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Thread: Hp5 vs TMY400

  1. #11
    bob carnie's Avatar
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    HP5 is a lovely film for all types of silver printing needs, I doubt very much anyone here could tell the difference of two prints side by side from the two different films, same subject matter.. We are talking large format right. not minux or spy camera film.

  2. #12
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    I'm in the same boat today - wanted to go shoot 8x10, but don't want to thaw an expensive box of TMY400, so have FP4 in the holders. But our March winds have arrived early and I need faster film. Alas, I'll probably have to default to medium format and TMY roll film.

  3. #13
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    Oh hi again, Bob. I can sure see a difference, not just in detail, but tonality, specific working approach. I had to mask HP5 a lot more often or risk scrunching the tonality with minus development, which would be a pity given this films exquisite midtone potential. Just like lenses, it's not about point A to point B ala Zone System, but about real personality differences between these various films. I printed you a masked sample, but it might be a few more weeks before I send it. I'm due for a long nap right now. Due to snow delays, my wife arrived at the airport verrrry late last nite.

  4. #14
    bob carnie's Avatar
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Oh hi again, Bob. I can sure see a difference, not just in detail, but tonality, specific working approach. I had to mask HP5 a lot more often or risk scrunching the tonality with minus development, which would be a pity given this films exquisite midtone potential. Just like lenses, it's not about point A to point B ala Zone System, but about real personality differences between these various films. I printed you a masked sample, but it might be a few more weeks before I send it. I'm due for a long nap right now. Due to snow delays, my wife arrived at the airport verrrry late last nite.
    Yes Drew - but you have extraordinary eyes not like us mere mortals, for the rest of us I doubt there is a significant difference, When I first started out in my small Lab, I with our local Agfa and Kodak Reps tested over 40 prints from various films and developers of the same subject matter, then I printed all the negatives to match as close as I a mere mortal could.

    I then mounted them all on a huge panel boards and invited a large group of people (photographers) with discerning eyes to view the prints and I as the expert would then talk about the vast differences in the films and developers.
    To my ultimate horror, there was not a lot of difference and this is talking about 35mm film to 11 x14 print , I really had to stretch to prove the differences.

    If the OP is talking large Format to normal size print I still stand by the comments above that us Mere Morta would not be able to see the difference in two side by side prints.

  5. #15
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    Nuance is the name of the game in my world. A little big here, a little bit there ... It all finally adds up to a real difference. Size has little to do with it.

  6. #16

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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Not quite right, Pere. ..... Delta has an upsweep favoring midtone and highlight repro at the expense of shadow values ....
    Drew, I don't see that D400 has an upsweep curve... just the counter, it has an slight shoulder while TMY goes a bit straighter..

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    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    TMax is also spectrally unique in the manner all three primaries can be easily exp and dev to matching gamma
    At the end you can match the spectral sensitivity of two BW films with the right spectral filtering in one of them... what I was pointing that the different spectral nature of the two films simply require an slightly different filtering to obtain what we want,

    ...of course with filters we modify spectral response way more than the difference of HP5 vs TMY.

  7. #17
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    You have to remember that small differences at the bottom might equate to two stops of printable difference. It's logarithmic, and I have plenty of experience testing. Why do you think old timers cover the return of Super XX, even though it was grainy as heck by modern standards. Or why do you think Kodak replaced it with TMax instead of something resembling FP4 or HP5. Another problem is that these curves are often make using popular rather than ideal developers - Kodak D76 or equivalent Ilford ID11, which put quite a sagging bow in TMax. Use either TMRS dev or the right tweak of HC110 and the straight line of TMax takes off the toe like a rocket (But still not as fast as Super XX or Bergger 200). Pyro is harder to plot due to the tanning stain, but the distinction is present in actual prints of high contrast subjects.

  8. #18
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    You also miss what I merely implied by matching gamma. It means getting nearly perfectly overlapping R,G,B curves from the same film developed the same amt, all together. Just did that earlier this wk. Try that with Ilford's best candidate - you'll be in for months of futility. Of course this is applicable to assembly color printing and irrelevant to b&w portraiture, but does inform you have different these films can really be, let's say at long exp with a strong contrast filter, where all your presumed factors go wacky, but TMax stays consistent.

  9. #19
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    A practical application in b&w printing: FP4 cannot build as much B gamma (contrast) as R&G. So I use this otherwise flaw to make blue-light low-contrast unsharp masks inverse to pyro stain for b&w printing. It would be less consistent if you used the full pan spectrum.

  10. #20

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    Re: Hp5 vs TMY400

    IMHO, to explore HP5 vs TMY in LF portraiture, regarding OP's question, as you said, differential spectral sensitivity depending on exposure is completely irrelevant. What matters is that each film will just need a custom filtration to obtain what we want for an skin texture, a brighter or darker skin, and a relatively darker lips, depending perhaps on male/female, and also on the specific subject...

    IHMO most important practical difference is that HP5 shows some shoulder for extreme highlights while TMY is more linear there, and this matters in how we cook highlights in the print, as glare texture in the face can be of extreme importance in a portrait.


    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    ...It means getting nearly perfectly overlapping R,G,B curves from the same film developed the same amt, all together...
    Hmmm... this is a very interesting information !!

    Thinking about it, I guess kodak had that capability from color film developments, in color film that "perfectly overlapping R,G,B" response you mention it's critical to get color accuracy and neutrality over all exposure range, if not a dark grey would end in another hue than a light grey.

    I guess that a possibility to obtain that is to mix different emulsions of different grain formulations and also different dye sensitizations to obtain a final perfect overlap, such a development would had been critical for that massive color film production, but not that interesting for BW film manufacturers.


    Dye sensitization usually works with different intensity in an smaller crystal than in the bigger ones, and in a "ball" one compared to a flat (tabular) one, or an epitaxial-growth one. I guess relative surface to crystal volume may have an impact.

    Also TMax films (and other), being tabular, under the main emulsion they have another layer of cubic nature and very low speed, IIRC in the TMax films that cubic layer it's orthocromatic, but as that layer records only extreme highlights it's of little importance what spectral response it has, the important thing is if the grain formulation and placement delivers more a shoulder or a line.



    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    ... So I use this otherwise flaw to make blue-light low-contrast unsharp masks inverse to pyro stain for b&w printing. It would be less consistent if you used the full pan spectrum...

    Regarding pyro with VC papers there is an additional effect, the stain also acts as a color filter that changes contrast, and that effect depends on the amount of stain, so at the end a variable contrast action is applied depending on density: more density, more stain, more filtering, more effect in the VC paper...

    So, if using stain developers, the way th film takes the stain it's also important for VC papers...

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