Grainy "snowy" film on Tri-X Reversal Black & White ISO 200 / 160,

Mark Petrini · September 8, 2018

Hi, all, I'm hoping for a little education. I'm an enthusiastic beginner to S8; I shot a roll of Tri-X outdoors on a mid-summer, overcast day; I used the auto setting on a Nizo 801 that has had recent CLA and typically shoots nice, sharp images in B&W and color. The Tri-X was developed at Pro8mm (they've done a great job with the other rolls) but with this roll (watching on the digital transfer) it looks like it was shot in a mild snowstorm around the pool. The roll was was shipped and developed with 3 other rolls which are fine so I don't think something happened in transit. Any thoughts? I may have let the roll hang around too long before developing (a month or two); it's not over/under-exposed in any obvious way. Thank you very much, Mark

Simon Wyss · September 9, 2018

Tri-X reversal, I suppose. That is a grainy film. On the other hand, it can be processed to a tighter grain structure. You need to ask around about developer formulae and process parameters. Hate to say it but Kodak did shoot themselves in the first foot by replacing the early colourless-base films, Panatomic-X, Super-X, by a new line of black-and-white stocks in the fifties. They turned away from the home movie enthusiasts to the television people. A gray film base was not a problem with a TV scan. The second mistake was to let Kodachrome die but that’s not the subject here.

Since Plus-X “reversal” and Tri-X “reversal” aren’t true mixed-emulsions reversal stocks they cannot perform comparably. You’ll be surprised by the technical image quality that earlier films have. One old-fashioned reversible film is Fomapan R 100 by Foma Bohemia, Czech Republic. It is available in 35mm, 16mm perforated both sides and one side only, Double-Eight, and DS-8.