The Dreamer: First Presbyterian Sunday School, Chattanooga.
Some ramblings about black and white films.
Over the course of 35 years as a film shooter, I used a great many black and white emulsions. Kodak's Plus-X and Tri-X, of course, and some Pan-F. I shot a lot of Tri-X. Didn't everybody? But it was never my favorite film. Too much grain, unless I shot it at 200 and reduced the developing time. Might as well shoot Plus-X to begin with.
Between Tri-X and Ilford's HP-5+, I preferred the Ilford. I also used Ilford's FP-4 and liked it, as I did Ilford's chromogenic films XP-1 and XP-2 for their ease of use and smooth rendition. However, I preferred films I could process myself.
In my early days in photography I was hooked on the style of unobtrusive observer/available light photography popularized by such workers as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt in the photo magazines of the day. Consequently, I was always trying for all the film speed possible. I pushed my films by rating them above the factory recommended speed and extending the development time. I also tried HP-5 and Tri-X in a number of developers, such as Diafine, Acufine, and Acu-1, which promised enhanced film speeds. Nothing worked to my satisfaction, because with speed, you get grain. And I don't much like grain.
Also, I never used Agfa's Rodinal developer, which seems to still be popular more than 100 years after its invention, because again, I don't like grain. YMMV.
After some years, I gave up on the speed race and mostly shot fast films in medium format cameras, where the grain didn't show as much. I also learned to light, which helped a great deal.
Later in my film-shooting days, I settled on Kodak's T-Max 400 film for 35mm use because of its good speed, excellent sharpness, and unobtrusive grain structure.
I used the very popular Kodak D-76 film developer for many years, mixing a gallon at a time and storing it in a brown glass bottle in my darkroom. Eventually, I noticed that my developed negatives were becoming denser when shot at the same film speeds. What I found is that D-76 gains strength over time when mixed in large quantities and stored. The solution: mix smaller quantities as needed (inconvenient, as D-76 is a powder, not a liquid); or change developers.
I changed to T-Max developer, which is a liquid and can be mixed in small quantities I found the quality of T-Max-processed negatives to be as good as those processed in D-76, so I stayed with it until the end of my days in film.
We had so many things to choose from and so many different ways to do things. Photography is simpler these days and not nearly as much fun.
Three church leaders in my studio: First Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga.
The black and white photos in this post are from scanned prints. The negatives are in storage and would take some excavation to find, so I can't say for certain what films were used. I do kinda think, however, that the photo at the top may have been made on Ilford's XP1 chromogenic film. The camera for both photos was probably the Canon EOS A2.
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Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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