TMAX 100

When my Nikon FE arrived I wanted to put a roll through quickly to make sure the meter and shutter worked properly.  I had lots of rolls of Kodak Gold 200 so I shot a roll of 24 exposures. Since CVS got rid of their film processing last year, I took it down to Walmart (3 more miles, round trip); only to find it too no longer develops on the premises. Inevitable I know, but a shame none the less. I can only hope that film finds the same roll as vinyl; an old technology that comes back in to fashion.

So I needed to do some B&W that I could develop myself. In 35mm, I had some FP4, a roll of Kentmere 100 and two rolls of TMAX 100 that Russell Kord kindly gave 20 years ago. So I put in the the TMAX, which I'd never used before, and these are some of the results.

The top two images both have bits of sky which is where film grain tends to be most conspicuous. The clips on the right of each illustrate how little grain TMAX has. Of course, without a yellow filter, the sky is quite white and grain may be more apparent when it's darkened with a filter. But it's pretty encouraging nonetheless, and seems to be considerably better here than Fuji Neopan. More tests are in order.    

As a footnote, I'm astounded that the film was still good after 20 years of being carted around (and not kept in a temperate controlled cellar).