"Figital" stands for the fusion of film and digital photographic techniques. Founded in 2006 by artist, innovator and master printmaker Stephen Schaub, Figital Revolution brings reviews, advice, and commentary to photographers who want the real scoop on the possibilities of the photographic medium.
Double-X is still basically the same emulsion as when it first came out. It’s quite close to that original Tri-X and has that slightly better, silvery tonal reproduction you’re thinking about.
@@FIGITALREVOLUTION Do you mean CineStill BWXX? Because I can get some hand rolled Double-X for a little less than what Tri-X costs. I’m sure somebody is doing that in the US too. Or you can always do it yourself if bulk rolling is your thing.
Yep. There are cheaper options for all bulk rolled films but direct from manufacturers is a more expensive cost but an amazing film- and it comes in 120 which I love!
Super neat! I found an untested Pentax Auto 110 a few weeks ago for $40, here in Minneapolis untested at an antique shop. I'm so addicted to 110 photography now, it's so much fun to throw in my pocket and take random photos wherever I'm traveling that particular day. I've ran a couple rolls through it and finally got my scanner setup for it perfectly. It's working fine. Pretty cool read BTW too!
@@FIGITALREVOLUTION Yes, and there seems to be a not really exact correlation between the differences in posted times for the two. And some of the listed times seem like they could. suspect.
Here are my times for 400TX and D96 for reference-- D96 Processing 400TX JOBO Rot 3.5 5 min Pre-wet EI 400. Stock 20C for 8 min-- EI 800. Stock 20C for 11 min 15 sec EI 1600. Stock 20C for 14 min 45 seconds EI 3200. Stock 20 C for 21 min Add 20 seconds per processed roll. 16 rolls max. Use within 2 months of mixing.
I wish Kodak would bring back the old Portra line, especially Portra 100T and Portra 400 BW. Maybe even 400 Ultra Color. I know that you can get the same look as 400 UC with modern scanning methods, but I really like the way the emulsion looks.
I got my hands on a Rollei A110 and I do like it very much because of it compactness. I even managed to acquire some (already expensive) flash cubes... Still I ordered a lomomatic 110 because of the possibilities you describe so good in this video. This was the second video I've seen (after a 6x17 format one which made me dump my wish do buy a Noblex) and now I'm subsribed. Thanks for your awesome insight.
I'd like to see the old Agfachrome CT18 return. This film was sold with a mailer for return to Agfa for processing in its own formula. While not the finest-grained transparency film, Agfachrome yielded what Lenny Lipton described as "Dutch Masters colors." My slides shot in the early 1970s have held up well, carefully stored in archival materials.
Greetings from faraway Grafton. Thank you for all your great guidance. A question regarding Diafine: I tried a roll of 120 Tr-X at 1250 in Diafine with great results. Truthfully, I was shocked at how well it turned out. A roll of 35mm Double-X, however, shot at 640, yielded very heavy grain. All temps (74°), agitation and times were the same and as per your discussion. I’ve never shot XX before, so all I have to compare it with are the many photos online, and my results look like nothing I’ve seen grainwise. Any thoughts? Thanks again for sharing your deep knowledge on this, the best of the film channels.
@@FIGITALREVOLUTION I guess it’s time to mix the packet of D-76 in the closet. I was hoping for the speed boost. I have a roll hanging up to dry now shot at 200-6400 for the hell of it (6400 just because there was a shot left on the roll). I’ll do the same with the D-76. Thanks again!
What’s the curved bit of metal that lets you stack a light meter on top of the voigtlander rangefinder on the accessory shoe? I can’t tell if that’s an official thing voigtlander sold back in the day or if it’s some diy hack. Cool either way (and I want one).
I actually had it machined for me- Holds a light meter on the top and Voigtlander rangefinder down below with a cold shoe below that- I use it on a lot of my cameras as I got tired of having to reach for both- this way it keeps my camera compact
@@FIGITALREVOLUTION Smart. If I'm using a zone-focus, meterless camera (which is to say, if I'm really having fun!) I tend to either use the rangefinder and sunny-16/iphone meter, or I use my Keks meter and zone focus. Love how you've solved both.
