sharpest 8x10 black and white film?

[dano_6525]

Ive always used tri-x 320 and was wondering about other films, have any of you found a really sharp 100 speed film for 8x10? ilford?

[Ed K.]

In practical terms, most 8x10 100 speed film are sharp, and can be more smooth or more sharp depending upon development assuming proper camera work. In non-techno terms, most of the 100 films seem to do about all the sharpness the image has for typical prints anyway. To get really sharp and really smooth fine grain try Efke 25 if you don't mind the way it renders colors.

How big are you planning on printing?

[Ralph Barker]

In addition to Efke 25, Ilford Delta 100, Kodak Tmax 100, and Ilford FP4+ would all be finer-grained than Tri-X. But, perceived sharpness may be another matter. Developer choice also plays a role, as does the enlargement factor, as Ed mentioned. If you're making contact prints, the differences will be less obvious than if you're making BIG prints.

In the final analysis, it's really a matter of personal choice. The only way to tell "fer shur" is to try different film/developer combinations, and see what you like.

[Frank Petronio]

For landscapes and portraits, the ability to use a shorter shutter speed may create sharper images even though your faster film is not as quite as sharp in studio tests.

[dano_6525]

whats a very sharp grain developer?

[Ted Harris]

My choice over a very lonbg period of time has been Rodinal. For highest accutance (sharpness) you will want to dillute it 1:25 but I generally find that 1:50 renders excellent sharpness and smoothness ... as Ed was referring to. Many here use a variety of pyro formulas and will weigh in.

[Ed K.]

Dano - your question is pretty loaded and perhaps not clear. There will be people who can correctly explain the difference between accutance and sharpness in general, and a bunch of probably correct, but very technical information, plus perhaps some arugments.

Essentially, at the same true film speed, some developers soften the look of the grain and some allow it to have its rough edges. Some techniques even using the same developer can create more local contrast, which looks like sharpness, and so on.

Rodinal and Neofin Blau are a couple of the more sharp and at times more grain revealing developers. There are others. Your agitation techniques may matter as will even the lighting conditions. Apparent sharpness is related to contrast a lot of the time. Pyrocat HD is quite sharp too, but then you didn't mention how you intend upon printing - this will make a big difference in selecting what works best. In other words, I agree with what Ted said too. There are tons of developers that make good sharpness on 100 film though.

Look for accutance developers to try and search for edge effects and so on as opposed to solvent developers and fine grain techniques. There is a lot of Goggle-able material on the subject set, even here.

Personally, I like less grain and more sharpness, so I use the slowest film my subject allows much of the time. However Frank has a good point too - if the subject isn't holding still slow speed film isn't too good unless one has a flash or a lot of light to work with.

What sort of subject are you shooting? And how will you print your images?

[Michael Graves]

For overall sharpness, I think development and technique go together. I shoot with Ilford HP5. That may not be as smooth and creamy as the other films, but here is an example of how this film, developed in Pyrocat HD, 1:1:200, with semi-stand development looks. I gave the film 21 minutes of development, with brisk agitation every 7 minutes. Apparently, it was TOO brisk, because I got some hanger marks on the upper edge. I've since gone to sloshers and don't get that any more. But this negative was already scanned, so I'm using it anyway.

The contact print with an arrow pointing to the part I cropped out:



A very small snippet, greatly enlarged in Photoshop, of the white sign on the bridge:

[brian steinberger]

While Rodinal and Neofin may be high accutance developers, you can also dilute a "standard" developer to make it higher in accuatnce. For example, I shoot HP5 and develop in D-76 diluted 1:1. Diluting a developer gives higher accutance. Some people even dilute D-76 or ID-11 1:3 for even higher accutance, although manufactuers don't necessarily recomend this. So when combining a higher grained film (400) and a higher accuatance developer, my images are nice and crisp. But like was already said, enlargement size is a huge factor. If you're not enlarging very much, you might not even see any differnce in different film/dev. combinations. I'm only printing up to 11x14 from 4x5.

What I'm getting at is that by simply changing dilution of your developer, you can toy around with creating different effects, and the advantage is D-76 and ID-11 are very friendly developers, especially for beginners, as they are not fussy.

[paulr]

the big question is, are you making contact prints or enlargements ... and if the latter, how big?
sharpness is a subjective quality, and it's always size/viewing distance dependent.

counterintuitively, you might get sharper looking contact prints with faster, grainier film, and a developer that either promotes edgy grain or image edge effects.

prints look sharpest when they have a lot of contrast in the 1 to 5 lp/mm range. for film, this is a very low resolution. all of the amazing mtf performance of a film like tmax 100 will be manifested in detail that's literally microscopic in a contact print.

