I bought a few rolls in 35mm years ago to squeeze the format's IQ, most shot in 2019 and 3 rolls last summer. The previous rolls souped in HC110 were flat, and the second time I developed in Adox XT3 (XTOL substitute, running Kodak's time) and they were right on; great contrast printed at grade 2, shot at box speed. In Europe Kodak BW is very expensive now, so I replaced that stock of 35mm with Delta, which I also shot in 120. TMax (400) is about the technical pinnacle of film and wish I had shot much more TMY than none; but I have standardised on Ilford for B&W. Paraphrasing one of the Kodak Engineers that participated in forums (most surely Ron Mowrey), TMY was updated to TMY-2 in 2007 but Kodak did not find a need to re-iterate TMX as it was as good as it could technically be.
Thanks for this! I'm a little confused about Kodak's D-76 recommended times. In the D-76 datasheet, TMAX 100 at stock strength in small tanks is given as 9min at 68F. In the TMAX 100 datasheet, D-76 stock strength is listed as 6:30 at 68F. Any insights? EDIT: apparently Kodak made some changes, but never updated the D-76 datasheet? So it would seem that the latest datasheet for the film would be the one to use...
I went back and looked at your T-Max 400 test. It’s interesting that, using the Kodak recommended times for both, the 400 was a bit over developed while 100 was a bit under. It appears that at this enlargement, it is hard to tell the difference between T-Max 100 and 400 in grain. Probably would have to enlarge them more than this to see any difference clearly.
You are correct. Not as much grain difference as you might expect. The objective standard of RMS Granularity is 10 for TMY (and for Plus-X) and 8 for TMX. I've never been able to find a number for Panatomic-X, which I thought TMX would step into its shoes, grain wise. Guess not. For comparison, Tri-X is 17.
Tmax 100 is great for landscapes any anything you just want zero grain for in my experience. Its obvious to me how the T grain films were seen as an improvement when they came out with their flat low contrast look, wide latitude, and lack of any real grain.
Got the same development issue with XT3 (Adox Xtol) and T-Max 400. Depressed highlights, though lots of shadow detail. How much time would you recommend adding, 15%?
As the man said, consistent results. D76/ID11 is the choice for almost every film i use and very easy to mix up from raw materials. D76 will give fine grain on pulled film and chunky grain with pushed film. D76 H is a cleaner formula.
It's my main developer. For Tmax 400 it's great when pushed up to 3200 iso provided you metered and developed correctly. At box speed It doesn't make Tmax 100 or 400 wonderfully shine like it does with the OG Fuji Acros, but it's still great for them. I don't know for D76, but I like Tmax Dev for Tmax films more than I like the results with Xtol which make them a little more clinical and artificial. But if you want to make Tmax pop, at least with medium format, I suggest you use Adox FX39 at 1+9.
