Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/08/09

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Improving leica-made images
From: Disfromage@aol.com
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 23:27:14 EDT

In a message dated 8/9/98 9:51:27 PM, you wrote:

<< I wondered how to improve the quality of my
enlargements (8x10) from M6/35mm f2-shot negs (trix400)>>

I strongly urge you to learn to develop you own film.  It's the only way to
have control over a critical part of the printing process.  If you don't have
good negatives, you can't make good prints.  Once you get the hang of loading
the reels, it's really not very hard-just time development carefully and don't
let the temperatures of the various solutions vary by more than a degree or
so.  I don't think you can beat Tri-x.  It's quite forgiving and has beautiful
tonality.  It has the perfect look for Leicas.  My current favorite developer
is Kodak XTOL.  It gives fine grain and the prints have a certain sparkle that
I don't see with other developers.  I would rate Tri-x at 200 or 250 to get a
little juicier negative and use about 10 % less time than Kodak recommends.
If you want finer grain than Tri-x, I would suggest Ilford Delta 100 rated at
100 in XTOL.  It's slightly fussier than Tri-x, but very pretty.

		Richard Wasserman