Digital BW, The Print

>>  So I'm going to see how Neopan 100 works.  It
>> claims to have the finest grain of any 100 speed film.  We'll see.
>

I'm under-whelmed by my first Neopan test.  It's just another Tmax 100, as
far as I can tell.  Not in the same league with Tech Pan.

>Just curious Paul, I seem to recall something about Tmax-100 +
>Microdol-X 1+3, as producing sharp negs for scanning. What have been
>your experience with this combination ?

Andre, my old (enlarger days) standard was Tmax 100 with Microdol x 1:3.
With 3 minute agitation intervals it gave an amazingly sharp image.  Since
there was no Photoshop for unsharp masking, this development did about the
same thing chemically.

However, I find with scanning & Photoshop that it's a lot easier to sharpen
details than smooth grain.  The chemical sharpening of the dilute developer
+ infrequent agitation not only enhanced the fine detail but also the grain.

Now I find that grain is the limiting factor with 100 speed films.  Xtol
seems to be about the best at reducing grain and keeping the speed up, but
it can only do so much.  That is what caused my renewed interest in Tech
Pan.  With Tech Pan (and the Nikon 8000 grain reduction option) I can easily
take my 645 negatives up to 22 x 28 inches with virtually no grain.  (At
least that was true with Xtol.  I'm not sure there is another TP developer
that can do this.)

Unfortunately, dilute Xtol is apparently just too inconsistent with TP.
Kodak once recommended Xtol 1:5 for TP.  They have dropped that
recommendation.  They have also dropped the 1 liter packages.  They claim it
is due to packaging problems, but I've been told by a chemist that powder
mixing is very tricky, and the Xtol problem is probably due to a powder
component that is so small that it can't be consistently mixed and packaged
in small quantities.  It may be that even in 5 liter packages the problem
surfaces with high dilutions and the super-sensitive TP film.  (Xtol also
has problems relating to water quality.  I mix and dilute with distilled
water, so I assume I've controlled that issue.)

At any rate, I'm distressed at the Xtol problems with TP, because it was the
most even and finest-grain developer I found for the film, which is a
notorious bear to tame.  I'll try Kodak's Technidol again (I've never been
very impressed with it's evenness or cost) and also TD-3 (Photographers
Formulary), which may have been the second best developer I used with TP.
It produces more grain than Xtol, but it also produces more speed, which
would be nice to have.  The evenness is just OK, but that may be as good as
it gets with TP.  I might just see if I can live with it.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com