The main reason I don't shoot Fomapan 400 (or any of Foma films) is bad quality control in recent years. There are defects like black dots in 35mm and big black circles in 120. I have lost several nice shots because of that. Other than that, Foma can look nice indeed. Don't know how original Tri-X looked though
The main reason I will NEVERr use that crappy film, is curl! It is curled when dry. Impossible to scan ! Old TRI_X never had this problem. I used the original for 40+ years.. TG for Digital.
@@FIGITALREVOLUTION the main reason I don't shoot Fomapan 400 is the extra red sensitivity which can make my families' lips blend into their other skin tons ... or maybe I haven't shot enough of it to know how it really responds to reds ... might be basing this off the tech sheet more than experience
Rodinal, I have to say that as I have 4 bottles of the stuff. 😂😆 Out of interest Stephen, I’m just wondering if the Foma version of Rodinal is any different to the common R09 ? I tried to get hold of some about a year or so ago but it was out of stock everywhere here in the UK so I got the (new) Adox R09. I always shoot at 800 and do a semi-standard dev. It’s ok.
I think the D76 1+1 is probably closest to the old TriX in your test scene. However a scene with strong reds, and cyan/green may well highlight the extended red sensitivity of Fomapan 400, and this may have some bearing on contrast. As always really enjoying your channel, especially film / developer testing. Many thanks.
Thank you! Yeah when I think 35mm TriX I’m thinking early works of Salgado - the smoother look is beautiful and I hope people will consider that for portraits or if that looks fits their style-- thank you for subscribing
Okay, you convinced me, I'm ordering some Foma 400! Gonna test it in Rodinal and HC-110 as these are my go to developers. I also wanted to thank you for all effort you put into these videos. It's a lot of work and provides a valuable resource for people. Thanks!
Thank you very much for your nice comment! At this point FRUD is definitely the voters choice- shooting tomorrow in Playland in Rye NY- taking two Olympus XA’s with me so I can do the promised side by side- hoping to have that final video in this group done by the end of the week.
Also- if you want very smooth fine grain with tons and I mean tons of greyscale try just the HC110 Dilution G -- it’s ok for very high contrast scenes only as it is very LC
Learning to shoot Tri-X using the Sunny 16 chart on the film box and developing my own film and prints started me on a photographic journey which included learning and using the Zone System and finding ways to simplifying it, apprenticing and assisting Monte Zucker, working in the National Geographic Photo labs where I learned to reproduce photos for offset printing and a career managing offset printing of magazines and books commercially and for the US Information Agency and US State Department as Foreign Service Specialist. B&W film is the only medium were the contrast of the negative can be adjusted with development to fit any contrast scene lighting to the range of the B&W print paper. The original approach back when photographers coated their own glass plates and paper was to develop the negatives under red safelights until experience told the photographer the highlight densities matched what the print paper could handle. That was the approach photographers like Adams and Weston used with sheet film until the 1930 when film switched from Orthochromatic to Panchromatic and could no longer be developed under the red safe lights like prints are. Adams continued to use the approach of always printing on the same contrast paper because he preferred the tonality of #2 Grade paper which was the baseline contrast for the Kodak approach developed for roll film. With the Kodak system the baseline development time for the negatives, determined with testing, was reproducing a cross-lit SUNNY 16 scene so there was shadow detail recorded and shadow-to-highlight range fit #2 grade paper producing a full range of tone and detail. Scenes with less contrast (open shade / overcast) would have lower highlight densities and require printing on #3 or #4 paper which had more contrast. #1 paper had less contrast that #2 and was used if over developing the negatives or encountering lighting with more contrast than cross light on clear Sunny day. Since most photos were taken on clear sunny days, most of them printed on #2 paper. What was a standard practice was to make a contact proof sheet of the negatives on #2 paper, exposing it so the clear border on the negative printed max. black. If the negative was perfectly exposed for the shadows then the first hint of shapes emerging from the shadows would be recorded on the film. With B&W film it is possible to over expose by 2-3 stops and still be able to make a full range print but Ansel Adams obsessed over, and made a religion of recording dark Zone 0 voids with the clear base of the negative and the first hints of Zone 1 shapes emerging from the shadows because of the characteristic “DlogE” curve of film and prints which has a curved “toe” response to low levels of light and then a straight line response. Keeping the Zone 1 and 2 detail down on the toe of the curve with precise exposure gives the shadow gradient a subtlety on the print an overexposed but still printable negative lacks. The first