Solvent for fast films and accutance developers for slow? Silvergrain article

[andy_evans]

General recommendations from Silvergrain.org for film developing threw me for a loop.

The author walks through film and developer pairings and ends with two of his own

formulations. Check it out:

 

http://silvergrain.org/Photo-Tech/film-dev-recommend.html

 

1. I'm somewhat familiar with the difference between resolution and apparent sharpness

from Ansel Adam's The Camera. Suzuki writes:

 

"Most films currently sold give excellent resolution as well as high apparent sharpness

when processed in any of the standard fine grain developers. However, there are a few

(notably Kodak T-MAX 100) films that have extremely fine grain, excellent resolution yet

poor visual sharpness when processed in standard developers."

 

and

 

"In particular, HP5+ is a hungry film that is most comfortable with medium to high

concentration developers like D-76 at stock strength or 1+1 dilution. This film also has

inherently high accutance (despite limited resolution) and somewhat large grain. T-MAX

400 gives slightly higher resolution, but with a markedly different sensitometric curve with

low shadow contrast and high highlight contrast."

 

How can a t-grain 100 film exhibit poor sharpness and a conventional-grain 400 be quite

sharp? What does the hungry metaphor mean-- ie, what would HP5 look like developed if

'underfed' in a low concentration developer?

 

2. Suzuki's model for a fine-grain developer seems to be X-tol, and indeed, he

recommends it as the best commercial alternative to his formulation. And more. . .

 

"For accutance developer, Ilfosol-S is probably the best commercial product from major

manufacturers. However, some of the Paterson developers may also be suitable.

 

Surprise! Seems like Ilfosol gets a lot of flak in the forums (or a more qualified 'fine for

slow films and make sure it's fresh.' We use it in my school darkroom for convenient

mixing, and I'd be surprised if it beat the Paterson formulations. But hey, I haven't done

side-by-side tests.

 

It sure would be a treat if the Film Developing Cookbook got an update. I learned a lot

from that book, but it doesn't include Ilfosol or the DDX that Ilford generally recommends

for best image quality, or the recent Paterson 50, best of both worlds, fine grain +

accutance developer.

[conrad_hoffman]

IMO, Suzuki knows what he's talking about. It took me a long time to figure out how to develop TMX for satisfactory visual sharpness, in spite of its invisible grain and high resolution. OTOH, I've seen very impressive results from HP5 in FX2; in spite of the grain, the appearance of sharpness was second to none. I agree that an update of TFDC would be great, but it would be even better if it could include some support and test results for its many claims. IMO, much of it is based on materials no longer available, and differences in processing formulations produce more subtle results than they lead one to think.

[pics]

The terms sharpness and resolution are often confusing because many people consider them to be the same thing and use the phrases in an interchangable manner. In reality the are mutually exclusive. A fine grained film like T-Max 100 developed in a fine grain developer will have outstanding resolution but will appear to have very poor sharpness compared to a standard technology film like FP4+ that is developed in a high acutance developer. By its nature, acutance requires sharp grain in order to emphasize edge effects and the white/dark boundaries on a micro contrast level. TMAX 100 with its fine grain blurs these micro boundaries and although it resolves fine detail extremely well, the over all appearance of the image looks blurred and unsharp. You can favor either end of the spectrum or settle for a compromise between sharpness and fine grain but it is impossible to have the best of both worlds. I'll take acutance any day over resolution.

[andy_evans]

Thanks for your replies. Conrad, what developing routine did you come to for getting

results from TMX?

[conrad_hoffman]

If you can stand the grain penalty and don't want to mix something yourself, Rodinal is a good choice for TMX. Far better is FX37, that was formulated for t-grain films. Formula in TFDC. My guess is that some of the Paterson developers that Crawley also designed would do as well or maybe better, but I prefer to homebrew. There's a good discussion of the matter on page 61 of TFDC. My edition of the book has an error on the quantity of benzotriazole- it should be 5 ml of 1% solution, not 50 ml! Don't know if it was corrected in later editions or not.

[jordan_w.]

Ryuji's site is interesting. I'm not sure how much he reads photo.net anymore, but you might try e-mailing him with your question.

 

The point Daniel makes in his post is illustrated vividly in Barry Thornton's book "The Edge of Darkness", where the author compares prints of the same scene shot on Tech Pan and (I think) FP4 Plus.

[lex_jenkins]

IMO, the word "apparent" is always implied when the word "sharpness" is used. It's highly subjective because sharpness has no standard definition and is a combination of various factors that have generally well accepted definitions.

 

I think TMX is a very "sharp" film, which is why I prefer it for landscapes and architecture. But those are inherently detailed subjects and I'd rather not risk extra grain to obtain the perception of additional sharpness.

 

Also, I don't see the point of using a developer that defeats the purpose of a film with extremely fine grain. So I don't care for TMX in acutance developers such as Rodinal, altho' TMX is among the few films that works well in Ilfosol-S, which is best suited for slower films.

 

TMX delivers excellent results in ID-11, altho' I find it easier to get similar results from this film in Microphen, which is what I use more often. Also, Microphen delivers the full nominal speed of every film I've tried it with.

 

When read in context the remarks about TMX on the page to which you refer don't differ all that much from my own. But because of the highly subjective nature of b&w photography most of us express ourselves differently and use terms that aren't always precise - probably in an effort to avoid yet another dry, dull technical treatise.

 

BTW, *does* Ilford recommend DDX as an all purpose developer for best image quality? It's been a while since I've read their PDFs but as I recall they simply suggested it as *one* of many developers, generally a good choice for a compromise between speed, fine grain, etc.

[pics]

Jordan W. , dec 11, 2005; 11:41 p.m.

Ryuji's site is interesting. I'm not sure how much he reads photo.net anymore, but you might try e-mailing him with your question.

The point Daniel makes in his post is illustrated vividly in Barry Thornton's book "The Edge of Darkness", where the author compares prints of the same scene shot on Tech Pan and (I think) FP4 Plus.

 

Jordan,

I think Barry Thornton's book is excellent and I recommend it every chance I get. I did an experiment somewhat similar to his own. Lets say you shoot 2 identical scenes. One is shot on Tmax100 and developed for low grain/ high resolution in stock D-76 or Xtol. The other is shot on a conventional grain film like FP4+ or Plus-X and developed for medium grain/high acutance in D-76 (1+3) or Acutol. I did this and showed the prints to several people. Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of people said that the FP4+ developed for high acutance was a sharper photograph than the TMAX shot. This convinced me to abandon the fine grain/high resolution fetish and I almost never use films like Tmax, Tech pan or PanF anymore. The slight increase in grain seems masked in a sense by the more sharply defined edges of detail. Also, Plus-X and FP4+ aren't exactly coarse grain films in their own right. True, if you put the Tmax shot under a microscope it will show more detail but I've never seen the sense of viewing a photo like that. Also, very fine grained films can be a chore to print at times due to contrast issues which made it all the easier for me to stop using them. Of course its a personal preference with no right or wrong answer. I'd suggest people do a similar test of their own. You may be suprised by what you find.