It has taken me a bit of time to figure out Kodak TMax 400, I’ve always been much more of a fan of traditional grained films, T-Grained films have always looked too clean, too modern. But they do have one thing, films like TMax 400 has a wide latitude. And I’ve also heard that TMax 400 pushes far better than Tri-X. Now I have done push processing with TMax 400 in the past, I’ve also done pull processing in the past so that should make things even more interesting.
Film Specs
Manufacturer: Eastman-Kodak
Name: Kodak TMax 400
Type: Panchromatic B&W, Tabular-Grained
Film Base: Acetate
Film Speed: ASA-400, Tested Latitude: +/- 2-Stops
Formats Available: 135 (35mm), 120, Sheets
For this review I’ll be setting the box-speed at ASA-400, and going from there from -2 to +2, or a range of ASA-100 to ASA-1600. According to the Massive Dev Chart there are three listed combinations for Diafine and TMax 400, at ASA-400 the time is 3.25 + 3.25, then for ASA-500 and ASA-640 it is a straight 3+3 time. I developed this roll at the same time as a roll of Ilford HP5+ which shares a similar time which in this case is a 3+3 time. The roll was shot through my Nikon F5 using the 28mm f/2.8 lens with no filters and set at f/11. I also had the camera mounted on a tripod and tripped the shutter using a remote release and did all the changes using the EV Adjustment function.
One of the first things I noticed when I pulled the roll out from the tank is how uniform all the frames looked, which always is a good sign that a film is designed for a wide latitude. There was slight differences between the over and under-exposed frames, but over all good looking negatives across the board. This was only seen more after I got to scanning the images. While yes there is some loss of shadow and highlight detail at the 2-stop range, there is still plenty of information in both that I could easily recover the images with some work in post-processing. Although the best frame I found here is the one stop under that provided the best balance between shadow and highlights. Making this combination ideal for anything within +/- one-stop of normal.
No matter where on the adjustment line the images fell I like the results I got here, the negatives maintain a good contrast, even within that one-stop range, there’s no increase in visible grain and the sharpness remains exactly what I have come to expect from TMax 400. Also this is a great way to show off not only the power of TMax 400 but also of Diafine that you can see push a film to the extreme ends and still get usable results. I think something like this might work better with a yellow filter and that I not have off-axis light in a frame that even the lens hood couldn’t handle (You don’t see that one here).
After a few disappointing starts, it’s great to have finally a roll that shows off exactly what sort of range a modern B&W emulsion has to offer. I would even go so far to say that with TMax 400 you can easily adjust your film speed on the fly as needed within 1 to 1.5 stops and still develop normally and get results. If you do go over 1.5 stops you might want to start adjusting your development. Now this advice is of course when using a compensating developer. If you don’t have Diafine, something like TMax Developer, a dilute mix of HC-110 (F, H, or G), and even 510-Pyro would be a good choice and still pull usable results.