What is the finest grained BW 4x5 film that I can develop using standard chem?

[l2oBiN]

What is the finest grained BW 4x5 film that I can develop using standard chem? i have xtol developer and Tmax stop at the moment. I am shooting Fomapan 100.

[Lachlan 717]

Efke 25 for me.

[Ron Marshall]

Grain in films developed with XTOL (and DR5).

http://www.dr5.com/filmtests.html

[Eric Woodbury]

And do you want the finest grain or the highest acutance?

Techpan or other document film.

[l2oBiN]

Grain in films developed with XTOL (and DR5).

http://www.dr5.com/filmtests.html

Great Comparison.

And do you want the finest grain or the highest acutance?.

I am not sure of the technicalities. I just want to be able to get the maximum resolution when scanning and printing really big files. I guess I want maximum retention of the most pristine image quality with enlargement.

[Peter De Smidt]

Acros in Xtol.

[Gary L. Quay]

Grain in films developed with XTOL (and DR5).

http://www.dr5.com/filmtests.html

The Efke 25 test was astounding. I just wish they could produce fewer flaws in their emulsions.

--Gary

[A49]

And do you want the finest grain or the highest acutance?

Techpan or other document film.

The (ROLLEI/ADOX) ORTHO 25 is by far the finest grain sheet-film that I used. The best conventional films begin to show their grain at 5 to 6 times enlargement. The ORTHO 25 has no visible grain until 10 times enlargement and at this point only a touch of it, barely noticeable in the shadows of the print.

There won´t be any conventional or t-grain film to beat this. Maybe there are some other tech or ortho films that are similar fine grained, but at this time I know only the ORTHO 25. It can easily be developed in Rodinal diluted 1:150, where the sharpness is still can be enhanced by exploiting developing adjacency effects.

The emulsion of the ORTHO is that fine, that it can resolve between 260 and 330 lines per millimeter. As a comparison: The best conventional films (for instance TMAX 100) do "only" 200 lines.

Best,
Andreas

[venchka]

Great Comparison.




I am not sure of the technicalities. I just want to be able to get the maximum resolution when scanning and printing really big files. I guess I want maximum retention of the most pristine image quality with enlargement.

Sounds like a magic bullet hunt to me.

You better have the finest scanner ever built operated by the best scanning person ever born and printing on the finest printer ever made. Otherwise, the film and developer will hardly matter. Your lenses will have to be the best, a.k.a. expensive, as well.

For the rest of us: a 1964 Technika V camera, 20+ to 100+ year old lenses from Voigtlander & Sons-Kodak-Fuji & Nikon, fresh to 5 year old film, 8 month old Xtol, 10 year old Epson scanner and 5+ year old Canon iPF 5000 printer are plenty good enough.

[venchka]

ps: What's wrong with grain? Without grain, your photos will look like those artificial zeros & ones images. Grain worked for Sam Haskins. I reckon it's good enough for the rest of us.