[Bobby Sandstrom]

Try FP-4 in FX-1 (EI200) or stand processed in Rodinal 1:100 or 1:200. Oh, and be careful with the neg when you pull it from the developer... it will be extremely sharp and you don't want to cut your finger! :-}

[Jay DeFehr]

Sharpness is a big subject, and when we're talking about 8x10 film, the subject gets even more complicated. Discussions about sharpness usually revolve around the issue of grain, and the grain/sharpness compromise, but when using 8x10 film, grain becomes a minor contributor, unless one is making truly enormous enlargements. With grain relegated to insignificance, we're left with local contrast, edge effects, and emulsion tanning to render the impression of sharpness. If we choose a non-tanning/staining developer, like Rodinal, we can discount the contribution of emulsion tanning.

There are basically, three kinds of film; old technology, thick emulsion, K-grain films, like Efke, modern thin emulsion, K-grain films, like Tri-X, and the state of the art, thin emulsion, designer grain films like T max.

We were all taught that thin negatives make sharper prints, and the same is true of emulsions; thinner ones scatter less light. To make the old, thick emulsion films look as sharp as modern films, we have to cheat a little, by using a tanning/staining developer to take advantage of the thick emulsion, and the proprotional tanning effect to create the impression of sharpness.

The two classes of thin emulsion films; K-grain and designer grain, use different emulsions, and respond differently to some developers, especially with respect to the formation of edge effects. The K-grained films produce an excess of bromides as a developer product, while T-grained films are loaded with iodides (thus the extended fixing required). So, a developer that contains bromides or iodides as restrainers will have differing effects on the two kinds of films. I prefer, and use developers that contain neither bromides nor iodides.

There is a lot of discussion about development technique, and specifically agitation technique, and many seem to believe the only way to enhance local contrast and generate edge effects is by using a very dilute developer with reduced agitation. While this approach does produce satisfactory results for some users, there are some important downsides to consider. An extended soak of an old tech, thick emulsion film in a high pH solution is a recipe for disaster. The degree of emulsion swelling is fixed to two variables; time and solution pH. The more an emulsion swells, the more suceptible it is to mechanical damage, and the more sharpness degrades. For rollfilm users, there is also the issue of grain clumping, which is enhanced by swollen emulsions. The risk of emulsion swelling is reduced with modern, thin emulsion films which incorporate hardeners, but the risk of other development defects are still linked to inadequate agitation.

The surest way to ensure even development is by continuous agitation, and the less time the film (especially, old tech, thick emulsion films) spends in the solution, the better. Hypercat addresses each of these issues, and produces extremely sharp negs with rotary development, with short development times, and with all three classes of films. The formula and simple mixing instructions can be found here:

http://www.digitaltruth.com/techdata/article-stainingdev.php


Good luck.

Jay

[Tom Hoskinson]

The sharpest 8x10 sheet films I have used are Kodak TMAX100 and Efke 25, TMAX 100 is a bit sharper.

If you are contact printing 8x10, it doesn't make a noticeable difference. If you are enlarging 35mm, it may.

For an excellent (but somewhat dated) discussion of acutance developers, find a copy of the 1968 British Journal of Photography Annual.

Kodak's current high acutance developer is Xtol. Another excellent high acutance developer, that in my experience works well with both TMAX100 and Efke 25 is Geoffrey Crawley's FX-2 (I mix it myself from scratch). PF sells the Troop version of this developer called TFX-2.

I am currently developing both TMAX100 and Efke 25 in the p-aminophenol version of Pyrocat, the resulting negs exhibit high acutance.

Now, I'm getting ready to try the Gainer/King Metol-Ascorbate version of Pyrocat, which may give even higher acutance results than the p-aminophenol version.

[jshanesy]

There are basically, three kinds of film; old technology, thick emulsion, K-grain films, like Efke, modern thin emulsion, K-grain films, like Tri-X, and the state of the art, thin emulsion, designer grain films like T max.


The Adox films (http://www.adox.net/about_adox.htm) are thin emulsion films and have been since the introduction of KB17 in 1952. There are no thick emulsion films manufactured today. Kodak Super-XX Pan was the last one.

To verify this fact, try water bath development. It won't work for anyone except Michael A. Smith or Paula Chamlee or anyone else who owns a supply of Super-XX. If you can obtain a compensating effect with any film manufactured today using water bath development, I would surely love to see the pictures.

[Bill_1856]

Why do you want to know?

[Jay DeFehr]

There are no thick emulsion films manufactured today.