calibration test for the Zone System is to shoot a subject wearing black and white clothing standing in sunny 45° crosslight at the rated speed of the film (e.g. 400 for Tri-X) then with the ASA speed set higher and lower on the meter WITH THE METER READING TAKEN OFF AN 18% GRAY CARD, not the subject. The negatives are then examined to determine which speed records the detail on the dark clothing. I now use white and black terry cloth towels for exposure tests draping them over a gray card (WB reference). The problem with doing that same test today is that in 1975 the film rating system and calibration point for film speed changed from ASA @ 18% to ISO @ 12%. If using a camera or meter calibrated to the ISO standard setting exposure off an 18% gray card will not result in correct exposure of the shadows or the highlights and the spike the card creates on the camera histogram will not be in the center. So why do Kodak and others still sell 18% gray cards. According to accounts by Kodak employees I’ve read, when Ansel Adams learned of the change to 12% for the ISO standard he went to Kodak and lobbied the executives not to change the Kodak card to 12% because that would confuse the Zone System faithful who worshipped Zone V = 18%. What happens if you do the Zone System film speed test with an 18% card but a 12% calibrated meter? Since the film speed adjustment is based on on the actual results seen on the negative and print when exposed so film base is black just means the actual film speed determined by the test will be about 1/3 different than if an older ASA calibrated meter like a Weston IV is used for the test. When I learned the Zone System in 1970 I owned a Honeywell / Pentax 1° spot meter. I had purchased it because I’d been asked to document and off-campus learning experience called “Farm Term” on Kodachrome slide film which must be precisely exposed for the highlights to prevent blowing them out. With the spot meter I could directly read a white highlight, and by adjusting the ASA setting of the meter until that highlight was exposed correctly in a one time calibration test get perfectly exposed highlights in every photo I shot simply by metering the “Zone 9” white and reading the shutter/aperture off the dial. What I did by shifting the ASA speed that way was change the calibration point for speed of the meter from 18% to 98%. After that adjustment if I metered an 18% reflectance gray card it would be exposed as an 98% reflectance white. I realized I could do the same thing with the Zone 1 shadow shooting B&W, just change the ASA indicated on the meter until the Zone 1 object reflecting 5% or the light was rendered just above film base on the negative. That metering hack greatly simplifies “Zone System” exposure and development. After reading the Zone 1 shadow for exposure, reading a Zone 9 non-specular white told me PRECISELY what the EV range between Zone 1 and 9 was. Instead of basing development on Normal, +1. +2, etc. I just tested and found what development time was needed for the different EV ranges. I use the same metering approach when using the Kodak Polycontrast system. Instead of changing negative development based on EV range I knew when shooting what Polycontrast filtration I would need when printing it. In the late 70s when I was able to set-up darkroom I bought an enlarger with a color head so I could dial-in any amount of magenta or yellow filtration. I had a chart on the wall I had created by printing a calibrated negative gray scale with different amounts of filtration which included the amount of exposure adjustment needed to get max black on border of the negative as the amount of filtration increased. Shooting B&W but then scanning the negatives, editing in Photoshop and printing on an ink jet printer might produce similar results but isn’t the same experience. I learned a great deal about photography worked doing it, which helped me get the jobs I did on the technical side, but I can’t say it made me a better photographer. The credit for that goes to my mentor Monte Zucker and others who I learned from in person and by reading books and shooting lots of photos. Back in the day that is why bought Tri-X in 100’ rolls and spooled it into reusable cassettes and why we learned to develop and print at home - so we could afford to take lots of photos. 😊
Yes! I have very fond memories of doing traditional Zone System tests for my darkroom wet print works- especially when I was testing materials for Bergger Photographic many years back. I keep hearing in my head, from my days at RIT-- the minimum speed point is .10 over base plus fog! Now with the advent of hybrid or Figital approach and given that most modern films are not as flexible as older film stocks, Zone System development adjustments are not what they used to be. Scanning and the adjustments possible in scanning software and in PS have changed a lot -and inkjet printing when calibrated correctly has made what would have been very difficult to make prints in the past significantly easier or at least possible to more shooters. Nowadays I always emphasize here on FR that it’s about capturing what the scanner or digital camera wants from the film in terms of density/ contrast and keeping that film in that space consistently so the analog technology can speak nicely to the digital technology- Happy shooting and thanks for sharing.
