Tmax 100 versus APX 100

"Tom Phillips" wrote in message
...


Gregory Blank wrote:

In article ,
Tom Phillips wrote:

BTW, this is my last response. Enjoy it

To everyone? Or just JJS?

Sorry. I only momentarily had a relapse and replied
to stafford. Don't know what got into me

Tom cannot tolerate rational discourse. Leave him be. I don't killfile his
posts because they serve so well for philosophy courses on aberrant
thinking. He's the classic case.

"Tom Phillips" wrote in message
...


Gregory Blank wrote:

In article ,
Tom Phillips wrote:

BTW, this is my last response. Enjoy it

To everyone? Or just JJS?

Sorry. I only momentarily had a relapse and replied
to stafford. Don't know what got into me

Tom cannot tolerate rational discourse. Leave him be. I don't killfile his
posts because they serve so well for philosophy courses on aberrant
thinking. He's the classic case.

"Tom Phillips" wrote in message
...


Gregory Blank wrote:

In article ,
Tom Phillips wrote:

BTW, this is my last response. Enjoy it

To everyone? Or just JJS?

Sorry. I only momentarily had a relapse and replied
to stafford. Don't know what got into me

Tom cannot tolerate rational discourse. Leave him be. I don't killfile his
posts because they serve so well for philosophy courses on aberrant
thinking. He's the classic case.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:37:09 -0600, Peter De Smidt
pdesmidt*no*spam*@tds.*net* wrote:

Matthew McGrattan wrote:

I'll primarily be shooting 35mm and the negatives will mostly be
scanned for web-use.

snip

I don't mind a bit of grain as long it has a nice 'look'.


Hi Matt,

In my limited experience, scanning BW film makes the grain of the film
significantly more noticable than if the negative is printed normally.
Hence you might want to stick with a fine-grained film and use D76 or
Xtol as the developer. You might also experiment with developing
somewhat less than for standard silver printing. Paul Butzi has some
comments on this which you can read at www.butzi.net. Look under the
'articles' section.

You might also consider Ilford XP2 Super film, which scans very well in
my experience, plus at EI 200 it's very fine grained.


I use XP-2 quite a bit, I also really like the Fuji Neopan 400CN which
I've found to be slightly better than XP-2 [although i gather both
are made by Ilford]. Both scan really nicely.

The move to using more traditional rather than C-41 process films is
partly for reasons of cost - I can buy a roll of traditional black and
white film AND process it myself for about 50% of the cheapest
processing I can get for the XP-2 and that doesn't include the cost of
the XP-2 itself.[although the processing on the XP-2 would include 6x4
prints].

If I am shooting and just messing around experimenting then it's
cheaper to develop myself and scan -- and if anything comes out well
pay for a print for just that single image.

Another reason for using non-C-41 film is that there's a much wider
variety of speeds availabe -- from iso 25 all the way through to 3200.

I still use the C-41 films a fair bit and if I am shooting a roll
where I expect to have a lot of prints for family, or similar, then
I'd just use XP2.

Matt

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:37:09 -0600, Peter De Smidt
pdesmidt*no*spam*@tds.*net* wrote:

Matthew McGrattan wrote:

I'll primarily be shooting 35mm and the negatives will mostly be
scanned for web-use.

snip

I don't mind a bit of grain as long it has a nice 'look'.


Hi Matt,

In my limited experience, scanning BW film makes the grain of the film
significantly more noticable than if the negative is printed normally.
Hence you might want to stick with a fine-grained film and use D76 or
Xtol as the developer. You might also experiment with developing
somewhat less than for standard silver printing. Paul Butzi has some
comments on this which you can read at www.butzi.net. Look under the
'articles' section.

You might also consider Ilford XP2 Super film, which scans very well in
my experience, plus at EI 200 it's very fine grained.


I use XP-2 quite a bit, I also really like the Fuji Neopan 400CN which
I've found to be slightly better than XP-2 [although i gather both
are made by Ilford]. Both scan really nicely.

The move to using more traditional rather than C-41 process films is
partly for reasons of cost - I can buy a roll of traditional black and
white film AND process it myself for about 50% of the cheapest
processing I can get for the XP-2 and that doesn't include the cost of
the XP-2 itself.[although the processing on the XP-2 would include 6x4
prints].

