A Box of Tri-X
If you saw a black and white news photograph the chances are it was taken on Tri-X. Tri-X sheet film had first appeared in the Kodak catalog in 1940. The name Tri-X most likely came from the fact that the film followed Super-XX film, which was Kodak's previous high speed roll film. Tri-X was changed in 1960 to have a shorter development time of only 8 minutes in D-76 developer instead of 12 minutes, and the film was changed again in 2007 to have slightly finer grain and the development time reduced to 6-3/4 minutes. Tri-X is well known for its versatility. It can be pushed from its normal 400 speed to 3200 speed and still yield good pictures in poor light. Pushing film means increasing the development time to compensate for less exposure than normal. The result is a printable negative, but with increased contrast and grain.
[Update] 2019 also is the 85th anniversary of the daylight loading 35mm film cartridge. Before 1934 still cameras that took 35mm film used proprietary cassettes and photographers would reload their own cassettes. Dr. August Nagel, who ran the Kodak-Nagel camera factory in Stuttgart, Germany, designed a disposable film cartridge and also a camera to use it, the Kodak Retina. Dr. Nagel had both the German and the US patents for the daylight loading magazine (as Kodak used to call it). Eastman Kodak had the manufacturing expertise to make daylight loading magazines by the million. The Kodak film magazine also fit Leica and Zeiss cameras. 35mm in daylight loading cartridges is the most popular film size now available, although sales of all sizes of film are much smaller than they once were.
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