@@FIGITALREVOLUTION It was actually learning to SCUBA dive at a Chicago YMCA followed by a trip to Pennekamp Underwater Park in the Florida Keys motivated me to buy my first camera, a Nikonos II, to document my adventures. But instead I got hooked on photography and wound up selling my tank and regulator to buy a Nikon Ftn and 85mm f/1.8 to do PJ assignments. At the end of my first year I applied to RIT as transfer student but wasn’t accepted so I changed plans, deciding to find job and mentor to learn from. When I started working at National Geographic where the lab manager and asst. Manager and several others on the staff were RIT grads. The lab at NGS had a technical library filled with textbooks from RIT donated by the managers I started reading: optics, the halftone processes, film chemistry etc. I solved a production problem our lab based on something I read in the optics book. To make our largest wall maps we turned our huge Lanston copy camera into horizontal enlarger, putting a 30” x 40” half tone positive used for printing the maps that were folded and inserted into the magazine where the film normally was and putting 52” wide litho film on the 6x8 foot copy board creating a “copy dot” enlarged version. The light source was a carbon arc lamp. The problem was that the dots were distorted and stretched in the corners. None of the managers had figured out the cause or found a solution. I recognized it might be caused by lens barrel vignetting and suggested the solution would be to start with a smaller original and then enlarge more which would prevent the X path of the image from hitting the barrel of the lens. I was the new guy working there for less than a year and it took some convincing to let me try it but it worked. I first made a reduced copy dot copy of the original and then enlarged it. I had been hired as part of an apprenticeship program and that helped me get promoted. I realized I needed to go back to school and get a degree to get promoted into management there so I enrolled in evening classes at GW University in Business and Printing Technology at Montgomery College. It was associated with RIT with student getting a 2-year associate degree being able to transfer to RIT for years 3 and 4. My instructor for the first class I took in photo lithography was an RIT Grad. When he found out where I worked and had learned on my own about the halftone process he asked me if I’d been interested in teaching the class because he wanted to move and they needed a replacement. I interviewed with the department head gave him a new class outline I created and he hired me as an instructor despite not having a degree. I taught classes there in the evening for five years and created an advanced class that got added to the curriculum. At that point I stopped taking classes because I figured the lack of degree wouldn’t hurt my career. It didn’t. 😂 I started digitizing the USIA publication process with Macs, QuarkXpress in 1987 and would buy a copy of every new graphics app for evaluation. By 1990 we were doing full page layouts in QuarkXpress on film imagesetters the printing center in Manila I managed. Color separations were made from transparencies on a Hell DC300 laser scanner later a DC 380 through the early 2000s before digital camera files replaced transparencies. I started shooting with an Apple QuickTake 100 and editing the files Photoshop back in 1994, posting them on a web server I helped a Manila ISP start-up manage. In the 2000 -2010 time frame spent a lot of time and money educating photographers on photo fora how to use Key over centered Fill flash effectively because that was and still is the only way to record a full range of detail with a single exposure with a digital sensor in Sunny crosslight. I occasionally did HDR in Photoshop before there was HDR simply by bracketing and combining a file exposed for the shadow detail with one exposed or for the highlights with masks. Instead of of “dodging” to lighten the tone of scene shadows with no detail I opened the mask on the shadow exposure painting in the detail selectively, an approach I think works better artistically than the global AI driven HDR. Zone System photographers tend to obsess on recording shadow detail everywhere because that’s what makes looking at a Zone System print of Half Dome different than seeing it in person from the same POV. In person there will be no red filter over the eyes to darkened the blue sky, the bright sky will cause the pupils to constrict and the eyes will lose their ability to to see detail in the shadows.
