TMAX 100 AND 400 Special Order?

[Scott Pickering]

I know at one time they tested Tmax for motion picture use, but since they already had Plus X- they never bothered with it. Now that Kodak is missing a fine grained b&w film for motion picture use, I wonder if either Tmax films could be used if made up on a special order? First off, what results would you get in D96? Secondly if a positive print was made, would contrast be acceptable? Thirdly could Kodak even do a special order of Tmax in lengths for reels and punched with proper sprocket holes? What would a minimum order look like?

[Simon Wyss]

I believe you won’t see a difference between prints made from those films and off ORWO UN 54 or ORWO N 74 negatives. If you want to shoot on fine-grain stocks, you have panchromatic internegative films. The ORWO films, manufactured by InovisCoat, are way more modern than Kodak’s black-and-white stuff, they have anti-static layers and dry much faster.

[Charles MacDonald]

unless you are talking about a batch that is cut to use an entire roll of film that is  58 inches wide and over 6000 ft long, I don't think Kodak would even think about it.

[Jarin Blaschke]

Actually Kodak does have a cleaner stock available: TriX. Process as a negative, rating at 100 and pull one stop. It’s far superior to Double X, which I find intolerable in 16mm. I’ve tested side by side.

Kodak also stated that they can special order TriX for 35mm, but the per foot charge is very high. I don’t know what the minimum would be.

Tmax emulsions don’t have enough flexibility and forgiveness for motion picture use. If a mom and pop lab overdevelops TMax 100, the highlights are fried. It is also more finicky for exposure. 

 

Jarin

 

 

[Chris Burke]

On 10/4/2019 at 6:46 PM, Jarin Blaschke said:

Actually Kodak does have a cleaner stock available: TriX. Process as a negative, rating at 100 and pull one stop. It’s far superior to Double X, which I find intolerable in 16mm. I’ve tested side by side.

Kodak also stated that they can special order TriX for 35mm, but the per foot charge is very high. I don’t know what the minimum would be.

Tmax emulsions don’t have enough flexibility and forgiveness for motion picture use. If a mom and pop lab overdevelops TMax 100, the highlights are fried. It is also more finicky for exposure. 

 

Jarin

 

 

Jarin,  did you find processing the Tri-X as a negative increased exposure latitude at all? I have some and have often thought about the cross process. 

 I have to say that the lighthouse is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. You certainly deserve an oscar as does the cast. The film has inspired myself and some friends to keep shooting film, especially black and white. I have a few rolls of 7265  Plus-X and 7231 Plus X that I was saving and now have found a reason to use them. Thank you!

[Jarin Blaschke]

I didn't test Tri-X as a negative versus Tri-X as a positive. All I know is that Tri-X as a negative (with -1 processing) compared superlatively versus Double-X processed as a negative normally. Latitude was similar, with superior grain, tonality and sharpness.

 

-Jarin

[Alexey Kurbatov]

Where you can get Tri-X developed as negative? Fotokem?

[Jarin Blaschke]

That’s where we did it, yes.

 

j

[Aapo Lettinen]

The easiest way to shoot special stocks is to use a camera which can handle both KS and BH perfs and various pitches without any problems. I regularly shoot 100ft bulk still film rolls with Konvas cameras and it works fine. Agfa apx, foma400, ilford films, etc. You may need to rewind to proper core size first and you may get reflections if the camera has shiny pressure plate. The stills films seem to also generate more film dust in the mags. The image looks very nice though. Tmax is pretty expensive stock for this but could be done very easily with konvas

[Aapo Lettinen]

So either you do a very big special order so that you can use the camera you want. OR you use the film you can obtain easily and then choose a camera which can shoot it as is. Much easier that way by my opinion

[Aapo Lettinen]

1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

Tmax is pretty expensive stock for this but could be done very easily with konvas

seems to be much cheaper in the States than here. 

but if looking at the inventory of a photo store there is lots of options if using 100ft bulk rolls and pretty much every one of those would work with Konvas as long as it is perforated film https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?ci=39569&fct=fct_number-of-exposures_7032|100ft-roll&

Edited November 1, 2019 by aapo lettinen

[Robino Jones]

8 hours ago, aapo lettinen said:

The easiest way to shoot special stocks is to use a camera which can handle both KS and BH perfs and various pitches without any problems. I regularly shoot 100ft bulk still film rolls with Konvas cameras and it works fine. Agfa apx, foma400, ilford films, etc. You may need to rewind to proper core size first and you may get reflections if the camera has shiny pressure plate. The stills films seem to also generate more film dust in the mags. The image looks very nice though. Tmax is pretty expensive stock for this but could be done very easily with konvas

My AATON 35III movement doesn't use registration pins, it's a single pulldown claw - would it work well with KS perforated film? - Would be great to be able to shoot some ILFORD BW or TMax for specialty projects.

And what about remjet pass at the lab - would that hurt the non-remjet still film? 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Robino Jones

[Aapo Lettinen]

5 minutes ago, Robino Jones said:

My AATON 35III movement doesn't use registration pins, it's a single pulldown claw - would it work well with KS perforated film? - Would be great to be able to shoot some ILFORD BW or TMax for specialty projects.

And what about remjet pass at the lab - would that hurt the non-remjet still film? 

It depends on the shape of the claw and how well it fits the perforations. I believe it would be easy to test it with manual inching. 

All the labs I know of develop the B/W films separately... can't use the same chemistry for it than for colour negative. B/W negative does not have the mechanically removed black remjet layer like the colour negative has. Some B/W reversal films have silver anti-halation layer (Fomapan for example) which need to be removed by the bleach bath of the reversal process. This means they can't be developed as negative, only as reversal.

[Robino Jones]

I just put some still film in my camera and it advanced nicely. Is there any color reversal still film in bulk these days? That would be amazing.

[Stephen Perera]

As a note, TMax is also a very 'dense' (I'm using the wrong word for sure) negative and it exhausts developers and fixers faster than the other BW film.....just look at that purple dye you have to wash hard again and again to get rid of when you're processing yourself......saying that....TMAX 400 is fantastic....I soup both in Xtol 1:1....obviously I dont know anything about it in motion picture use....dont know what Tmax 100 does though but its fantastic to shoot people....has a creaminess and acutance at the same time.....i first used it in 1985 at Art School and its one of those je ne sais quoi films for me.....but 400...wow....what a film

[Aapo Lettinen]

On 11/1/2019 at 11:01 AM, aapo lettinen said:

The easiest way to shoot special stocks is to use a camera which can handle both KS and BH perfs and various pitches without any problems. I regularly shoot 100ft bulk still film rolls with Konvas cameras and it works fine. Agfa apx, foma400, ilford films, etc. You may need to rewind to proper core size first and you may get reflections if the camera has shiny pressure plate. The stills films seem to also generate more film dust in the mags. The image looks very nice though. Tmax is pretty expensive stock for this but could be done very easily with konvas

And of course I made a crappy YouTube video about this procedure as well :D   How to shoot stills film with a movie camera

[Ruben Arce]

I did the same thing a few years ago. I had some bulk Ilford HP4 and I wanted to test my Konvas 2M. I did loaded some film on a core, loaded the camera, shoot with it and everything was just fine. I just wanted to test the camera so I was more than happy with the results. I didn't shoot much, but I didn't get weird reflections coming back from the pressure plate or anything, just some nice sharp images.