New Vs Old Tri-X testing results

[scott jones]

Greetings:



I knew that I was in for some testing when the new 320 Tri-X became available
and have finally completed that. I was amazed at how differently it behaved.
The longer development times were seen, but way longer than Kodak suggested.
Also I found that N+1 was just barely achievable and N+2 was not achievable
though I got close. N+1 and N+2 expansions stopped expanding at certain development
times and would really not go much further even with further time. I had had
no problem with this with the old Tri-X. I thought many of you might be interested
in my results just to see what is happening with this "new" film
at least in one photographer's darkroom.



My technique is as follows: Xtol 1:1, 68 degrees, Jobo CPP-2, 3010 Expert
drum, tap water, no pre-wet, standard stop-fix-wash cycle, densitometer warmed
up and stable. My ISO came out at 320 with a density of 0.10 above fb+fog.
My goal for development time testing was 1.25-1.30 for Zone VIII

<table width="372" border="1">
<tr>
<td width="65">N Factor </td>
<td width="75">Old Tri-X </td>
<td width="210">New Tri-X </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>N+2</td>
<td>10:15</td>
<td>14:00 density stopped at 1.12 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>N+1</td>
<td>8:10</td>
<td>11:30 density stopped at 1.21 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>N</td>
<td>6:45</td>
<td>8:30</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>N-1</td>
<td>5:20</td>
<td>7:15</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>N-2</td>
<td>4:15</td>
<td>5:45</td>
</tr>
</table>

I was disappointed to see that the film is having troubles for expansion,
but perhaps selenium toning of the negative can make up for some of this and
I will probably abandon using N+2 developments through expansion of development
time alone.



I hope this has been interesting to some of you.





ScottJonesPhoto.com (http://www.scottjonesphoto.com" target="_blank)

&nbsp;

[Andre Noble]

What was your proceedure for determining effective film ISO? An ISO of 320 seems a little high for a B&W film with a box carton ISO also of 320. If your film is underexposed based on a miscalculation, it will take longer than Kodak suggests to develop a subsequent zone VIII placement to a 1.25-1.30 densitometer reading.

[scott jones]

Hi Andre!

Yes, I know that we all expect our tested ISO's to be about half of the carton listed ISO, but I have found to my utter delight that both Tri-X in 4x5 sheets and 400Tmax in 120 rolls FOR ME have tested true at ISO 320 and 400 respectively. Apparently this is a known quality of Xtol diluted specifically 1:1. When I used other developers I used to get an ISO of 160. My test results were obtained in the usual testing way as delineated in the appendix of Ansel Adams "The Negative". When I first got this result with Xtol 1:1 a long time back, I was so suspicious that I called Kodak and they told me that they have many customers who get the same result and that it is expected. Nice to have that extra stop...

[neil poulsen]

Have you tried XTol at full strength, versus 1:1?

[Mark Sampson]

It's worth remembering that, according to Kodak, you need a minimum of 100ml of XTOL stock solution per 80 square inches of film. Not likely an issue with sheet film, but in roll formats this can become an problem when using high dilutions (above 1:1). Using less than the proportion mentioned leads to premature exhaustion, and thus underdevelopment.

[Chuck_1686]

Did you find that the new Tri-x sheet film still has that curve with a long toe and steep highlights?

[scott jones]

Neil: I have not tried full strength in that I wanted to obtain the 1:1 benfits of increased sharpness and preserved film speed.

Mark: You are right that one has to watch out for capacity issues. This is another reason why I like Xtol so much. It has enough capacity at 1:1 to handle 10 sheets of 4x5 in a Jobo 3010 expert drum. All the other developers I have used do not have this capacity. When I did this testing, I made sure to use excess fluid to be sure that capacity was not an issue in the equation. My developer stock was at 3mo. age tightly sealed in brown filled glass bottles with rubber seal caps. In the past I have easily achieved 6 month shelf life. Next time I mix new Xtol though, I will re-run a quick check just to be sure and report if there were any problems.

Chuck: Alas I am not sophisticated enough to do curve production...

[Tom Westbrook]

RE the capacity issue: As an experiment, you might try using Steve Anchell's recommendation of 250ml of stock developer per 4 sheets of film. So, given 1 liter of Xtol 1:1 (max for a 3010 drum), you could only process 8 sheets max. of 4x5. Anchel thinks that Kodak's recommendation of 100ml of stock per 4 sheets of 4x5 is overly optimistic.

I have always wondered if he had any real basis for that opinion, since he didn't really offer any evidence to back it up in the book (Film Developing Cookbook, I think, I'm at work and can't check). I trust he knows what he's talking about, so I usually do what he says, but still wondering how close he is. I also would guess this max stock quantity varies a lot by developer.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think it's worth trying an increased concentration of developer or perhaps a different developer to see if it will let you reach a real N+2. If you look at Kodak's characteristic curves, the Dmax is somewhere around 3.0, so it could just be a matter of the developer being exhausted before hitting N+2. If the curves can be believed, it looks like you might be able to get N+2 with HC-110 dil. B, so you could use Xtol for everything else, and HC-110 when you need that kind of expansion. Another alternative might be to use two batches of Xtol, one for half the development time, and a fresh batch for the second half.

[bob moulton]

Scott:

I found your results interesting.I am trying to create new development tables for the new Tri-X also. A question and a suggestion:

In the Jobo 3010 how much total chemistry are you using? Kodak suggests 100ml per 80 sq.in. (4 sheets). When I process 100TMax in TmaxRS 1:9 I use 850-900 ml total chemistry. If one uses near the maximum for the drum at 1:1 one uses 425-450ML of Xtol in a 1:1 solution. That is more than enough for 10 sheets of film using Kodak's recommendations. Since Anchell's figures lack documented support so far I don't know how much I would rely on those.

About the N+2--You might increase the quantity of developer and/or reduce the number of sheets you use, as others have suggested. Another possibility is to use Selenium toner to increase the negas at N+1 or at the N+2 that you have created. You could alter the dilution to straight xtol also..

[Sal Santamaura]

Scott, can you offer any follow up on how you've dealt with the expansion limitation and whether tests with fresh Xtol indicated it was capacity-related?