Once, I've used Rodinal 1+25 and 35mm Foma 400 exposed at EI 250 and it went very well, old school but not lame old school like Foma 400 + Rodinal 1+50 in 6x6. Did you try FX39 ? It's said to have a tonality close to Xtol with the sharpness and grain of Rodinal. It gives Tri-x and particular look in 6x7. The only time I tried it with Tri-X in 35mm there were great tones but a bit too much grain to my taste on some high key pictures.
I tested it and it sounded fine on my studio system but everyone as their own preference’s-- new video going live at 11am EST-- more Fomapan 400 testing with now D76- and there is still music in the background 😂
I'm still amazed by the saturated reds in my Kodachrome slides from the 70's and the 8mm Kodachrome movie film from the 60's. No detectable fading 60 years on. And I was born in Rochester, so there is that.
Kodak Gold is, as said, a prior generation of film technology. Compared to a similar ISO Portra, it is about as sharp and a little bit grainier. Although I find its latitude to be completely sufficient, it does lack the extended latitude of Portra. For my purposes (landscapes), its slight warm bias is fine, as I make real darkroom prints, where the extensive corrections in digital processing are not available. In 120 size, whatever image performance it gives up to Portra is completely irrelevant in all normal print sizes. Its lower price is a bonus.
While the look of Fomapan 400 is quite interesting, I am not a particular fan of the film base itself. I have tried it in an automatic winding camera and in the process of rewinding, it somehow got statically charged and I got some „flashes“ visible. And with the medium format version, I accidentally lifted the emulsion when I was drying the film 😅.
Very nice video, thank you for sharing the information. I'm constantly going back and forth with Fomapan 100 but, right now, for portraits, I'm liking T-Max 400 in Diafine. Cheers.
Yes and no- EV values are always the same BUT in deep darkness stuff just falls off fast as everyone knows - this is why I was conservative on my suggested EI range
In the 80's and 90's given the amount of film I got through I didn't feel I could justify buying Tri-X. As a result over those two decades I only bought about five rolls of it. Many hundreds of rolls of Kodak film, but back then the range available was so much larger. I'd go to the photography shop and buy pocket fulls of film each week, all of which would be used by the following weekend. Now I mostly shoot Medium and Large Format, with 35mm being more of a relaxation format for when I don't feel like spending quite so long on composition, though I still use my spot meter.
When you take portra 400 and shoot/rate it at iso 100 in your camera (so technically every shot is overexposed according to box speed). Do you develop as a 400 film or do you develop as a 100 speed film?
Over exposing chromogenic film is just fine- Portra 400 is very forgiving- down to even EI 25- just process normal C41 and it will be spot on-- gets a bit warmer in color at 3+ stops over-- only Push the film, increase developemnt time for Portra 400 at speeds beyond 1000- solid at 2 stop push to 3200
If you want a lot more info here is the link to the 4 part series I did on this film in 2010- this is part 4 the conclusion-- figitalrevolution.com/2010/11/23/new-kodak-portra-400-review-part-4-conclusion/
Actually yes I can- the Zone System “Steve System” in 10 minutes or less…. Zone System In 10 Minutes or Less ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g0FfuHe-0Es.html
Correct me if im wrong please but your method was: Rate ever shot at iso 200. And f32. Keep changing SS in order to keep everything exposed correctly??? Then the magic happens in development??
