photographic @ge - Tri-X vs. Tmax odak Black & White Films

Can you tell the difference?

In issue 3 we looked into the argument of using "Pro" film instead of shooting with "Off the Shelf" consumer films. And in issue 1 we compared several ISO 100 color slide films.

Getting away from color film and looking closer into the results produced by Kodak Tri-X and Tmax Professional films, which both have an ISO 400 dramatically rating and strikingly different results.

Most notably is the greater range of shadow details, as shown here in this pop up window. This image on "Tmax Professional" shows the films ability to retain details even in the darkest of shadow areas. Notice in the wheels that you can see the separation from the rim and tire shades. We also noticed a much smoother look to the images, with a much wider range of shades. It gives the images a slightly warmer look than the Tri-X images.

Even with the strong overhead light source, the highlights rarely washed out to pure white. While on the other end of the scale, we saw that the blacks also did not reach as deep of a black as the paper could deliver. While this was a plus for the highlight part, we really needed a rich black in the shadows to get the depth and coolness that I personally prefer.

Warm Or Cold Tones

Sometimes I wonder why Kodak continues to produce several films of the same ISO range. While this is more of a question to me about color films, it is not an issue at all with their Black & White films.

The comparison in this pop up window it's hard to believe that these two images are both from ISO 400 films. The image on the left is on Tri-X, while the one on the right is on Tmax. While there is a probable slight change in the lighting between shots, that doesn't account for the enormous difference in smoothness between shades. The Tmax is also apparently much sharper than the Tri-X, and the result gives the appearance of less contrast.

Further studies of these two images actually reveal that the Tmax does have as much or more contrast, while the extremely finer grain just gives the illusion that it doesn't. As for warm or cold tones, the Tmax doesn't really have the warm reddish tones of a typical warm tone print paper, but appears warmer once again due to the finer grain. This difference would probably be better categorized as harsh or smooth instead of cold or warm tones.

After noticing the greater sharpness and definition of the violin's strings and the sharper edges, I could pretty well safely say that Tmax is most certainly the Black & White ISO 400 film to use. I am surprised at the stark differences in the two images, but if the shading differences are due to different lighting conditions, it is still no excuse for the difference in grain.

Highlight Detail

If we pay no attention to the difference in grain, it would still not make up for the other subtle differences in these two films.

In this pop up window ,we can easily see that the Tri-X has a difficult time recording the 1 to 5% shades of grey. While the densitometer shows that the film did record those percentages, when printed they are lost. While the same holds true for the Tmax film as well, it seems to have a better ability to retain those percentages when printed. As a result the Tmax images have much smoother highlights with greater detail.

You can see in the upper right corner of this image where the water seems to lose the 1 to 4% shades. It also seems that the Tri-X film really makes its grain more noticeable in the 1 to 20% shades. As you can see in the image of the Volkswagon along the side of the car, it really retains a greater range of grey shades when compared to the water in the image here.

If you are wondering the reason why there is so much difference in these two films, it all begins with the grain structure. The Tmax film has a new Kodak T-Grain Emulsion that reshapes pebble-like crystals into a tabular form with more surface to catch light. It is this same fact that enables the Tmax film to retain much greater detail in the shadow areas as well. But the Tri-X does hold shadow details fairly well up to the 90 to 95% shades.

Again you will notice in the Volkswagon image, just underneath the car, that some small particles of detail are retained, but in the darkest regions of the Tri-X image you see that the shadow areas actually have less contrast. Without a doubt the Tmax film outperforms Tri-X in just about every way.

In this pop up window you really get to see the unsurpassed sharpness that the Tmax film offers. Even the fibers of the paper, this piece of fractioanl currency is printed on, are visible. This film is incredibly sharp for an ISO 400 film. So sharp that I just can't imagine that it would be sharper in the Tmax ISO 100 version. No doubt a film we will have to review in an upcoming issue.

Although for some reason I think if we were to test Kodak Plus-X against Tmax 100, I already know what the results would be.

The Variables

Tri-X and Tmax Professional films can be processed by a variety of developers. Both can be developed in D-76 and Tmax developers, to name a few. For this test I processed them both in D-76 straight, since at 68° they both had the same development time of 8 minutes. Their times were different from each other with the other developers and I wanted to process both rolls at the same time.

No matter what developer we would have used, it is quite evident from the results we got that it wouldn't make any difference. The Tmax film is still going to yield much better results than the Tri-X film. While most of the contrast differences can be altered with the grade of paper we choose to print on, nothing will make up for the difference in grain.

When I first compared the negatives and results of these two films, I thought that possibly one would have a better use in certain situations. But now I must rethink that scenario, and certainly would use Tmax in any instance where I was to shoot ISO 400 Black & White film.

Often during the production of this magazine we run into circumstances or results that we feel may not be the same for everyone. We welcome you to use the "quick takes" form to give us your side of the story.