Pushing Tri-X

Last week I did a little experiment that I wanted to show you in this video.

Kodak Tri-X is an excellent film - probably one of the most popular b+w film types of all time. What I like about Tri-X is the versatility and the different looks you can get depending on how you shoot with it.

A few episodes back we talked about pushing and pulling film. If you missed it, here is the link:

Today we're going to push Tri-X to an extreme. Tri-X is rated at 400 iso, but I metered the whole roll at 6400. This is a 4 stop push and I wasn't sure this would work or not.

I processed the film as a stand development in Rodinal 1:100 for 2 hours. I agitated for the first minute and then let it stand. Every 30 minutes I would give it 15 seconds of VERY light agitation.

I'm pretty impressed with the results. If you want to see the images I used in the video - I made a set on Flickr.

So far I'm loving the results. These images are negative scans. In the next few weeks we'll try printing these on an enlarger and see how they behave.

[NIKONGUY]

Back when I was shooting concerts, I pushed the crap out of Tri-X. Never failed me. Nice to see this video.
Love the kitty pics. Never tire of those.
And thanks for sharing.
Digital folk have no idea what it takes to make a great picture. Darkroom was my drug. Miss them days.

[socratescafe]

I agree that the white cat grainy picture looks great.

[yaschan]

they are so beautiful and emotionally strong photos. I love your work very much, and the fantastic analysis on pushing Tri-X.
I feel your soul. Wishing you best luck.

[MrRjblair]

These tutorials are the most informative and complete of any on the internet! Thank you so much!

[keithbasham]

I've learned more from these videos than I did in college, thanks man.

[nerdanderthalidontlikegoog]

I really liked your shots. The pushed tri-x adds a mood that seems appropriate, especially considering the subject. I buy tri-x in bulk but never tried pushing that far, I think that I will give it a try.

[paulbonge]

I'm loving this, thanks! Although I no longer DO film, back in the day my father and I would push to 1600 and although Rodinal is good, we always made our own which now I don't remember the formula for. We made all our own developers and fixers and only ever used D-76 or Dektol when we'd run out of raw ingredients.

[KurtClark]

My first "assignment film roll" - for Middle School annual staff in 1977 - was Tri-X Pan. Teacher gave me as many rolls as I wanted and told me, "Take pictures of whatever catches your eye." I still live by that, and I still shoot Tri-X 400 film in 2021!

[ChiaraBizzarraGiovanelli]

Your channel and your tutorials are really fantastic. The one about pushing and pulling film has been particularly useful to me.
Plus, thank you for showing us your pictures in this video, technics apart, they gave me a strong emotive feeling.
Thank you and greetings from Italy!
Chiara

[haroldishoy]

Hello, new subscriber here. When I started photography Jimmy Carter was halfway through his term as President. What I can remember of push processing is that there should be a similar time adjustment in the fixer bath proportionate to the development bath.
As I recall my photography teacher at the time had a logarithmic chart she consulted. I know I used a similar chart for timed exposures.

[Pseudopsychosis]

Ted, first of all thanks for making this video. I haven't pushed tri-x yet but I intend to do so quite soon. From what I see the images are much more pleasing than what I'd get with Delta3200. I stand-develop quite a lot as it's my favourite technique and while I agree that it's more straight forward to stick to a single speed throughout the roll, I find that stand developing allows me to change the iso on the fly. When I shoot HP5 I will often go back and forth between 400 and 1600 (while metering accordingly). This flexibility comes in handy especially in the evening on overcast days.
I wonder if T-max 400 would yield similar results ...

P.S.
In terms of development time, from what I've read, Rodinal - at a 1:100 dilution - is usually exhausted at about the 2h mark. I use a full stand method where I agitate at the beginning then let the tank sit undisturbed for the remainder of the process so your mileage may vary. I use the exact same time of 70-80 minutes @ 20ºC for all film speeds. So far I've had good results with PanF, HP5, Rollei 400s, Rollei 80s, and a few expired colour films found in the attic that I developed in B&W chemistry.

[laciglia]

Thank you for doing these videos! By far one of the most informative and entertaining sources for aspiring film shooters.

[Corbotli]

Great photos of the cats - its like you can hear what they are thinking in each shot. Just developed my first ever roll of B W film at home yesterday in my dad's old Paterson tank. Lots of notes and lessons learnt (argh purple monster Tri X = more fixing time required?) and your vlogs are helping alot. Cheers!

[mkshffr]

Might have been a situation for incident metering.

Very glad you did this. One of the things I was thinking of was experimenting with the DuoFlex indoors without flash using pushed Tri-X. It is f16@ about 1/50s. Glad that the results were so good. I would be interested in how it would come out using a commercial lab.

[MatteoPreziosoPH]

Very, very interesting episode, I immensely enjoyed it.
I love pushing film (same cannot be said about pulling, no idea why) and I must admit I've always preferred pushing T-Max 400 than Tri-X. I would easily push the T-Max up to 6400 as you did here with the Tri-X and love the results. I almost exclusively use the Tri-X for portrait work, so I never really find reasons to push it. But the T-Max is my choice no. 1 for street, and I'll just go happy pushing depending on what I need. I also try to use as much as I can the HP5 400 (this one, too for street only) and to me this film works perfect at ISO 1250. 

Here some shots I took 'pushing around.' I know I'm writing a lot, and that's your channel; I am not trying to show my work through "The Art of Photography" but in case that's how it sounds, please do erase this comment :)

1) T-Max 400 pushed at 3200:

2) T-Max 400 pushed at 6400:

3) This one was taken pushing the HP5 400 at 1050: 

Finally, your work is so good, that's one of my favourite channels. Keep up with the good work!

p.s. Sorry to hear about your cat that passed away.

[KBQAA]

I've pushed one stop and intermixed with normal shot, using regular development with no problems. it's a great way to shoot in lower light.

[AeonHorus]

Ted man
This is a practical lesson !
Can you please start doing some more hands on videos so we can see the process on what you are talking about?
That would be just brilliant!

[ammartaibi]

You can take the lens out flip the mirror and stick a patch to the film. This was when you're loading the film into a reel, you can feel for the patches in the dark and cut the film there

[Frisenette]

Exact exposure really doesn’t mean much when stand developing. As long as it’s long enough.
In low light take it all the way. If there is anything on the film it will get developed. It’s hard to overexposed Tri-X.
Preflashing would really help with the crushed blacks.
Why aren’t you doing film again Ted? These where really good.

[theartofphotography]

Thanks! Yeah - its one of the greatest films ever.