On Oct 16, 8:18 pm, Dana Myers <dana.my...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
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> Richard Knoppow wrote:
> > My experience the T-Max 400 is quite different from UC's:
> > I find the tone rendition good for both indoor and outdoor
> > use and have often shot outdoor ****traits with it.
> Same here, with the following qualification: TMY works best
> under relatively even lighting with just a bit of sparkle.
> Open shade or hazy sunlight. While this is true of outdoor
> ****traiture in general, it's especially true of TMY.
> > I've generally found Kodak's published film curves to be
> > pretty accurate. Tone rendition from the films tends to
> > confirm the curves. T-Max has a quite short toe and a very
> > long and quite straight mid ****tion so its shadow contrast
> > should be fairly high. My photos on it tend to show this.
> I was fortunate enough to have a stack of H+D curves for
> T-Max films in Xtol sent to me by Kodak way back when. I've
> not seen them in a publication since, though I have not searched
> exhaustively. I was not surprised to find that TMY has a very
> straight curve and medium-length toe ; it jived with me experience
> with the film quite well. TMX has a similar toe but a bit of a
> shoulder, something I'd also noticed.
> Michael is certainly correct that TMY will give dense highlights
> under contrasty light, that's certainly true. I don't know what
> to make of his observation that TMY presents low shadow contrast;
> that's contrary to my experience, but is perhaps due to developer
> choice.
> So, if you're shooting outdoors under unpredictable light where
> you might have to deal with direct sunlight/contrasty light, TMY
> might not be the easiest film to print afterwards.
> Dana
I wanted to expand my comments:
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In contrasty light that shows texture, the highlight area tend to have
greater brightness and contrast (think of a white stucco building in
harsh sunlight). The white stucco that is in the direct sunlight will
be in harsh light, showing its texture clearly. Every bump will be
emphasized by the harsh light.
On the other hand, the stucco that is in the shade will have both less
illumination and softer illumination, since the light falling on it
will be diffuse light from the blue sky.
A film like TMY will tend to exaggerate the contrast of the bright
areas (which are already contrasty) because its curve shape does not
shoulder off in the highlight areas the way Tri-X does. At the same
time, the shadow areas, which are in soft light, will fall on the less
contrasty part of the film's curve. A film like Tri-X will tend to
'balance' between the dark areas and light areas, reducing the
contrast of the brighter areas (which tend to be the contrastiest) and
increasing the contrast of the shadow areas (which tend to be the
flattest). In other words, you don't want a straight-line curve for
outdoor work!
Lens flare (present in every lens) will tend to degrade contrast in
the shadows (as it makes up a larger ****tion of the light in the
shadow area). So, films intended for outdoor use (which means high-
flare situations) will have less contrast in the highlight areas and
more in the shadows, as this provides a better (more even) contrast
from shadows to highlights. The white stucco does not 'need' any boost
in contrast (and perhaps could use a cut in contrast to keep things
under control); the shadows could indeed use a little more snap
because the sky is going to cause some flare in the shadows.
Kodak used to discuss this in their old film literature when they made
a larger variety of emulsions for ****traiture, commercial, and press
work. Each of these film types had curves suited to the flare
conditions and application.
TMY has relatively less contrast in the shadow areas, and more
contrast in the highlight areas, that Tri-X Pan (400). It is suited to
situations of LOW FLARE ONLY, where shadow contrast can be maintained.
It is a studio film above all. It is NOT well-suited as a general-
purpose film. Those who use diffusion enlargers and work mostly with
color negative film will have less problem with highlight contrast.
Those who use condensers will find Tri-X Pan a better film overall.
What the NEW TMY will look like is a mystery. I anticipate it will be
somewhat more like Tri-X, but only slightly so. That is, I predict the
curve will look more like that of TMX (T-Max 100) than of Tri-X Pan
(400) or Plus-X Pan (125) for 35mm.
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