If I am shooting and just messing around experimenting then it's
cheaper to develop myself and scan -- and if anything comes out well
pay for a print for just that single image.

Another reason for using non-C-41 film is that there's a much wider
variety of speeds availabe -- from iso 25 all the way through to 3200.

I still use the C-41 films a fair bit and if I am shooting a roll
where I expect to have a lot of prints for family, or similar, then
I'd just use XP2.

Matt

"Matthew McGrattan" wrote
in message
...
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:05:56 -0500, Jean-David Beyer
wrote:

Matthew McGrattan wrote:
I'm about to order some 100 asa film -- I usually shoot
400 asa or 50
asa films so I'm not that familiar with the various
options at 100.

Would people recommend Tmax 100 or Agfa APX at the same
speed?

I'll probably be using Rodinal initially but I'm open to
other
developer suggestions.

Any other 100 asa brand that people like -- some of the
smaller ones
like Foma, Efke or Maco?

You did say what size film you will be using.

When I was shooting mostly 35mm, I was using mostly Tri-X,
and found
Rodinal too grainy for my taste. For a film like that, I
found D-76d and
HC-110 (dilution B) to be about the best.


I'll largely be using 35mm although I do shoot 120.
However, 120 I
usually have processed by a lab rather than doing it
myself.

Matt

If you do your own 35mm all you need for 120 is a
suitable tank. There are many available used. I happen to
prefer the stainless steel type but that is personal. If you
look for old Nikor tanks make sure the lids fit the tanks
and the caps fit the lids, they were sized individually.

Rodinal is a useful developer but is grainier than most
others. Both 100T-Max and APX-100 work well in D-76 diluted
1:1. T-Max films require closer control of development time,
temperature, and agitation than non tabular grain films. For
instance, to change contrast one paper grade requires about
33% change in development time for most films but only about
20% for T-Max films. Of course both temperature and
agitation are equally more sensitive to variation. I think
this is one reason people have trouble with these films.
APX-100 has very nice tonal quality. Its a good film in
120 and was a favorite in sheet sizes until it was
discontinued. Its hard to describe the difference in tonal
rendition between films unless its pretty large. I suggest
trying some of each.
Because the ISO standard yields the minimum exposure for
good shadow detail its safe to increase exposure somewhat.
Most B&W films have great tollerance to overexposure. Also,
the speed varies a little with the developer. The ISO
standard allows any developer to be used in the measurements
but requires it to be stated with the speed. This is often
not done. Total variation among developers is not large.
Microdol-X at full strength loses about 3/4 stop compared to
D-76, Some Phenidone developers, notably the T-Max
developers, Xtol, Microphen, increase speed by about 3/4
stop. At D-76 speeds there is usually enough latitude to
accomodate these changes. Many films will give you a little
better shadow detail with about a stop more exposure but the
highlights may become a bit dense. Also, depending on the
characteristic curve of the film the contrast index may vary
a little with exposure. Sometimes increasing exposure has
the effect of increasing contrast a bit. There are no
general rules for this, you really have to test the film to
see what it does.
Other things can affect results. For instance, I've
recently been evaluating Plus-X since someone asked me about
it. I have one roll of very good negatives from a Rolleiflex
2.8E and another roll of not so good negatives from a
Calumet roll holder used in a Super-D Graflex for some
outdoor portraits. I haven't quite figured out what went
wrong with the Graflex negatives. BTW, Plus-X seems to
respond nicely to a No.8 (old Wratten K-2) filter outdoors.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:30:03 GMT, Gregory Blank wrote:


David N has been in my kill file so long
I almost gladly have forgotten who the hell, he is :-D

Same here. I have no patience for adult adolescents.


John - http://www.puresilver.org

"Are you planning on accepting the new definition of photography?" - Frank
"Just as soon as humanity accepts a new definition of the term humanity." - John

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:30:03 GMT, Gregory Blank wrote:


David N has been in my kill file so long
I almost gladly have forgotten who the hell, he is :-D

Same here. I have no patience for adult adolescents.


John - http://www.puresilver.org

"Are you planning on accepting the new definition of photography?" - Frank
"Just as soon as humanity accepts a new definition of the term humanity." - John