Teach Me About TriX / TMY , Please

[jan2]

Hi

I'm a beginner in B&W photography. Could Anyone tell me how good and bad of TriX / TMY (135 format) in comparision ? I apologize that I've to learn from your experience and thanks for your help.

[michael_goldfarb1]

Jan - I'm hardly the ideal person to respond, as I've done hundreds

of rolls of Tri-X and only one of T-Max 400, but I seem to be the

first...

 

<p>

 

If you're a beginner, you should definitely start out with TX over

TMY. Don't take this the wrong way, but TX is nearly idiot-proof. You

can overexpose or underexpose by two stops, overdevelop or

underdevelop by two minutes, overagitate or underagitate during

development, get your developing solution temperatures a bit off from

each other, rate the film at the wrong speed when shooting... And you

will nearly always get beautiful (or at least, darn good) results.

 

<p>

 

TMY is much more tempermental than TX regarding details of exposure

and development and - although this is a minority POV - I don't think

that the (slightly) finer grain and higher sharpness/resolution it

provides is worth the trouble. Good old Tri-X, developed in good old

D-76 (1:1, 10 minutes at 68 degrees), is still a wonderful

combination, producing prints that are acceptably sharp with

reasonable grain up to 8x10 from 35mm negs. And TX has a wonderful,

slightly old-fashioned look that's great for most subjects. It's

great stuff.

 

<p>

 

Anyway, personally I don't bother with TMY. When I need finer

grain/higher resolution, I go with Plus-X or T-Max 100, both of which

work far better for me than TMY. (I also like Agfapan 100 A LOT.)

Obviously, YOU have to find out for YOURSELF what works best for YOU,

but if you're just starting out, Tri-X is a far better place to start

than T-Max 400, IMHO...

[bill_osterman]

How many times have I heard people say that TMY is a difficult film

to work with? That has simply not been my experience. I do hand held

street photography and I want as much film speed as I can get without

excessive grain. I used TRI-X (with D-76) for many years and got

excellent results. However I found that I really couldn't rate the

film at a higher EI than 250 without sacrificing good shadow detail;

so, about two years ago, I began working with T-Max 400 and XTOL

developer @ 1:1. I found that I could easily get an EI of 400 and

finer grain than with TRI-X. As far as difficulty of use goes, all

you need is to do is exercise reasonable care in exposing the film

and developing it and you will get very consistent results. It really

doesn't require anything that the average darkroom practicioner can't

achieve with just reasonable attention to time, temperature and

agitation. Try it. You will be delighted with the result.

[james___]

Man that is one damn thin emulsion. With D-76 at least. I'll have to

break down and try it with extol. I have to rate it at 200 to get

decent shadow details and my meter jibes with most in camera meters

around me. I shoot sheets though. With rotory processing. Gosh! I

never thought I would be saying that. But the two tmax emulsions are

thin every time I use them. A lot of people love the stuff. I shoot

landscapes printing at 11x14 normally and tri X isn't any less grainy

than either T-max emulsion. I just like the TMY because it gives me a

higher speed than Tri X (ISO 200). I'll try Extol. Thanks. James