UFG. In those days I replenished my UFG. There was also 2484 but that film had to be bulk loaded. I liked it. If I could get an image with my 57/1.4 Konica Hexanon without using a flash I tried it, no matter how low the light level.</p>

<p>I'm just loving that old Ford Granada, it brings back fond memories :-)</p>

<p>Yes, Craig, my brother worked for a local newspaper in the South of England, mostly on a freelance basis, briefly as staff.</p>

<p>For a couple of years, before he took up photojournalism, he worked exclusively as an art photographer, and put on exhibitions of B/W work. At that time, I'm sure he used only Ilford film. He definitely used FP4 and probably HP5. I remember he used to bulk load it.</p>

<p>The complication is that Bruce continued to produce art work, ie stuff that had little or no news content, alongside the newspaper work. When on a story he'd be constantly on the look out for other things that might please him. Unusually for a press man, he spent a lot of time in the newspaper's darkroom and was allowed to process his private work there (or perhaps the management turned a blind eye). Between that and the pub, I'm not quite sure how he ever attended a story.</p>

<p>What you say about choosing TMax because the paper supplied it makes sense, with the rider that Bruce knew that newspaper work and other stuff shot with TMax might be offered as a present (I knew what I was going to get for Christmas) or make it to exhibition, and therefore be blown up to 12"x16". I assume that TMax v1, like the present version, would have been less grainy than HP5, and so more suited to bigger enlargements. Might it be, then, that, rather than loading two camera bodies with two different types of film, one for newspaper work, one for art work, Bruce chose a film which could do both jobs adequately?</p>

 

<p>Jochen, I read your words after I'd replied to Craig, and I think what you say ties in quite nicely, seeming to confirm that grain size would have been an issue for my brother, especially as he only ever shot 35mm.</p>

<p>I'm interested in what you say about my brother being somebody who wanted to do more than just get the job done. I'd like to think that you are right. I felt that local newspaper work was an odd choice for him, in that he was often attracted to the bizarre and the surreal. He expressed frustration at times when his prints were heavily cropped or something 'off the wall' was rejected on the grounds of suitability.</p>

 

<p>As a newspaper photographer, he almost certainly would have carried two camera bodies. But one would be for one lens and one for another lens, not for different films. So if he also did fine art work, the finer grrain of Tmax over HP5 would definitely have made sense if he wanted to use just one film for everything. And Kodak came out with Tmax slightly before Ilford came out with Delta if my memory is correct. So he might have chosen Tmax over HP5 as a film that would suit both newspaper and fine art work, assuming he was buying his own film. And if the newspaper was supplying it, it would probably have made him happy.<br /><br />As for pictures being heavily cropped, that's just part of newspaper life. At a newspaper, cropping is the editor's decision (or layout person/designer), not the photographer's decision. It's a matter of what fits the space where the picture has to go. We generally printed full frame so the layout/design people had maximum flexibility in making a picture fit.</p>