I think the difficulty most of us have making sense out of film quality arises to a considerable degree because response curves for printing papers differ, and so any particular film may look quite different on different papers. It is hard to avoid being told that Tri-X Pro is long toed, or T-Max films have almost no shoulder, but how often do we hear about the toe, shoulder or other curve characteristic of the papers out there? And how many of us regularly test such things?
Myron On May 18, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Robert Randall wrote:
A lot of people are very happy with the results they get from HP5, and I’m not disparaging them or their results. I’m just curious about their feedback. Your story is interesting in that I probably would have never guessed someone could get good results shooting snowscapes with Plus-X, at least not brightly lit scenes.Its sad to note how few films are available. BobOn 5/18/09 11:55 AM, "Sauerwald Mark" <mark_sauerwald@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:BobI used to shoot Tri-X in the summer time, and Plus-X in the winter time, mostly because I liked the way that Tri-X held detail in the shadows in the summer, and in the winter (I live in Maine where winter landscapes mean snow), Plus-X did a good job of holding detail in the highlights. I realize that the reasons that I liked these films were precisely because of the way they were NOT linear, and since I shoot mostly large format, grain is not a major concern. When Kodak discontinued Plus-X (in sheet film), I tried out a lot of other films. I didn't like the T-Grain films because I found it harder to control contrast with development, and I ended up falling on HP-5. I didn't like it as much as I liked the Plus- X for holding detail in highlights, but it was OK, and it seemed to do a decent job in the shadows as well. Being somewhat disgusted at Kodak for discontinuing what I considered to be a foundation of traditional photography, I moved wholesale over to Ilford and now shoot almost exclusively HP5. It may be a terrible performing film, but I am happy with the images that I get from it.Mark --- On Mon, 5/18/09, Robert Randall <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:From: Robert Randall <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Good acutance and tonality for HP5+ 120 formatTo: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 10:49 AMAs a point of curiosity, I have a question for all of you regarding HP5. In all my tests, it was the single worst performing film available. The grain is horrible, the emulsion makes the film inherently soft, and the only acutance to speak of is a measurable increase in the visibility of the grain. Mind you, this is based on testing and not usage, so my question is; why do any of you use it? What feedback do you receive from the final imagethat causes you to like the film? Bob Randall