If you meter for say 200 EI and set the fstop to 5.6 and the meter says 1/60th then exposing at 1/30 is one stop over - two stops over would be 1/15 at again the f5.6-- under would be the example in reverse- My development time was for the box speed so give you a good idea of how far you can go over and under and still have a usable negative.
Good morning, I came across your channel yesterday. Have found it very very useful! I am also obsessed with Polaroid. Bought my first SX-70 nine years ago and today I use primarily an SLR 670-X. It has been a love-hate relationship. Sometimes I absolutely love it, sometimes I want to throw all the cameras to the bin. The variability of the results from batch to batch, year to year has been too great, but, in spite of this, I keep buying Polaroid film... In any case, I have been testing the SLR 670X with strobes for a while for portraiture work and my conclusion has been that it is best to stick to the Mint Flash II. I take a portrait, against a flat white wall, of everyone that enters my flat (would love to have a Big Shot and the proper film). My strobe is a Godox 200AD and I place it as close as possible to the camera. I have tried several modifiers (including the bare bulb), and a simple shoot-through umbrella seems to give the best results, from a quality of light perspective. However, there are issues with this set up. I use a simple cable to connect the SLR-670X to the strobe via the Time Machine. With this set up the f-stop in the camera is set at f/8.0. I use a Sekonic L-308 to dial in the strobe’s power using an ISO of 640 (using 600 Film) placing the meter below the chin. Issue number 1 : underexposure. In all my tests the images end up being underexposed by 2/3 to 1-stop. I need to bump up power to f/11. Issue number 2 : depth of field. At f/8.0, and being 1m away, the depth of field is very narrow, and given I mostly take these pictures at night time, it is difficult to nail focus. Come in the Mint Flash. With this option, at 1/2 power (for 600 Film), and 1m away, the f-stop is f/22. This increases the depth of field and almost guarantees in focus results. Now, at least with my copy, I need to turn the exposure wheel on the SLR-670X by half to one full mark. Otherwise, I get seriously overexposed images. One thing I have yet to try is to plug the strobes via the Mint Flash and fire both the flash and the strobe at the same time. Have to guess that the camera will still use f/22 at 1m. It would be great if you could do a video on this. I have wasted so much film and time (as well as many lost portraits) getting to where I am now. Maybe other people can benefit from this. Greetings from Peru. Victor
A lot has to do with the narrow latitude of the film itself and at that distance as you mentioned f8 is very shallow DOF. I would do the last test you mentioned - measure everything out and lock that formula in- I do portraits in a similar manner in my studio but use continuous light source so what I see is what I get and only take one shot to nail the exposure-
Thanks for the prompt reply. I actually got curious and decided to do a test tethering the strobes to the Mint Flash. It actually does keep the f/stop in the camera at f/22, so it helps with the focus. Tried it just with the strobes, taping the flash head of the Mint Flash, as well as firing both the strobe and the Mint Flash -both gave great result. I have thought about using LED lights for a while. Need to research the topic more. Cheers, V.
I say Diafine. Strangely, the sheet for Diafine lists Fomapan 100 at 200 speed, and makes no mention of Fomapan 200 or 400. It says to shoot Tri-X 400 at 1600 speed. But they also say to shoot T-Max P3200 at ASA 1250, and Tri-X 320 sheets at ASA 1200; what's the difference between 1200 and 1250 'ISO"?
So to break that down- TXP 320 is box speed, maybe 400 in Diafine - Sandy King and I did an article for LF Magazinr years ago on this- 400TX is really like 1000/1250 unless you meter proper and then a 1600 is ok-- older TriX does for get the speed boost like the new film. Fomapan 100 is really best at 100/160 in Diafine and 400 is best in my opinion at 200/320 for full shadow control. Tmax 3200 is really a 1600 speed film that is pushable in certain developers to 3200 and beyond.
