BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?

26 May 15 - 02:37 PM (#3711951)
Subject: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Will Fly

back in the late '60s/early '70s, I regularly used a Pentax S1a SLR camera (which I still have), and the black & white film of choice in those days - as used by David Bailey and others - was good old, grainy Kodak Tri-X Pan.

Some years ago, I went back through my negs and scanned some of my work into the computer. They still looked OK, even when scanned. If you're interested, here are some examples:

Cat In The Garden

Beefeater - Tower Of London Tea Gardens

Lake Coniston (UK, Lake District)

Digital photography is very convenient, but I do miss the old film days.

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26 May 15 - 02:44 PM (#3711953)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Ed T

Nice, thanks for sharing.

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26 May 15 - 03:17 PM (#3711960)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: lefthanded guitar

Glad to see someone who has fond memories of film. I remember Tri X, and also the slower (and less grainy) Plux X 125 ISO (or as they said in film days; ASA).


I've looked over some photos I shot of a friend's sone birthday celebration, shot with 400 Kodak Print Film (forget the exact stock) and NOTHING and I mean NOTHING I've shot digitally is as crisp and color perfect as film.

Maybe if I could afford a 50 megapixel Phase one back on a Hassalblad ,the digital photo could compete with film. But my old Nikon, and sharp fixed focus lenses, still working, and then costing under $1000. - still outperform any 35mm digital camera I've seen.

And yes, I love using digital as well. But there's something not quite the same.

PS When digital first came out, a friend scanned a film photo I took of a small bunch of flowers in front of alooming mountainside. (the flowers took up maybe 1/50th of the photo). I   shot the photo on slide film. (Probably Fujichrome 50)
When we scanned it, we could see the veins in the leaf of the flowers. Great stuff, that old film.

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26 May 15 - 03:32 PM (#3711965)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban

I probably have a bunch of rolls. I still occasionally use film, mostly for 21/4 square shots. It's a bit of self indulgence. I never used Tri-X all that often though.

Here's a shot from one of the last 35mm films I shot before going digital for the day to day stuff. That WAS a roll of Tri-X:


Buskers

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26 May 15 - 03:35 PM (#3711967)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Will Fly

Nice one, Peter.

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26 May 15 - 06:53 PM (#3712006)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: GUEST,HiLo

I have Pentax Kiooo and I still use it, although it is getting hard to find "good"film developers these days. I like to shoot in black and white sOmetimes but film is hard to get. I tried digital, didn't like it.
My Pentax is four years older than I am!

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26 May 15 - 07:27 PM (#3712015)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: GUEST,ripov

I'm not much of a photographer, but I do miss cameras that didn't argue with you about what to focus on, or need to plough through half a dozen menus to change shutter speed.

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26 May 15 - 08:24 PM (#3712030)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Rapparee

For convenience
e use digital. For quality, use good film.

                      -- my late brother, the photographer

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26 May 15 - 09:40 PM (#3712038)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Stilly River Sage

You can get some pretty good results with digital these days, those camera makers are working hard to improve the technology.

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27 May 15 - 12:20 AM (#3712056)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Joe Offer

Those are wonderful photos, Will. I have a son who still would prefer to work with black-and-white film, and he does amazing work. He had a 6-month exhibition of his work at a local bookstore, and his father was very proud of him. Don't think he does much B&W any more, because it's too hard to get film developed and he can't afford a darkroom.

Not me. I love my digital cameras.

-Joe-

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27 May 15 - 08:30 AM (#3712142)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Will Fly

Thanks Joe - I just found a couple of TX-400 suppliers (the modern equivqlent of Tri-X) on Amazon UK, and I've found a local shop, not too far from me, that still does B&W developing and printing.

I'm really tempted to go back to it for a while - in spite of my three digital cameras!

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27 May 15 - 08:35 AM (#3712145)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Will Fly

Forgot to say - my great hero then and now was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I was in Barcelona some years ago and, by chance, discovered an exhibition of his original photographs at a major gallery there. He used a Leica with the reflective parts blacked out with tape. Never cropped a photograph - just used his eye to form the compsition - a precept that I've always followed.

We'll never knew what he threw away!

Anyway, it was wonderful to see those prints - many of which I have in books of his work - in the flesh, as it were.

My other photographic hero was Bill Brandt.

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27 May 15 - 08:46 AM (#3712149)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban

It's probably good to remember HCB had no interest in the work after the photo was taken, leaving the details of developing and printing to the, magnificent, darkroom staff at Magnum.

