Today's film IS better.

[Ian Grant]

Ian,

Assuming good quality control, do you think the "thick" emulsion films such as Kodak Super-XX would still have a place in the market today?

Tom

I doubt it, I think we'll see either the conventional or T-rain emulsions disappear within 5 years, but I doubt we'll ahve both.

I think that Don, the OP's, point is that T-grain films are the way forward, personally I agree and that goes across all 3 major producers of B&W films companies.

A problem that never seems to be raised is that many Photo courses want their students to use films like FP4 and HP5, or Plus-X and Tri-X and seem very reluctant to embrace Tmax, Delta etc. I've seen this first hand in a few places the most striking in Santiago, Chile where there was a whole arcade of shops selling to the student market, the only films on sale where FP4, HP% and some Fomapanm but no Kodak of any type and no Delta.

So while today's films like Tmax, Delta, Acros etc are far better there's still a reluctance by many to embrace them.

Ian

[Tom Kershaw]

Ian,

For the relatively short time I've been involved in darkroom work (circa 2003), the 'Delta' films have been my mainstay. Why do you think courses are reluctant to advocate the T-Max and Delta films?

Tom

[Ian Grant]

Some people find them harder to use, they aren't as forgiving to exposure or processing errors, perhaps some course leaders prefer to use films like FP$ & HP5 for that reason.

Ian

[David A. Goldfarb]

The last of the common old technology films were actiually Forte, based on old Kodak technology, so more similar to Super-XX

Ian

These were old tech films, but I suspect they evolved at various points after Kodak sold the plant in the 1960s. Considering general economic conditions in Hungary, I doubt they were continuing to pour as much silver into film during the silver bubble of the 1980s, particularly given that the film wasn't widely sold outside the East European market then, and I don't think they had begun coating film for Bergger yet. When Fotoimpex started selling Fortepan 400 as Classic 400, many people seemed to think it was going to be a cheaper version of Tri-X, but it just didn't have the density range of Tri-X, though they responded to complaints about this and the film was improved by the time J&C was selling it. I found that the last version was a bit slower than Tri-X and the highlights were a bit more manageable than Tri-X.

[Lee L]

Okay, I've never heard of Edwal 12, but Photographer's Formulary claims to have an equivalent.

It's not an equivalent, it is Edwal 12 in kit form. They also sell the separate chemicals needed to make Edwal 12.

The fact that Edwal 12 isn't en vogue on flickr isn't indicative of anything. Do the APUG google search and you'll find a number of Edwal 12 related posts. As df cardwell clearly says, it's the way that you use it that counts. Perhaps you should ask him about his methods here on APUG rather than looking for confirmation from random posts on flickr.

Lee

[fschifano]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks to me like TMY2 has the same MTF as Panatomic X. So, I take that as evidence that Panatomic X was some really good stuff and we just now caught up to it. How fast was panatomic X?

Close, but Panatomic-X was what, ASA 32? TMY-2 is a definite ISO 400, 4 1/3 stops faster.

[df cardwell]

A problem that never seems to be raised is that many Photo courses want their students to use films like FP4 and HP5, or Plus-X and Tri-X and seem very reluctant to embrace Tmax, Delta etc.

There was a plague of college Photo programs and classes that appeared in the early 1970s in the US. Inevitably, they were taught from the Art department. Since the Art department was notably empty of photographers (there being very few MFA courses at the time), the classes were taught by painters and sculptors and instructors with little photographic experience. It DID get better, but Photo education has always been terribly uneven, and largely disconnected from where Photography was going. If you were NOT at RIT (or a hand full of exceptional courses) you played with Dianas and never learned the technical foundation. Which was cool, but as we pick over what remains of our Craft, too many of us are about 25 years behind the curve.

[df cardwell]

Okay, I'll bite: duplicate the tonality of APX in Rodinal for me. Let's hear it.

G'morning Chris. APX 100 is tough because it isn't the JUST the exposure/development that makes the negative, it is the spectral response. And APX is unique.

I'm an old Agfa shooter, and shooting APX 100 (in the US) was like feeding your panda... especially if it was up to Agfa to import your bamboo ! And yet APX 100 has a knack for rendering every human complexion in a flattering way, making it easy to shoot a group of ANYBODY easily. But when Agfa killed 4x5, I bailed.

A pale #11 filter (yellow-green) does a good job to mimic the APX 100 'semi ortho' signature. Depending on the light source and film, you might want to tune the results a little... but if you needed THAT specific response, you'd need to tune the APX anyway. As for matching the film curve, that's easy-peasy. I hope you can shoot APX as long as you need to. In the studio, I use Rosco filters to balance the lights. Pay attention to the red, yellow, or blue cast a complexion has. Even APX is right for everybody all the time.

When a client looks at my pictures, such as they are, as see that I care deeply about making somebody look as handsome on film as they are in real life, it is completely up to me to deliver. There is no way to face my neighbor, or a stranger, and say "I couldn't get my old film so I made you bad." It is all up to me to solve those problems. APX is a pseudo ortho film (like Scala) and a little filtration does the trick.

d

[Chazzy]

Some people find them harder to use, they aren't as forgiving to exposure or processing errors, perhaps some course leaders prefer to use films like FP$ & HP5 for that reason.

Ian

And some of us just want to use our old favorites, because we like the way they look. As far as I'm concerned, the T-grain look is sterile and devoid of personality. Obviously some people love the stuff, including the consultants who helped with the development of TMY-2. If the film companies drop the traditional films, some of us won't move to Tmax. If our work is going to look digital, we might as well shoot digitally.

[df cardwell]

You might be able to mimic TXP very well with some other film, but that doesn't make it TXP.

No, it will still be TMY2 with exactly the same response as TXP.
Or whatever you choose the response to be. YOU are the magic, and while TXP (and Portrait Pan before it) made it easier to shoot in flat light and get fully scaled results (by compressing the shadows and expanding the highlights) TMY does that easily enough.

Kodak USED to make a dozen films, so you'd have the right film for any event. Today, they make 3 T-Grain films which cover the same range, and 2 traditional films which cover most of the range. Seems like a win for me.