I stand corrected. Just replace thick emulsion, with soft emulsion, and I stand by my post.

Tom, the original Hypercat formula was a catechol/phenidone/ascorbate formula, and I've tested every concieveable combination of catechol/ascorbate/metol/phenidone/glycin/pap, and found that the addition of anything else to catechol and ascorbate makes for no improvement over the pair alone. The new Hypercat formula contains only catechol, ascorbate and carbonate, with the A solution in glycol for indefinite shelf life, and easy mixing. Why complicate things by adding metol and TEA in a complex mixing procedure?

Jay

[jshanesy]

I stand corrected. Just replace thick emulsion, with soft emulsion, and I stand by my post.


So do I.

BTW, I've always thought that adding metol to any pyrogallol or pyrocatechin based developer causes something of a self induced identity crisis. The tanning effect of the pyro gives you high acutance but the metol nullifies that somewhat to achieve finer grain, which we don't really care about much with large format photography anyway. I feel that it's better to go for one attribute or the other. I've never used Hypercat, but your 510 Pyro developer is a razor. I'm convinced that the addition of metol would ruin it.

[Tom Hoskinson]

Jay and Jim, regarding Pat Gainer's mixture of Triethanolamine, Ascorbic Acid, Metol and Pyrocatechol, Pat has tested it and likes it. It seems to me that you pose questions and make criticisms that are best addressed by testing the stuff. Which I shall proceed to do.

[Tom Hoskinson]

So do I.

BTW, I've always thought that adding metol to any pyrogallol or pyrocatechin based developer causes something of a self induced identity crisis. The tanning effect of the pyro gives you high acutance but the metol nullifies that somewhat to achieve finer grain, which we don't really care about much with large format photography anyway. I feel that it's better to go for one attribute or the other. I've never used Hypercat, but your 510 Pyro developer is a razor. I'm convinced that the addition of metol would ruin it.

You say "The tanning effect of the pyro gives you high acutance but the metol nullifies that somewhat to achieve finer grain..." What is your basis for this statement?

[jshanesy]

You say "The tanning effect of the pyro gives you high acutance but the metol nullifies that somewhat to achieve finer grain..." What is your basis for this statement?

Purely subjective examination of prints from the negatives. PMK is a good example of a pyro / metol developer. Other than the use of Kodalk instead of carbonate for the accelerator, it's more or less ABC with metol in it. Finer grained than ABC, but not as sharp.

I have no measurement data to support this idea. Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe someone who has the equipment that can measure acutance and grain can chime in.

[Jay DeFehr]

It seems to me that you pose questions and make criticisms that are best addressed by testing the stuff.

Hi Tom.

I thought I had made it clear that I have tested it, and many other variations, and have concluded based on my testing that there is no advantage to adding anything to the catechol/ascorbate pair. I appologize if I was ambiguous. I'm not surprised that Pat likes the Pyrocat-MC, and I liked the original version of Hypercat, but the new version without phenidone or metol, or BZT, and with much reduced ascorbate is better. Good luck with your testing.

Jay

[Tom Hoskinson]

Hi Tom.

I thought I had made it clear that I have tested it, and many other variations, and have concluded based on my testing that there is no advantage to adding anything to the catechol/ascorbate pair. I appologize if I was ambiguous. I'm not surprised that Pat likes the Pyrocat-MC, and I liked the original version of Hypercat, but the new version without phenidone or metol, or BZT, and with much reduced ascorbate is better. Good luck with your testing.

Jay

Thanks, Jay. I'll post the results.

[Jay DeFehr]

I look forward to it, Tom. Since you have all the ingredients, you might consider testing the new Hypercat as well, and decide for yourself wether the metol adds anything of value to the formula. I've been in close communicatrion with a photographer who uses the original version of Hypercat as his standard developer, and is testing the new formula. He's reported developing a roll of Delta 100 in a working solution of Hypercat made up of 0.6 ml Hypercat A solution, 12ml of 20% sodium carbonate, and 300ml of water. Development was around 20 minutes @70F with 30 sec. initial agitation, and 20sec. agitation @ 10 minutes. I'm guessing this represents complete development, or development to exhaustion with such a dilute solution. He reported good shadow detail at EI 80, and I suspect he could have used an EI of 100 or even a little higher, based on my own testing with a 1:10:300 dilution. He characterised the acutance as "extreme", and I'm inclined to agree, given the development regime. Hypercat produces very acute negs with rotary development, and resorting to semi-stand development is likely to be too acute for some subject matter and/or tastes. Good luck, and I'll watch for your report.

Jay