On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, Chris Brogden wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Sort of Tri-X like in the toe and T-max like at the top...
>
>
> What's the deal with this? Is one more forgiving of under-exposure than
> the other?
Yep, basically. Specifically, T-Max is contrastier at low levels of
exposure (the "toe" of the film response curve) than Tri-X. This means
that you get better tonal separation in dark tones but it is easier to
underexpose to the point where you get nothing at all recorded on the
film.
For those of you who haven't seen published film curves, they look
something like this:
exposure 1 /
/
/
/
0/
film density
0 1
The curve for Tri-X is flatter at the ends than that for T-Max, meaning
that there is less change in the density of the film at increasingly high
and low levels of light. This makes Tri-X more forgiving of under and
over-exposure than T-max, but also a little muddy and flat looking.
After more than a decade of using T-max 400 film for journalism (because
it pushes better, has finer grain, and is in general contrastier than
Tri-X) I am rediscovering the subtle, "old-fashioned" tonality of more traditional
films in the form of Ilford Pan-F.
DJE
