B/W Film Contrast comparisons

[deecy]

I've apparently been laboring under a misconception. I picked up

a book on 35 mm photography yesterday in Barnes & Noble, and

leafing through it found a section on film choice.

The auther (forgot his name) said that slower B/W films are

generally more contrasty than faster ones: e.g. Kodak Pan. 100

has more contrast than 400 Tri X. He showed a series of prints

to prove it. Since I'm always looking for more contrast this was

good news to me. I've always shot TriX for this (erroneous)

reason.

Anybody know the most "contrasty" normal-range B/W film on the

market?

Thanks,

 

Tom

[__stu_evans]

Tech Pan in D76 is pretty far out there yet still pictorial - barely.

[lex_jenkins]

Thomas, prepare yourself for an onslaught of contradictory opinions - assuming anyone even has enough energy left over from the last discussion on this topic to hash it out again.

 

The gist of it is that, with few exceptions (and those related only marginally to film speed), if you examine the characteristics of each film you won't find much evidence to support claims that one film is inherently "contrastier" than another.

 

However some films do respond very differently to different developers. TMX seems to be one of those. I get very different results depending on which developer I use.

 

Tri-X, meanwhile, is usually pretty indifferent to developer types and still looks pretty much like Tri-X no matter how it's developed. One notable exception might be Diafine.

 

Now, just to add some spice to the broth, in my opinion Delta 3200 seems to be a fairly low contrast film. I would speculate that Ilford designed it this way knowing that an ultrafast film would normally be used in high contrast available light situations, such as stage lighting. Is this a fact, tho', or just my opinion based on experience and observation?

[buzz]

I once developed tech pan in d76, and it was black and white, all black and white, barely anything in between, now that is contrast.

[karl_almquist2]

I primarily shoot landscapes most of which are in the Southwest deserts and share your need for high contrast. IMHO film and deveoper choices are made to produce fine grain and high acuteness. I currently shoot Tmax 100 at ISO 100 and develope in Xtol at the recommended time and temperature. I then rely on the printing process and VC paper to produce the desired contrast. It works fine for me.

[robert_davis2]

You could always try lith film then you'll never ask for more contrast again-)

 

Contrast is a function of things like developer,time and the film. You can make a high contrast film have less contrast with enough effort and you can go the other way. It's not much use asking about film alone.

[johnreef]

"However some films do respond very differently to different developers. TMX seems to be one of those. I get very different results depending on which developer I use."

 

Lex, please breifly elaborate if you can on your statement regarding TMX.

 

Thanks.

[neal_wydra1]

Dear Tom,

 

From your post I assume you are printing on harder paper than you would prefer. Try adding some time to your developer (5%) and see if that allows you to print using a softer grade.

 

Neal Wydra

[StuartMoxham]

It is really difficult to say that one film may be more contrasty than another because of the fact that we vary the development time to suit our needs. But we can say the if we developed 10 different films in a say D76 1:1 for 9 mins then we would see that some films will have more contrast than others but only because we have not optimised the development time for each film. I also believe that some films can record a longer range of tone before the highlights block up and have no detail. Some films seem to be very tolerent of over exposure and even when the negs look very dense you can still produce a print with detail in the highlights it looks a little more grainy and may require a longer than usuall printing exposure. but for instance other films will tend to block up and no matter how much you try to print through the density the highlight have no detail and print as grey. I think this is what lead people to say that one film is more contrasty than another. Different films may also have different curves although we may develop them to have the same highlight density so the start and end points are the same some films have a steeper curve than others so while they may both print correctly on grade 2 paper with good shadow and highlight detail one may appear to have more separation in the mid tones and appear more punchy and the other may appear more dull this may also cause people to say one film has more contrast than the other. I can't really say if it has anything to do with a films speed but most will notice it between different films and I think that is what causes us to prefere one film over another and what gives films there diffent looks.

[stevoi]

After testing I found that in my process the Fuji Neopan have much more contrast than the Tri-x. At the moment I use only Neopan 400 in Rodinal 1+25 for 135 and 120 MF and like this combo very much.

