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From: kanner@tymix.UUCP (Herb Kanner)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: XP1... (joe_film)
Message-ID: <482@tymix.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 21:45:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: tymix.482
Posted: Sun Aug 18 21:45:57 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 21:26:41 EDT
References: <478@tymix.UUCP> <9941@ucbvax.ARPA>
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Organization: Tymnet Inc., Cupertino CA
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In article <9941@ucbvax.ARPA> jordan@ucbvax.UUCP (Jordan Hayes) writes:
>
>In article <478@tymix.UUCP> kanner@tymix.UUCP (Herb Kanner) writes:
>	Perhaps you should get some experience with the stuff before
>	you go shooting your mouth off with excruciatingly funny bits
>	of sarcasm.
>
>Sorry to hear that you thought it was sarcasm. I've shot thousands of
>rolls tri-x, and have grown used to the performance I get from it.  I
>suppose that explains why I still use it. I also suppose that's why I
>don't use XP-1, which I tried in sample quantities before it came out.
>Exposed and developed properly, tri-x gives me better performance than
>XP-1 (or AGFA's vario-xl for that matter).
>
>My question is this: how much is "some experience" ?? Can you say "200
>or so" ?? That is how many rolls I shot of XP-1 before I realized that
>what I had hoped for when I first read of it was all just a dream. The
>choosing of film, of course, comes down to a personal level, just as
>anything else does (like camera equiptment manufacturers).
>
First, please accept my apology for the flame.  It is the second time I
have done it this year, and each time I regretted it.  The trouble is, that
when we try to keep our submissions short we sometimes give misimpressions.

I agree that reaction to materials is a very personal matter.  At the risk
of being excessively wordy, I want to summarize where I "came from" when I
went to XP1 and also to relate second hand another person's experience.

Although I have been dabbling at photography for 40 years, I first got
really serious about B&W work in 1970.  I was in England at the time.  I
went on a fine-grain/acutance-developer kick and for several years stuck to
Pan F developed with minimal agitation in Neofin Blue.  This is a Beutler
developer which, when used correctly, gives an illusion of more sharpness
than corresponds to the actual resolution because of the presence of what I
believe are called Mackie Lines at the interfaces between areas of
differing density.  Well, I got some incredible results, but finally was
not willing to cope with the restrictions this combination forced on me.
First, this procedure resulted in a restricted curve at the high-exposure
end, and it was virtually impossible to get any structure on a white object
such as a swan without drastically under-exposing the surroundings.
Second, although Tetenal recommended doubling the film speed to get a thin
neg, even ASA 100 did not cope with some of those British winter mornings.
So, I went to the other extreme, and from say 1972 until XP1 appeared I
stuck to Tri X, usually developed in 1 to 1 diluted D76.  I was usually
quite happy with it, expect when dealing with human faces.  My first test
roll with XP1 impressed the hell out of me.  I deliberately shot one scene,
a cat in a garden, at ASA 100, 200, and 400, and found that by playing with
the Polycontrast filters I could get virtually identical prints from all
three.  I also found that on grain and resolution, it not only beat Tri X,
but also beat Plus X.  I don't have curves available on Tri X, but looking
at an Ilford data book which has sensitometric curves on all their films, I
see that XP1 has a usable log exposure range one unit (i.e., a factor of
ten) greater than HP5, a film which is supposed to be similar to Tri X.

Grain in XP1 is not really grain in the same sense as grain in conventional
film.  It is the result of a Poisson distribution of dye clumps, which
essentially goes away as soon as the negative gets dense enough that these
clumps overlap.  Therefore, with a well exposed shot, the grain is seen in
the darkest parts of the print, where it is not really noticed.  If a
negative is everywhere thin, with this stuff, it will be everywhere grainy.
In my own experiments, I found that rating it at 800 consistently produced
terrible results, and I am still vacillating between 200 and 400, depending
on which camera I am using.

One other comment.  While I am almost exclusively sticking to XP1 because
of its versatility and tonal range, I recently just for the hell of it ran
a roll of Pan F developed in Rodinal, and got the impression that a
portrait of the head of a cat printed up with a degree of crispness that I
haven't been able to match with XP1.

Supporting your comment about how personal this all can get, I remember a
column written by Victor Blackman, a British photojournalist who writes
weekly in the magazine Amateur Photographer.  This was shortly after the
introduction by Ilford of HP5.  Blackman was a user of Tri X, as are most
people in his trade.  He said that he had given HP5 a serious try, couldn't
figure out why it did not work for him, but that the prints he got from
those negatives were just not satisfactory compared to Tri X.

I too use Nikons.  Have a Nikkormat, an FM-2, an old Rollei 35S, a Minox
GT, and a few weeks ago got wildly extravagant and bought a Contax T.  Most
beloved lenses are Vivitar Series 1 70 to 210 and 28 to 90.
-- 
Herb Kanner
Tymnet, Inc.
...!hplabs!oliveb!tymix!kanner