Plus-X and Diafine?

[wlewisiii]

Picked up some Plus-X on a whim - it was much cheaper than the Tri-X and I haven't tried it since ... er... maybe 84 - 85 ish so it's really like a brand new film to me. 120 format and I'm planning on developing it in Diafine. I'm using EI400 as per the box, but was wondering if anyone here had any practical experiance using the combination.

TIA,

William

[wlewisiii]

No, Plus-X. The box calls for EI400 rather than it's ISO of 125. Tri-X is 1250/1600 and so on, but that's why I'm wondering about real world use.

William

[wlewisiii]

Hey, did you go and pull that while I was answering you???? Foo! :D :D :D

William

[jdos2]

Heeheehee! I re-read the title and DELETED. Better to stay silent and be thought a fool than open my mouth and remove all doubt.

Just a quick note about your avatar- I had a chance to fondle a Kiev 5 that a friend is selling- interesting. Of course, the first thing I did was get the mount out of sync with the lens, but... It's nice! Went for the Contax IIIa color-dial instead (for the CV 21mm) and didn't look back.

[wlewisiii]

Heh. It was a hoot when I hit enter and there was only me talking to me in the thread... :D

A IIIa color dial is a sweet camera too. But I do really like the 5 though; that amazing bright finder is quite the shock after the usual Contax/Kiev finder though, isn't it?

William

[rover]

I have some Plus X in hand but am yet to shoot it (35mm). Over on PN, like you suspect, there was mention of shooting it at a lower speed than 400. I am confident that with Diafine you can mix and match on one roll (easier to do on 35mm than 120). I will most likely shoot at 320 and go from there.

[NelsonFoto]

Just shoot it at normal rate, then develop standard 3mins per A&B sols in Diafine, wash 1 min, fix ten, wash five, fotoflo and hang. Results? Here's a roll from yesterday evening, wife and I fooling around with a Yashica Lynx 5000. PXP in Diafine, film exposed at 125.

[NelsonFoto]

Mind you, this is Plus X Pan - NOT PX. Not sure what got changed in the new recipe, but if it matters, you can still pick up PXP from B&H at a fairly decent price.

More samples:

[NelsonFoto]

Only post-dev/scan adjustments: Crop, minor levels tweak. You can see that the grain stays well under control. I've even pushed the film and gotten good results, but I don't see the point of overrating it unless necessary. Even at 400 you won't gain substantial enough shutter to warrant it. If you have the time (and sufficient light) shoot it normally and chuck it into Diafine. You won't be disappointed.

[Doug]

My, look at that swirly bokeh from the Yashica's lens! Must have been wide open, or nearly so? Diafine looks to have done a good job with Plus-X, too.

[wlewisiii]

Thanks Hither, that's the kind of information I was hoping for. I'll let you all know how it goes once it's shot, souped and scanned.

William

[don sorsa]

I shoot plus-x @350 and like the results. Attached are shots from a recent roll. The group shot and the kid leaning forward were taken with an orange filter (50/1.8 canon lens). The batter was shot at high noon with a 75-300 zoom, no filter. These are negatives scanned at something like 600, and my scanning isn't very good.

Don

[tajart]

i thought plux-x was rated at 125 by kodak. is the 400 rating a result of diafine chemistry?

[Gabriel M.A.]

Very very *very* nice, Don. Thanks for sharing your results. To be honest, I was very afraid of trying Plus-X & Diafine myself; I had never seen any samples myself. I know to keep HP5+ and Diafine away from each other like beans and radish at a BBQ night.

You know what this means? :: evil chuckle :: My Plus-X stock is going out for a spin soon...

[Doug]

i thought plux-x was rated at 125 by kodak. is the 400 rating a result of diafine chemistry?Yes, it is... Since the film is essentially insensitive to development time & temp, the only density control available to the user is Exposure Index. The Diafine instructions include a list of films and suggested EI, that seem in real life to be slightly optimistic. For instance, they suggest EI=1600 for Tri-X, while many users find 1/3-stop more exposure, EI=1250, is better though the difference is small.

In the same way, I like Ilford FP-4 at EI=250 and their Pan-F at EI=50 in Diafine. Not ALL films will have a higher EI in Diafine than the rated ISO speed, but most do. But to varying degrees, so if Tri-X 400 is good at 1250, don't assume that HP-5 and Neopan 400 behave likewise!

[rover]

From everything I have read it seems that Kodak films, specifically Tri X and Plus X, behave very well in diafine. I am very happy with the results I have gotten with Tri X, and just processed 2 rolls of Plus X last weekend. My backlog is not with my scanner, but the negs look very good.

[titrisol]

I'd say that you;d have to sacrifice a roll and bracket your esposures from 125 to 400 and see which one you prefer. I'd say 125, 250, 320, 400. I liked the old PXP as 320 in Diafine, haven't bought the new PX even though I've heard good things

[tajart]

thanks for clarifying. guess i'll have to give diafine a try. in years past i have been amazed at what plus-x can give, just with normal out of the box ei and d-76 chemistry. thanks again for the info.

[don sorsa]

Whew, been a while since I've contributed to this forum... too busy with a new camera and shooting local sports, concerts, and misc street scenes. Anyway, Gabriel, thanks. My pix show that even inexperienced folks like me can get decent tone and contrast with this combination. Good luck, post your results!

[rover]

How about these two?

[wlewisiii]

Well, I'm still trying to learn the art of negative scanning, but here's the first one from the Plus-X roll. EI400 in my Iskra. Diafine and then scanned. Any hints tips or suggestions on the scanning or post scanning process gratefully accepted.

William

[Doug]

Hi, William -- What do you think of this picture yourself?

I'd just say it looks like the focus is off and that things at about the same distance from the camera as her right knee are more nearly in the plane of focus than closer parts. Could it be operator error, or perhaps the camera's RF is out of calibration?

And on the scan, I downloaded a copy of the pic, and I see in the histogram that the data is biased toward the lighter tones (as can also be seen in the post), and some of the lightest tones are "clipped"; that is, off the scale. The darkest tones are not black, but dark grey. Given this, I'd suggest the scanning exposure could be reduced a bit to push the data down toward the dark end a little. Your job wasn't too far off, though!

Then, in post-scan work, you might optimize the tones by bringing the end sliders of the histogram to the top and bottom points of the scan to ensure the darkest tone is black and the lightest tone is white... This compression adds a little contrast and brings up some sparkle to the result. Here's an example of what I'd do...

[wlewisiii]

Hi, William -- What do you think of this picture yourself?



Quite a bit better. Thanks for the tips; I'll give them a try when I scan a bit more in. I really have never done much post processing of scans and I've only now got a scanner that can do negs, so I'm still very much at the bottom of the learning curve.

As for focus, I was within the minimum distance for the camera and was trying to see if the DOF at f16 would pull it off. I thought it came out acceptably given that. She just looked up and even though I knew I was too close, I turned the ring all the way and gave it a try.

William

[T_om]

Here is my take on it. I agree with the previous poster that there are either some focus or movement issues and the shot is not extremely sharp.

Also, as was pointed out, there was no true black in the shot. I downloaded the file and read it into Photoshop. I opened a 'Threshold' layer and ran the slider all the way to the left. No black. I then did a 'Levels' adjustment to actually produce some true black in the shadow areas and boosted the contrast a bit with a "curves" adjustment.

Unless you can produce a scale with actual black on it somewhere, photos tend to look flat and lifeless.

I have seen this described as "Bleak & White". ;)

Hope this helps.

Tom

[wlewisiii]

Interesting that there was no actual black. I really need to learn more about working with the histograms. Thank you for your time and comments; I appreciate it.

William