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27 May 15 - 12:44 PM (#3712225)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: PHJim

I still have an enlarger, contact box, trays and a bunch of darkroom equipment as well as two Miranda F SLRs stored down in the basement. I l loved shooting and developing and used Tri-X most of the time. I never did get into developing colour. I must admit that mst of my photos today are taken on a cell phone... not great quality.

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27 May 15 - 02:42 PM (#3712251)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: GUEST,MikeL2

Hi Will

I never used a good camera because years ago I just took "snaps". They were mainly in black & white but my efforts the did not in any way match yours. Great pictures.

About five years ago I bought a Nikon DSLR digital because I wanted to have some to replace the problems I am having with not being able to play my guitar.

I almost always shot in colour because I didn't really know what I was doing. I am very interested in post production on my computer using mainly Photoshop and Lightroom. I know that this is"cheating" but it interests me and keeps me busy.

I found the DSLR quite bulky to carry around so I bought a couple of Panasonic TZ series small cameras. The results were OK but I wanted something more powerful so I bought a Sony Nex 6 systems camera. I love this: it is small and convenient to carry round and gives very good performance.

Since using this camera I am dabbling with some black & white work especially for landscape and wildlife.

My current "project is a Football tournament that my 11 year old grandson played in. I took some excellent action shots mainly in colour but did shoot some B&W shots too.

i am creating slide shows with dialogue and background music. The kids love em anyway...!!

Regards

Mike

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27 May 15 - 05:32 PM (#3712300)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Penny S.

I am currently very much regretting having got rid of my Praktika SLR on which I took some good shots of the night sky with colour slide film.
Digitally, I couldn't focus on the eclipsed Sun. My aurora shots look OK until viewed on a computer screen. Venus and Jupiter are pixelly, even when I use the function my current Nikon DSLR has of enlarging the image on the rear screen to manually focus.
I think I'm going to try and get film again.

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27 May 15 - 05:48 PM (#3712310)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Greg F.

I was always partial to Panatomic-X. Tho its 32 ISO speed limited its use somewhat, it was virtually grainless & made superb enlargements. Also with a reversal developing kit, it made great 2x2 black-and-white transparencies.

NOTE RE: digital photos vs. film. Photos and negatives taken 160 years ago still exist in great condition. Digital photo storage problems (CD, DVD, etc)limit their life to at most several decades. A hundred years from now there will be a HUGE gap in the photographic record; as files degrade, these photos will disappear..

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27 May 15 - 10:44 PM (#3712364)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Stilly River Sage

Penny, I sold my Contaflex, thinking I'd never use it again and it still had some value. I took a lot of great shots, in later years mostly color and slides, but a fair amount of black and white in the early days. I still sometimes regret selling it, but I can't see going back to film, or if I did, I'd use the Canon A1 that lets me exchange lenses. These days I use a Canon EOS 60D.

SRS

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28 May 15 - 01:13 AM (#3712390)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker

My last proper job in photography was assisting in a major industrial studio 20 years ago.
The priority bread and butter jobs were shot on 10"x8" sheets of fine grain transparency film.

Not much fun starting every day in pitch dark, loading the film sheets into dark slides;
all day balancing precariously at the top of a cherry picker
sanding and repainting the studio ceiling whatever reflective colour was needed,
and repositioning massive Arri tungsten studio lights:
then finishing every night in pitch dark
loading the exposed sheets into the in house E6 process machinery...

Digital backs for large format cameras were in their infancy and prohibitively expensive.

Dunno what they do these days,
haven't even touched my own cameras [Nikon FE / FE2 /F90 - Yashica 120 6x6]
since I got sick of it all back then...???
Wish I'd sold them before they lost all value literally overnight.
Should have seen that coming...

Anyway, I really like the instant nature of digital photography...😎

The camera in my smart phone is excellent for keeping record of the control settings
on my amps and FX pedals...

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28 May 15 - 01:30 AM (#3712392)
Subject: RE: BS: Remember Kodak Tri-X Pan B&W film?
From: Stilly River Sage

I've used my phone more than once to photograph my parking position in the airport garage so I can find it again when I get home. I've caught some great quick images that I wouldn't have had time to catch with a larger camera (assuming it isn't already out of the bag, lens cap off, etc.). They may not seem like "real" photography, but they are beginning to amount to that. And think of all of the video captured on phone cameras these days. One could do worse than mastering phone photography.

I have my phone set to automatically upload any shot to a backup cloud storage system. They're important enough that I don't want to lose them if the phone gets dropped overboard or stolen.

SRS

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