| Rodinal |
1:75 - 4.5 min. 1:100 - 6.5 min. 1:125 - 7.25 min. |
| Kodak's HC110 | E (1:11) F (1:19) |
| Kodak's T-Max Developer | 1:4 - 6 min. 1:7 - 10min. 1:9(NR) - 15 min. |
| The finest and sharpest film currently available today. Now if we can only develop it to give a good continuous toned image! In truth I think more has been written about Tech Pan than any other film in history just because it's a real challenge to master . T-Max is just about as good as TP, although not nearly as fine grained . Near grainless 20 X 24 can be made from a 35 mm negative . Of course there is the catch. Overdevelop or overexpose it by as little as 5% and you have a high-contrast nightmare on your hands ! How do we develop in a little latitude ? By using a dilute developer with a pretty low activity and a compensating action. This developer should keep all of the qualities of TP from being lost in it's run-away attempt at overdeveloping. TP's strongpoint, besides the ones above, is it's sharpness. In a high contrast target photo, TP can resolve up to 320 lines/mm. That's 50% better than the next closest film which is T-Max 100. To maintain this sharpness a high acutance type developer should be utilized. Rodinal is an excellent choice . At the 1:100 dilution it can be used as a stand developer with TP to achieved enhanced adjacency effects. This gives the appearance of extreme sharpness. At the same time it allows the developer to compensate the highlights while developing the shadows to the fullest extent possible. Don't forget to use a good lens and technique. And any errors at all will be all to apparent in the final image . | |