Tapping the collective wisdom of the large format world....

Ansel Adams comments several times in The Negative that contemporary, thin emuls ion films lend themselves easily neither to heavy expansion/contraction, nor to contrast control processes that rely on developer absorbtion into a thick emulsi on (e.g., water bath, two soln. development). So, what currently available film and developer combinations can you vouch for going to true N+-2, 3, or 4 (as op posed to a situation where the change in slope isn't pronounced, and you're esse ntially pushing the whole characteristic curve up/left)? Is it common to vary de veloper concentration, holding time constant, to get there? Call it impatience, but I don't particularly look forward to standing in a pitch black room for 20+ minutes(!)

I've heard many good and bad things about T-MAX, depending on whether you call i ts behavior "sensitive to zone system controls," to paraphrase Kodak's technical literature, or simply erratic and difficult to make consistent, as others have regarding its development time/temp/technique sensitivity. I'd be particularly i nterested in responses from past or current users of TMX and TMY. Any opionions on Tri-X Pan Professional? And out of curiosity, is the TXT that's currently ava ilable even the same formulation that Ansel used?

Thanks for your help,

Rick