Sick and tired of this crappy tint. No matter what you do to Kodak Tri-X, it always comes out purple looking. HP5+, Foma, Neopan you name it, all come out nice and clear.
Besides not being purple, look at how flat HP5 dries. This Tri-X spent a week in Magnum contact sheets, too.
Apparently it doesn't affect printing or scanning at all. I don't know what bothers me about it but I absolutely can't stand it. There are numerous threads on all kinds of online forums about this. The purple is a bi-product of Kodak consolidating production lines people say. It's also supposed to have something to do with sharpness and the anti-halation layer. This may all well be true, but when I shoot HP5, which comes out clear, I don't have any halation issues.
My favorite B&W photos were shot on it. Tri-x grain is just right, not too coarse, not too fine. Just right. The tonality is amazing and the film is really usable from 200 - 1600 ISO. At least that's what I shoot it at. I just can't stand looking at the purple film coming out of my tank. HP5 has many of Tri-X' good properties. I shot it from 200 - 1600 ISO and I like the results. I've developed it in the same chemicals I develop Tri-X in and the results are great. In addition to basically giving me the same results as Tri-X it comes out clear and dries flat. It's super easy to handle once developed.
Plus-X, basically the same film type as Tri-X but slower, was never transferred to the new production lines. It's proof that Kodak can make non-purple film, lol. They discontinued this probably just around the time Tri-X turned purple. If you take a look at the picture below you can see that it was a real black and white film, not a black and purple film like the new Tri-X.
So Plus-X they were able to make in B & W ... why not Tri-X ?
I'd love to support Kodak more, but if there's a better film at basically the same price, why should I not shoot it?
For the time being I have 4 more rolls of Tri-X and a bunch of expired Neopan 400 to go through. If I still feel the same about HP5 when those rolls are gone I might just order a 10-pack of that next.
and just for fun, this is Neopan 400 expired in 2006. Even that is nice and grey!