FP4 and TXP

Last time I went on an extended road trip it was in October of 2019.  I travelled out to Vancouver Island with my friends Rob and Brad.  We had rented a house at Courtenay, and spent a week exploring in the area.  When I go on a trip such as this, I try to limit myself to just two or three film types.  This allows me to bring along enough film holders to be productive.  But also affords me the opportunity to unload exposed film and reload fresh material as needed.  I bring empty film boxes along, and a changing bag, so that I can pull the exposed film out of the film holders and sort it into various boxes for later processing.  I use that same changing bag to load fresh film into those film holders.  By limiting myself to just two types, I don't have to drag along too much stuff.  I can still allocate film for plus and normal development without things becoming too cumbersome.  I usually still shoot a little infrared and color materiel along with the mix.

For this trip I took along a slower film, Ilford FP4, and a faster one, Kodak Tri-X Pan.  I processed all of the FP4 film in the couple of months after returning home.  I am just now getting around to processing all of the Tri-X Pan material.  Retirement is allowing me to catch up on my backlog of over 600 sheets of film that require processing.

Here are a couple of examples that illustrate the subtle differences between films.  I always shoot two sheets of every set up.  This way, if I make some sort of fatal error along the way... either during exposure, or in loading/unloading, or in processing of the film, it is highly unlikely that I will lose both.  It is not all that uncommon to make such an error, or sometimes the film gets damaged or scratched in handling.  These two images both worked out.

This is a shot of some eroded boulders on the shore of Hornby Island, at a place called Ford Cove.  Both images were taken about 30 seconds apart.  I used my Ebony SV45TU 4" x 5" view camera and a Fujinon-A 180mm lens.  This focal length is approx. equal to a 60mm lens in 135 film or full frame digital formats.  The subject brightness range was 5 stops, from the deepest shadows to the highlights on the boulders.

The shot on the left was taken on Ilford FP4 film, with a #8 yellow filter.  It was developed in Ilford Perceptol developer, diluted 1:1, for 11:45 minutes at 24C.

The shot on the right was taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan film, with a #22 orange filter.  It was developed in PMK developer [a staining pyro developer] for 9:35 minutes at 20C.

The characteristics of the film/developer combinations are a little different.  The orange filter used with the Tri-X increased the contrast somewhat.  The grain structure of the two emulsions is a little different and this would become a little more visible with a higher degree of enlargement.  I could manipulate these images somewhat in printing and adjust the contrast so that both were fairly close to the same.  But there would still be subtle differences.

There is no right or wrong choice, but after decades of working with these materials I have come to learn which materials are best suited to certain subject matter and certain lighting conditions.  This is the "Fine Art" part of the process.