I looked but struggled to find any good examples of HP5 being shot in harsh conditions but still maintaining a pleasing curve, without clipping either the highlights or shadows. It always seemed like a characteristic of the film. Would you happen to have any you could share?
Yes, I would agree to a point on it costs what it costs, when I started with 8x10 I knew it was costly, but three years ago I was spending $80 at box vs $180 a box now. I spent a few years shooting only 4x5 so I could learn, and on those shoots I would take 50 sheets on a shoot. When I switched to 8x10 I limited myself to 20 most of the time and its usually enough to get that 1 shot I'm aiming for while still attempting risker shots. Hitting focus, in full sun, no hood, neck deep in a lake with the camera 1 inch above the water while someone hands me holders from a boat, maybe it works, maybe I drown the camera lol. I can still afford to shoot it, but you have to understand a few years ago I was shooting 1600 sheets a year, pretty much the max I could afford. So that price jump ultimately limits the number of shoots I can do in a year by a lot. I know nothing will be the same, but if I can get close and still shoot the amount I use too, I'm willing to try something new.
And its two-fold, I know exactly what I'm getting with tri-x, unless its fast-changing cloudy light I don't really need a meter, I know what light will work and what light will waste money and pulling tri-x that much means my dev times are borderline too short at about 4:30 to 5:00. Switching films I will have to experiment again to find the sweet spot for my tastes. And part of what burned me out was coming back from a long trip with 800 sheets and spending day after day for hours alone in the dark just shuffling sheets. I love the experience shooting the 8x10 with people, the way it forces people to be makes photos you can't get with a digital, believe me, I have tired very damn digital all the way up the high end H6D's and they all sucked and never came close to my trashed 70-year-old Kodak Master View. But developing and scanning, that sucked the life out of me, I gave up on Panco partly because of the extra time dealing with mixing xtol and 19 minute dev times. I took 1000 sheets to Europe to try out and it took me 2 months to finish it all.
Your description is exactly how I felt. I did look at the fomapan, I have seen photos here and there that I liked the tone of, but I heard they have had some quality control issues. I had some with at least the early runs of Pancro having scratches and it ruined a few shots where they went thru the eyes in a way I could not fix, not a lot but lost a few shots I really loved. Did you have any issues? With tri-x its was always perfect and if it had scratches, it was from sand in the holders or my own mistakes.
This is exactly what I felt, tri-x 320 just handles light in a different way than everything else, I have no idea why they kept tri-x 400 over tri-x 320 for roll films, tri-x 400 is nothing like 320 and it reacts like most other films in its speed, the difference is very subtle to me. I feel like I could make other films looks like tri-x 400, but nothing looks like my trusty TXP other than maybe tmax 100 in xtol. I think for me it's more about dynamic range than contrast, I can always add in more contrast, but if the image ends up with 4 stops of range, I dont have much to work with. With TXP I am developing for a density that maxes the range of my scanner in its sweet spot vs a good density for wet printing. I think thats something people often overlook, I see a lot of photos I can just tell were developed with too much density for a scanner, they will probably wet print great, but scanners have a very limited range.
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