For those of you who didn’t see my interview with the great Ed Verosky, he asked me to name a few of my favorite films. Among those that I named was Ilford HP5+, because it’s versatile, easy to work with, yada yada yada. I stand by all those things, but one the biggest reasons I’ve leaned toward HP5+ over Tri-X is the simple fact that, in my experience, HP5 always dried flat while Tri-X curled, making scanning more of a hassle than I was willing to endure. For that reason, more than any another, I swore my undying loyalty to HP5.

And then a buddy of mine gave me two rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400. I shot and developed one roll. It dried flat. I shot and developed the second roll. It too dried flat.

The next day I went to B&H, bought two more rolls. Shot each of them. Each one dried flat. I’m now about eight rolls into my rediscovery of Kodak Tri-X 400 and every roll has dried flat. I don’t if it has to do with the developer (I regularly use HC-110 now) or maybe because I let my film dry a bit longer than I used to. Or maybe a combination of both. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m currently sitting on 12 rolls of Tri-X and am looking forward to shooting it all.

No, I haven’t given up HP5+, but a 24 exposure roll of Tri-X is cheaper than a 24 exposure roll of HP5+…so that counts for something…. Anyway, here are some samples of all the fun I’ve been having with Tri-X 400. All shot at 800 (with my trusty Olympus OM-2N), processed in HC-110 dilution E.