I'm ready to start from scratch... a new film

**Bruce Watson** · 22-Sep-2006, 08:58

Originally Posted by brian steinberger

These are some good responses. When you guys say Tri-x, you have to mean the ISO 320. I've read many reviews in this forum about tri-x being geared towards studio and this and that. Is it really good for outdoor variable lighting situations?

Oh yes. I've shot thousands of sheets of 5x4 Tri-X, almost all of it in natural sunlight. 5x4 Tri-X has dynamic range to spare. If it had better reciprocity characteristics I'd never look at another film.

**Don Wallace** · 22-Sep-2006, 10:34

I have stayed with one developer and only a few films simply because I have not had enough time in a busy life to experiment as much as I would like. I have used HC-110 in the past because, rather than throwing out unused and depleted stock solutions, I could use it from syrup. If you keep HC 110 in small containers rather than in the one bottle, the syrup lasts forever. I am now getting more time to play and I have plans to test D76 and D23, and probably others.

I shoot mainly HP5 (EI 250) and FP4 (EI 100) and sometimes Tri-X (EI 250) and PanF (EI 50). I don't think you should limit yourself to one film. Although I love Pan F and FP4, you often really need the extra stop or two without bothering with reciprocity calculations. I would love to get a film that I could shoot at 400.

If I HAD to use only one combination, it would be FP4 in HC 110. No, wait, it would be Tri-X. Hmmm. No, FP4. But .......

**Ben Crane** · 22-Sep-2006, 11:04

Several years ago I was in this same boat of having tried many different films and developers with few good results to show for it. Basically I got a lot of advice that I needed to use film X and developer Y, then someone else would give different advice. As a result I never got to know any single film or developer very well which made getting good results difficult to predict and spotty at best.

I think the best way is to find someone who has some experience and has produced work you respect and find out how they do it. This is what I did after taking a workshop from John Sexton in 2002. I basically used the technique he described until I was comfortable with it and have only introduced a few minor modifications over the years.

I use Tmax 100/400 in Tmax RS. But as others have pointed out, many other combinations can yield great results. The key when starting out is to just choose just one reasonable combination and learn how to do it well before jumping to another combination.