[jim kerr]

Tom, I might as well get my shot in. For 35mm, I nearly always use Tri-X with XTOL(1:2). If I'm wanting a little extra snap I'll use HP-5+ also in XTOL(1:2)or develope Tri-X in HC-110B. If I'm really wanting contrast I get some High Contrast Copy out of the freezer. Really just kidding with the HCC, saving it for when I'm wanting super quality moon shots for double printing. Really,like someone else said,VC paper and dialed in filtration will get my Tri-X and HP-5+ negatives printed any way I need them....Jim

[jeff_drew4]

"got Contrast?" . . . try Lithographic films! . . . or Orthochromatics or even microfilms etc. HC110 developer is a good choice to build extra in from a developer side. If you like Tri-X, many do, try 2 rolls of the same scene - same lighting. Do 1 roll in HC110 and 1 roll in Microdol, following standard instructions, and compare the differences. Ooops! I almost forgot to add Agfa Scala to the above! . . . and there are other ways & means to more contrast.

[lex_jenkins]

John, my initial impression was that TMX responded very differently to various developers, especially in speed, based only on casual observation. Then I noticed a graph related to toe speed near the bottom of Michael Covington's website:

 

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

 

After that I decided to try a few developers (those that had produced the most different results in earlier tests) for extended times to see which appeared to produce more contrast. Based solely on casual observation it appeared that Rodinal was less likely to produce excessive contrast from overdevelopment. However I couldn't get any results that I liked from a purely aesthetic viewpoint with this combination.

 

ID-11 did appear to produce more contrast with longer development but I found this combination fairly difficult to control. It's very picky about time and temperature variations and perhaps agitation as well.

 

Microphen produced the best effective speed, good midtones, resists blown highlights when the film was either exposed in contrasty lighting or overdeveloped, is reasonably indifferent to time and temperature variations (tho' not so much as Diafine) and reasonably fine grain (considering that TMX has practically no grain).

[donald_miller1]

Efke 100 with ABC Pyro will get you out there

[Alan Johnson]

Some charts for Efke film are at jandcphoto.com then efke tech data.The Efke 25 reaches the highest contrast.As mentioned above in practice the development time used would be reduced to reduce contrast.

[lol1]

IMHO the author is correct. Slower films give greater contrast because the grains are of a more uniform size. With fast films there is more variation in grain size therefore they can cope with scenes containing a greater range of tones. Look at it this way: with a slow film you are better off photographing scenes with a lower range of tones if you want a normal contrast result. Lewis Baltz did some interesting landscapes about thirty years ago using Tech Pan, getting a high contrast, grain-free look, which could be what you're after.

[bueh]

Ilford Pan F plus 50 is quite contrasty in my eyes...

[lex_jenkins]

I haven't found Pan F+ to be particularly contrasty. It is a difficult film to work with but not, in my opinion, due to any inherent contrast problem.

 

For one thing, it's grainier than TMX which is virtually grainless. And its true speed is closer to 25. So I can't see any reason to use a slightly grainier, EI 25 film when I can get a true EI 100 and virtually no grain from TMX.

 

Also, it seems even pickier about exposure and development than TMX.

 

It's not a bad film. I've seen some really nice portraits done with Pan F+ and even taken a couple of casual portraits myself with it in available light.

 

And it's not by any means a duplicate of TMX or even similar to it.

 

With Pan F+ I was able to obtain some results very characteristic of Pan F+ in other conditions by developing it in Diafine and got a speed closer to 50. It also helped minimize blown highlights. The negative for this example shows a full range of tones.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1600223

 

These examples of TMX in Microphen retain the characteristic tonality of the film while making it rather easy to print a full range of tones from negatives exposed in very contrasty lighting. Many photographers say that TMX is an inherently contrasty film but I've found that with an appropriate developer and agitation method the film isn't much more difficult to work with than FP4+ or Plus-X.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1605880

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1596474