negative contrast

[mtk]

Having a problem with neg contrast on my 120 negs. I use a Mamiya

M645, with 80mm normal lens with a handheld light meter. I am

assuming correct exposure times with the camera and am reasonably

confident camera shutter speeds are mechanically correct. Use sunny

16 rule when not using meter. Using tripod and cable release as

needed. Shooting with Tmax100 using D76 at recommended times. My

negatives always seem "thin" and not much contrast. By comparason, I

use TriX 35 with my Maxxum 600si at recommended exposure/development.

Am almost always assured of nice contrasty negs. This problem seems

to be consistant and very frustrating. I have posted this question

before some time ago, and received many replies, but I still can't

nail it. Are 120 negs typically thinner by nature? So when I go to

print the 120 negs, my prints have no "pop" to them. I only shoot a

dozen rolls a year or so, I'm not quite sure what to expect. I shoot

several hundred rolls of 35 film a year, and hardly ever have any

issues. I'm not sure if this is enough info to get some opinions,

but it is a start. Thanks again...Mark

[jimvanson]

Sounds to me as if you've nailed your TriX exposure and development times.<P>Now I suggest you add 15 percent to the time your developing your TMax for.<P>Try that for 3 or 4 rolls under varying lighting conditions. Then readjust if necessary.<P>Just out of curiosity do the meters in your M645 and your Maxxum 600 jive?

[rick_jones5]

First, thin negatives can result from underexposure or underdevelopment. Until you learn to identify the difference you may never "nail" it. Second, at this point stop thinking in terms of RECOMMENDED exposure and development. Recommended ain't working. Do your Tmax negatives print with adequate shadow detail? No - well start by halving your ISO. I shoot my film at the EI which gives me the thinnest negative with full rich shadows. If I had to set my exposure meter at 10 to get that result it wouldn't bother me a bit. Once you are sure of adequate exposure and your prints still lack adequate contrast, start extending development times. With Tmax I would probably start by extending times by 15% letting my prints guide me as to how long is long enough. If this approach doesn't get you in the ball park pretty quickly then their are other issues lurking but let's not go there yet. So as I said stop thinking RECOMMENDED and start thinking WHAT WORKS! Incidently, I feel very uncomfortable making any suggestions to someone who shoots several hundred rolls of 35mm film a year so if I'm boring you I understand.

[jorge_oliveira2]

My experience with TMX is that they shall look thin, since there's a big tendency to blow higkights, and thin negs avoid that.

 

Print the negs first, then, if they do not print right, increase dev times. And I would try to use the dev at 1+3, so there could be some highlight compensation.

[lex_jenkins]

If you continue to find yourself struggling with TMX try it with Microphen. I also struggled trying to get consistently good results with TMX from ID-11 and never could get results I liked from Rodinal, Diafine or other developers with TMX.

 

Microphen lets you fully develop TMX with less worry about blown highlights, and gives you more leeway in exposure. Since I was already using it for push processing other films and it happened to work so well with TMX, I simply phased ID-11 out of my darkroom in favor of one-shot developers (other than Microphen, which I typically use as straight stock solution and reuse several times).

 

Here's an example, taken on an extremely bright, contrasty day:

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1596474&size=lg

 

Besides the extreme contrast already present in the situation I added a Rollei Orange filter to beef up the tone in the blue sky. The jpeg is a scan of a straight, unmanipulated print on RC paper. It may not be everyone's cup of java - not everyone cares for TMX - but it's from the roll that persuaded me to keep using the film for certain applications.

[tim_curry]

Sounds like reading up on film testing would be a good place to start. You can't expect to get good exposures every time without doing the tests first.

[scott_esposito]

For film testing, check Ansel Adams' The Print.

 

Also, I wouldn't soup TMAX in D-76. I hated the grain, the fine detail wasn't there, and the highlights seemed to block up.