Kodak T-Max 100

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Do you remember the first picture you ever took? Chances are it wasn’t 35mm, but rather a popular consumer-grade fixed-lens camera. Poppa wouldn’t let me touch his Brownie, but we did own a series of little 110 Instamatics that were passed around to whichever family member wasn’t actually in the photo. I remember dumping that film cartridge in the back and looking through the small viewfinder, trying to not cut off everyone’s heads as Mother tended to do. If we were inside, there was a requirement for flash, which most often came in the form of a cube that sat on top of the camera. Getting four flashes without having to change cubes seemed so much more modern than the single-use bulbs required for the Brownie. Never mind that they tended to over-light, casts horrible shadows, and were anything but subtle. We were just having fun with friends and family. No one took seriously anything shot with a 110.

Using a 35mm film was different and something I didn’t experience until I was in college. It was the summer of 1981, if I remember correctly, and we were going to a family reunion of sorts, back to Arkansas and the little farming community where Poppa grew up. A friend loaned me his 35mm, loaded a roll of color 36-exposure color film, and showed me quickly how to focus the lens. I put the camera in the trunk of the car, largely afraid to use it for fear of causing damage. When I did try to take a few pictures with it, I was frustrated by the fact that a subtle movement could throw the entire picture out of focus. I didn’t even use the full 36 frames. I was sure, at that point, that photography at any advanced level wasn’t for me.

So much of photography seems to center around the big, highly-produced, carefully manipulated, high-processed images that appear in fashion magazines that we tend to lose sight of the subtle, more nuanced images where careful attention is given to the detail. Finer  points of an image are easily lost as we mismanage light or fail to pay attention to precise settings on the camera. Sure, maybe no one notices, and perhaps no one cares, but when I look back at archived images, which is where we find most of our #POTD subjects, detail, or the lack of it, is the first thing my eyes catch. Subtle touches can make a tremendous amount of difference.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No black and white film I’ve used handles those subtle touches better than Kodak Professional T-Max 100. When I first started taking pictures, this was the film I wasn’t allowed to touch; it was more expensive, required a photographer that knew what they were doing, and was reserved for those special occasions when someone of national prominence was visiting. There is no finer grain, no better resolving power, no sharper lines than is possible with this film. T-Max enlarges well, it is consistent in tone from batch to batch, and it handles the most subtle of details with finesse. Art photographers have long loved this film, but I always liked it for portraits as well because I feel like it does a better job of capturing everything one wants to see in a face.

Okay, so there are times T-Max can be fussy, especially in development. There is dramatic difference between the 100 speed and 400 speed versions of the film. 100 speed prefers longer exposure times, which may be great for portraits and still life, but is totally inappropriate for almost any kind of motion at all. The shorter the exposure time, the more the film struggles. Variances in any portion of the development environment affect the contrast and tone of the final image. Even subtle changes in temperature can have strong results. Similarly, one has to be careful with the conversion to digital. I used these settings for black and white adjustment: reds-37, yellows-70, greens-33, cyans-64, blues-28, magentas-68.

Whether there is, or can be, a good digital equivalent of T-Max 100 is open for debate. With digital images, grain, or more correctly, noise is introduced by the camera sensor and is not something easily removed in processing. T-Max 100 has such a fine grain that any noise in the image discounts the accuracy of the conversion. One needs to be extremely careful with any contrast adjustment as well. Still, when one is starting with a good image, this is a good method to use and the subtle handling of detail makes a world of difference.[/one_half_last]