This happened a couple months ago and I read the glowing test reports and bought a bunch of the new 120 stuff early in Feb. I have gotten into arguments about this to the point that I don't really want to do it again but what I found in many side by side tests shooting the exact same subject at the same time with the same camera and processing them together that this is really much ado about nothing.
As to the grain improvement, you can't possibly see it without extreme magnification. It is not significant. I put identical test exposures on each film at the top of my enlarger with a 50mm lens and looked at the grain through a grain focuser and could not tell which was finer. Think if for instance that the TMY-2 is 10% finer, The grain you used to get in a 20x20 inch print you will now get in a 21x21 inch print. You will get greater fluctuations in grain than that from processing and age. To be a significant improvement it would have to be 50% or more and I doubt if it is truly 10% according to my tests since I can't see an improvement at all. Even examining a print with a magnifier the grain looks the same.
The new stuff seems a bit more contrasty (a small bit). But I am not sure I would necessarily consider increased contrast an improvement.
As to the sharpness. Never in a million years will you see a difference and I have to wonder. What was the sharpest finest grained 400 speed black and white film before? If Kodak surpassed Delta 400 with this improvement then I can't imagine what small increments we must be talking about.
My thought is that if I can't see an improvement or any difference at all really then it is so insignificant that I don't need to hear about it. I would assume they should be trying to tweak up the quality all the time with little improvements that don't really need press releases.
I think it was just a marketing move. It got me all worked up and I bought a bunch of that film when I probably otherwise wouldn't have because I had the old on hand already. When it first came out I made a big stink of getting 50 rolls from B&H and they said they would send the new and then sent me the old and I ended up angry and sending it back to pay a higher price for the new. I wish I hadn't done that.
Anyway that is my opinion Dennis On Apr 1, 2008, at 09:32, Eric Nelson wrote:
Just a heads up to everyone that there is a new T-Max 400 out. I just became aware of it when a client sent me 10 rolls of it today. Claims on the box are that it is the world's sharpest film. Development times are different than the previous version ( http://tinyurl.com/2fnud8 ) and from what I'm reading of other users out there, Xtol is the preferred developer. http://tinyurl.com/2bt6zt I'm just now looking into it and a call to Kodak professional is moments away so I'm not too well informed about this...yet. Also see http://tinyurl.com/37af5n . Not sure if there is a TMX 100-2.... Eric_______________________________________________________________________ _____________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com======================================================================= ====================================== To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
