I don't want to stir things (well, maybe I do:), but in my experience, T-max developer is almost the same as accufine. A hot soup: nothing more, nothing less. Paul
William Robb wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Shel Belinkoff" < > Subject: Re: Pushing and Pulling film > > > Hi Bill, > > > > Well, if you can't find any Acufine up in the cold, northern > nether > > reaches, let me know and I'll send you some. I've got some > other stuff > > for you as well. > > I don't hold out much hope for Don's, but MPS is usually pretty > good. I will check tomorrow. I would rather find it locally. > This is not a good time to be sending white powders via > international mail. > > > > As for your gut reaction that there's no actual speed > increase, my > > recollection is that that comment runs contrary to what you > said several > > months ago when I mentioned how nice it was to see that > Acufine/TX > > combination again, having not used it for many years. IAC, I > don't > > understand this business about a contrast increase in the > lower zones. > > For there to be increased contrast there'd have to be recorded > and > > developed detail. If one is shooting TX at two stops under > Kodak > > recommendations, should there not be some loss of shadow > detail? Like I > > said, I don't understand all this, I just know that I measure > middle > > grey at a higher EV than what's printed on the yellow box, > pretty much > > follow the Acufine directions (Actually, I dilute it 1:1 and > double the > > dev time), and get mucho shadow detail, more so than when > souping in > > other developers. > > Actually, I think I would have said that Tri-X is a good > candidate for this technique due to the rather unique shape of > it's characteristic curve. > Please see: > which is Tri-X in HC:110/B > http://kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f9/f002 > _0361ac.gif > The film is practically all toe!!!! > > Compare this to TMY in D-76 > http://kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f32/f00 > 2_0509ac.gif > This combination doesn't yield a lot of toe. > > There will only be loss of shadow detail if the shadow detail > falls under the threshold sensitivity of the emulsion. You may > recall a previous rant where I made mention of how if a 9 stop > film is used to photograph a 6 stop scene, there is some room > for metering error. This is why you can often under expose a > film and get away with it. > > Lets move to the gymnasium, and a fencing tournament. Any gym > that I have encountered has been lit by a large number of very > bright lights. Also, the floors, while perhaps on the dark side, > are very reflective. There are not a lot of hard shadows in the > gym. I would venture a guess that a typical gymnasium represents > perhaps a 3 stop range, from Zones 4 to 6. > So, what happens if you decide to "push" a film under these > conditions? > Lets push Tri-X a couple of stops. The lowest values have > dropped from Zone 4 to Zone 2, still well within the films > ability to capture the detail, though because the brightest Zone > is now Zone 4, we will have a pretty muddy final print if we > don't take a pro-active approach to our film processing. > What we need to do is expand the tonal range out a few zones to > give us some snap. And, we need a developer that will give us > better separation in the values from Zones 2 to 4 especially. My > guess is that this is what Acufine is designed to do, and this > is one of the things I will be researching over the next couple > of weeks. > > You will find that there are a lot of scenes that mimic the > example I have given. A street portrait shot using only open sky > for illumination will fall into this example, as will most > anything shot on an overcast day. Arena sports at night would be > another example. > Any scene that has non directional, flat, even illumination > where the scene range is only a few stops will allow a "push". > > In landscape work using the Zone System, we call it giving plus > development to expand the tonal range of the film, and it > involves cutting back on the exposure somewhat to compensate for > the movement of the shadow values up the exposure curve as we > increase development. > > If any part of the scene falls below the threshold for exposure, > that detail is gone. Ain't nothing going to get it back, other > than drawing it in with a pencil. > William Robb > - > This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, > go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to > visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
