Digital BW, The Print

Tony Sleep <TonySleep@...> wrote:
>
> ... I used XP-1 & 2 and TCN for many years 
> out of preference. ...
> Chromagenics were capable of tonality and extended highlight 
> range that went way beyond normal ISO 400 films. I did masses 
> of testing ...

>... chromagenics are REALLY well matched to scanning IME.
> ...

Reasonable people can disagree, but my experience with Kodak T400CN is more in line with Tony's.

At the time I was using Kodak's T400CN, Kodak Technical Data sheets claimed, "... image quality equals or surpasses 100-speed traditional black-and-white films [read non-T-grain]."  The RMS Granularity rating was 9, compared to 10 for the Tmax 400 of the day.  My tests tended to support the Kodak claims.  Note that I'm talking only of Kodak T400CN.  I preferred it to the XP-1.

Currently T400CN is no longer made, and Tmax 400 has been improved.  I think now that the current Tmax 400 is considered their finest grained and sharpest 400 ISO film.

I never had any problems with the highlights going flat with T400CN.  The shape of the characteristic curve was very typical of what we got with mildly compensating developers, which were preferred by many B&W photographers.  In fact, the Kodak Technical Data sheets show the T400CN characteristic curve to be straighter/more linear than Tmax 100 developed in D76.

At any rate, this is getting a bit OT.  The more direct answer to the exposure issue is that many preferred to rate 400 ISO films at less than 400.  

(With a spot meter and knowing exactly where each value is going to be on the characteristic curve, the issue of the "proper" speed for average types of metering was not particularly relevant to me.  But most don't graph out their characteristic curves and use spot meters.) 

I do miss the magic of pulling the roll of medium format negatives out of the tank and later seeing the image develop on the paper in the tray under the darkroom lights.  But digital tools are so powerful, there's no going back.  (Then again my 30 year old negatives are still as good as new.  I wonder whether I'll think that about my digital files 30 years from now -- as if I'll live that long.)

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com