Film

 Because it's been a while since I've processed film in quantity, I'm stepping back and making fresh decisions about which products to work with. That's because things change over time; the film stock, the chemistry, the nuances of my processing technique, my preferences for the end look. There's a great deal of misinformation on the internet, much of it from well-meaning newcomers who either read it somewhere else, or are doing their best to interpret their own results but not controlling for variables. For example, I've seen at least two recent statements that Tri X allegedly hadn't changed at all since introduction; one claimed to quote a post by a guy from Kodak (but with no link or citation). It's not even close to true, one look at my early work and more recent work makes that very obvious. Other sources claim multiple changes over time which is far more likely to be true. There was one big change that resulted in Kodak publishing new processing times (according to Wikipedia, this change was in 2007 and included allegedly finer grain and less silver; but they don't cite a source either. I do know that some of the new HC-110 times are not accurate, see the notes on Massive Dev Chart and my own experience backs that up).

So at the moment I have four rolls of Tri X, and two rolls of FP4 ready to proof and there are a couple of rolls of HP5 ready to process. All were done in Rodinal at 1:50 dilution and all with the same agitation and temperatures. I'll print a few examples, see what I like and don't like, and then shoot some more with whatever seems to be working for me. There are a few old rolls of 120 sitting around too, one-offs of each of several film types, great reason to run a couple more rolls through a medium format camera.

I probably won't settle on just one thing. Rodinal is a high acutance developer, which I like; that means the edges of the grain are less diffused, which gives the appearance of more grain and better sharpness although it's not really the same thing. That works for some subjects, not as much for others. So for those other things, I could use FP4, or I could just go to medium format... which I may very well try for the landscape work. It's a heavier rig but can be set up to be not too bulky. A tripod is a big advantage with larger cameras. I may not want to haul that on a 12-mile backcountry hike over rugged terrain, but close to the road it's perhaps worthwhile. 

I'll zero in pretty quickly on what I want to use. Things other than the look of the images may or may not factor in. 35mm Tri X is about $2.37 per roll more expensive than HP5. That doesn't matter for a few rolls, but over a hundred rolls it adds up. But then Tri X is available in 100 foot rolls for a better price, and I still have two of my old bulk loaders and would just need to buy a few new reloadable film cassettes at $2-something each and see if I can find the trimmer for the roll leader. So HP5 has a cost edge for small to medium quantities, but not for large quantities. Then there's the matter of whether one company is more deserving of support than another. I'm just beginning to look at that. Kodak is presumably still a fairly typical large publicly held corporation. At last check Harman (Ilford) was owned by a venture capitol firm. Either way, they're about making a profit and may or may not differ in how much they actually care about photography. That will take time to research and it's not a top priority this week. It's something I'll want to forget the moment I pick up a camera and go in search of images. There, it would just get in the way.

One thing that has become painfully clear doing just this little bit of information gathering: A lot of once commonplace film photography knowledge is rapidly being lost. Things that were once on my darkroom shelf, and that of most every other serious photographer, have in some cases become hard to find and often hidden behind internet misinformation. Young photographers, if you have opportunities to learn from older folks who learned when there was only film, go for it while you still can. Gramps may know things he's forgotten he knows, and will probably benefit from being around your creative energy. Maybe he'll even dust off that old camera.