Kodak Super-XX 200

Super-XX is part of the reason the Zone System reads the way it does. Kodak introduced the emulsion in 1938 as a fast panchromatic stock, rated near today's ISO 100 at launch and bumped to ISO 200 in later iterations. The straight-line response curve is the famous part. Mid-tone separation held linear from deep shadow to bright highlight in a way newer T-grain emulsions still struggle to match, which is exactly what a contact printer working from 8x10 needs.

Kodak killed the roll version in 1958 once Tri-X took over the speed bracket. The 8x10, 5x7, and 4x5 sheet cuts ran until 1992. Michael A. Smith stockpiled freezers full when Kodak announced the discontinuation, and he and Paula Chamlee shot it almost exclusively for contact printing through the late 2000s.

Grain is large by modern standards. Resolution is medium. None of that matters in 8x10, where the limiting factor in a contact print is the paper. In 35mm the film looks dated against any current ISO 200 stock, and there is no real reason to chase rare surviving rolls when T-Max 400 or HP5+ are better in every measurable way.

What T-Max 400 cannot give you is the tonal scale. Pyro-staining developers like PMK or ABC bring out the long-scale character, particularly for alternative processes like platinum-palladium where you need a long-density-range negative to print at all. Kodak's functional replacement with T-Max 400 was about grain, not curve shape.

Sheet stock is the only format that still circulates. Freezer-stored boxes from the late 1980s and early 1990s appear in estate sales and large-format Facebook groups. Test a sheet from any new box before committing it to a scene that matters.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second. A metered 30-second exposure becomes about 90 seconds at the negative. For the long ground-glass work this film was built around, the correction is part of the workflow rather than an edge case.