Simple Question: Tmax 3200@1600; How To Develop AND Print?

[zachary]

<b>Situation:</B>I am planning on shooting Tmax 3200 @ 1600 on

Sunday. I want to develop as soon as possible that's why I am asking

this today. I am planning on having it developed at a local amateuer-

pro lab. They use Tmax chemistry. <b>Question:</B>What should I tell

them to develop it at? The pics will be of a wedding with a lot of

black and white and I would like a fairly low-contrast print. If I

tell them I shot it at 1600 will the negatives be too thin? Should I

tell them to develop normally? I have never developed anything

myslelf, so I don't know if that's the best idea. (BTW how much would

it cost to buy equipment so I could develop this in my bathroom in

the future?)<P><P>P.S. Has anyone ever had luck printing this on a

Frontier? If so what paper? How do you print your tmax

3200<P><P>Thanks for the help.<P>--ZAch

[gareth_harper]

Everybody works out their own dev times at the end of the day.

What you could do is to ask the lab to do a test strip. This will cost a little more but it will ensure that you get good negs (assuming you are consistant in your exposure of film).

I split grade print Ilford 3200 on Ilford MGIV or warmtone RC papers. I've used it at 3200 and 6400. You could aslo consider HP5 or TRI-X pushed two stops.

See, film delelopment -- shopping help needed by James Mitchell below for what you need to do your own dev.

 

Bare in mind that if these shots are important to you, it's not exactly the best time to start experimenting with a new film.

[crackers_.]

Yesterday, Al Kaplan took the time to give you a real world, workable answer. With 48 hours to go you still have exposure spaghetti. Use the 3200 with 1600 on the meter and write, in magic marker, 1600 on the cassette. Be sure they absolutely understand that it's traditional B+W and they will develop it the way it's supposed to be.

[ed farmer - mount laurel,]

One suggestion is to talk to the lab and ask them how they have been successful with this film in the past. I expect that you will get better results at 1000 than 1600, but it really depends on what you are looking for.

 

If you want to process your own film only (and I would recommend this) you can do it very inexpensively. A good processing tank is only about $20 and the chemistry and storage bottles will not cost much more. Even if you have someone else do your printing, this will let you control the film processing (very important in B&W) to get the print results you want.

 

Just a warning though: I doubt that you will get very good B&W from any general purpose lab. You should look into renting time in a darkroom and learning to print yourself, or plan on spending a lot of money on custom prints from a dedicated B&W lab.

[al_kaplan1]

Zach, it's noon Friday already. Shoot a roll of film, take it to the lab, get it developed and see what it looks like. You could even just stop by the lab you're using and discuss it with them, which film to use, what to expose it at. They're the ones that are going to have to print the stuff. They don't want you screaming at them if your photos look like crap.

 

Next week you should shoot a few rolls of infra red film, and play with that until you really know what you're doing. Don't wait until a couple days before you're going to shoot some at an outdoor wedding. It's quite popular, you know.

 

Most people want to know a film inside out and backwards before they'd chance using it on an assignment for money. A wedding is very special. There's no chance of a reshoot. You gotta do it right the first time!

[bernhard]

Ask the lab about their experience with this film. If they don't have any I'd consider using a different lab. If they are however nice and forthcoming and you can talk to the actual guy doing the processing you could maybe risk doing the following: Shoot @1600, check the dev times for their developer (Tmax or Tmax RS ???) and tell the guy: "I want it processed for A minutes in developer B at C degrees. If you have any doubts about them doing ot right, get the film somewhere else, develop yourself or shoot C-41.

[zachary]

Hi everyone,<P><P>Thanks for the fast responses so far! <P><P>I use this film all the time, just I usually rate it at 3200. Also, I am not the professional at the wedding, I am merely shooting for personal tatse so this is almost like practice anyways.<P><P>Al, I live in Miami Beach, FL, do you recommend any labs down here.<P>Thanks and have a nice weekend!<P><P>--ZAch

[crackers_.]

Yea. Al's Place.

[zachary]

where's that?

[scott_eaton]

If you have access to a Fuji Frontier, using a 1600 speed print film and having greyscale prints made will yield smoother prints with less contrast than TMZ with less grain.

 

I also disagree with the suggestions to tell the lab how to process the film. An experienced B/W lab (if you can find one) should tell you to 'bugger off' when you tell them what process time to use. To them it's either 'push, pull or standard' processing, and pay accordingly. A lab that's wishy washy on this is is one I'd be fearfull of using.

[johnmyers]

zach, about developing on your own...it is very cheap, depending on what you want to do. if you have a negative film/slide scanner and don't need to do your own darkroom printing right NOW, it is incredibly cheap. all you need is a light tight changing bag (~$20), a reel tank (jobo makes a good one at ~$20), chemicals (all really very cheap, depending of course...probably under $20 for them all, depending on how much you want), some containers to store them in (just sealed/air-tight plastic containers will do fine, as long as you use the chemicals up within a couple of months), some graduated cylinders (cheap plastic ones from b&hphotovideo.com work just fine), and a thermometer (Weston (sp?) makes a very fast and accurate one for around $20 or $30, i believe), a stopwatch, and a bottlecap opener to pull off the end of the film canister to get the film out (that's so you can load the film onto the reel tank, obviously), then you just need clips to hang the negs to dry, and sleeves to store the negs in once they are dry. i believe that is all. so basically, you can get it done for around $100, maybe more, maybe less. all dependant upon where you shop.