Response to New B&W film

Contrary to what you might think from my recent spate of posts about resolution; I don't really think that resolution has much to do with image quality at all. Otherwise all soft-focus images would be seen to be rubbish, which is clearly nonsense.
"Tonality" is the key to quality, and finer grain in films can help with this, but only if that fineness of grain goes hand-in-hand with reasonable contrast.
You can't see the grain in Lith film, but it doesn't give good quality images.
Some other factors are involved as well. Much of the quality possible with small formats is lost to common dirt. Dust specks, or more insidious micro particles or water hardness on the surface of the negative, together with lack of smoothness in the surface of the emulsion itself, all degrade the image, no matter how good the camera equipment is.
Now, as I see it, there are two ways to tackle this.
1)You can turn your darkroom into a clean room, and suit up every time you want to make a print or develop a film. It'll probably only cost you somewhere in the region of $200US a month for the necessary water and air filters.
Or
2)You can use a larger format.

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