Response to Film Manufacture Recommended Times ,Huh?

The most probable cause of the mismatch between the given dev/ times (in the small useless sheets of paper that you find in the packaging of your film) and the optimal ones is the fact that most developers (espacially the fine-grain ones) reduce the nominal film speed in order to give the best results (in terms of grain, sharpness tonal range etc). The manufacturers don't want to oblige people to shoot their film in lower E.I.'s, this is quite a bad advertising for their films (hey, this Tmax 100 I just bought is not a real 100, it' a 64 !!!). So, they augment the developing time (in the expense of higher contrast, coarser grain and poor renditio of highlights) just to be able to keep the nominal speed of their film intact... Other reasons might be the incompatibility of printing sources (I print on a condenser enlarger, so I have to dev less my negs) and other details. Experiment and find your own times.

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