Using Kodak TMax B&W 100

I am really going to show my ignorance by asking this question...I have been trying
different types of film , I love B&W , and I heard where Kodak T Max B&W 100 was
supposed to be a really good film...I bought a roll and I went out this past weekend and I shot about half the roll..I was just reading a review on this film just today, and most people said it is good if you know what you are doing.....Well I am fairly new to photography and
to SLR's,in fact I usually use the point & shoot setting on my Canon Rebel T2 ,does
this film need to use a certain exposure setting to get good results?
One of the reviews said to go to Kodak's website and it would tell you all about using
this film , but I searched that website over and found nothing about this film....I really dont
want to waste this whole roll of film because I didnt know how to use this film.
I need all the help I can get.......... Thanks

I think you will be just fine with this film. B&W print films like T-max and Tri-X are very forgiving.

Both Kodak T-Max 100 and T-Max 400 are wonderful films..I haven't shot B/W film (or colour for that matter) in years..I use to use T-Max a lot when I was shooting film in both 35mm and 120..As I recall Kodak once made a special developer for T-Max (can't remember its name) but I got great results using Kodak D76 or Ilford ID11 developers..
One word of warning,,,never ever over-expose B/W fims especially 400ISO films as they get grainy as all get out (maybe OK if you are looking for an effect)..The trick is to expose for the shadows and pull the development back so the highlights don't get clogged up..
B/W film has a brightness range of about 5 stops from the darkest shadows to the highlights with detail and you need to be somewhere with in this range..If you take a metre reading of both the shadows and the highlights and you have more than 5 stops as you would find in a beach or snow scene reduce the development time by about 10%..This makes the negative more printable and reduces the grain..On the other side of the coin,,if you have a low contrast scene ( overcast day) expose for the highlights and increase the development by about 10%.This will increase the contrast a tad..The perfect negative is when the subject contrast equals the negative contrast,,sometimes difficult to attain but one can get damn close with practise..
Shooting and developing your own B/W film is heaps of fun and the best way to learn about the relationship between exposure and development..

Good luck

Jurgen
Australia

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Originally Posted by subhuman

I am really going to show my ignorance by asking this question...I have been trying
different types of film , I love B&W , and I heard where Kodak T Max B&W 100 was
supposed to be a really good film...I bought a roll and I went out this past weekend and I shot about half the roll..I was just reading a review on this film just today, and most people said it is good if you know what you are doing.....Well I am fairly new to photography and
to SLR's,in fact I usually use the point & shoot setting on my Canon Rebel T2 ,does
this film need to use a certain exposure setting to get good results?
One of the reviews said to go to Kodak's website and it would tell you all about using
this film , but I searched that website over and found nothing about this film....I really dont
want to waste this whole roll of film because I didnt know how to use this film.
I need all the help I can get.......... Thanks

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Kodak make a specific developer for TMax films called TMax developer. I seem to remember that it particularly active in the mid-tones to avoid them going flat. The other peculiarity about TMax films is that they exhaust your fixer quickly.

As with any negative film I would say - don't underexpose it. And particularly for TMax I would say - do the development yourself. If you give it to a lab the chances are that they will put it in some standard soup and not respect the processing instructions.

I liked TMax 100 - I found it rather soft and fine-grained. But I've now gone over to Ilford Delta 100 - it as a hard, brilliant look and it doesn't need specific chemistry.

Charles

I miss my B/W darkroom!! :(

Jurgen
Australia

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yogestee

never ever over-expose B/W fims especially 400ISO films as they get grainy as all get out

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I haven't shot a whole lot of T-Max other than the 3200, but my experience with any negative film is that it can handle over exposure a lot better than any amount of underexposure. In fact, I usually set my ISO dial at about 2/3 or one stop towards overexposure just for insurance with having more shadow detail and less grain.

I was more of a fan of Tri-X personally, because it had that classic grainy look to it. T-Max is probably best in T-Max developer which is very easy to use. It even comes as a concentrate so there's no powder to deal with.

Go ahead, shoot it and enjoy it. If you really want to get the most out of any B&W film, you really need to do it yourself though. There are some good books out there on how to do it, or you could look for a course at a local college, art museum, etc.