BW Film Choice

440Hz

I have decided to shoot film for a bit.. Gonna use a real classic and drag out a beauty of an SLR. I wanna take some nice bw shots. I'll probably process and print them myself in college. What im looking for some advice on is what BW film to choose?

Its not something I ever really thought about before. Tips? Advice? Considerations?

Cheers
Katie

Roen

What end effect are you looking for? Will you be developing and printing the negs yourself?

Dimble57

Ah, I too am a CompSci graduate, semi-professional musician, & amateur photographer, and I heartily recommend to you: Tri-X. It has the 'classic' B&W look, and so far I've rated it everywhere between 200 and 1250 (current roll is at 3200) with good results. I've been happily using HC-110 developer but a box of Diafine arrived recently which I'm looking forward to trying out. I have a nice Canonet camera from 1970... what camera do you have?

leinsterman

well ... I'm also new to Film ... having just started a course in NCAD involving the old ways ... apparenty it is a right of passage so that I may be consider a wise old master rahter than a padawan learner some time ..

They recommended Fuji Neopan 400 (make sure you don't get the colour process version ... C41 though) ... it gives nice contrasty pictures when developed properly (you need to use multigrade filters) and is apparently easy to work with in the dark room ... oh and at 3.75 a roll of 36 it is cheap...

Roen

Ahhh....If you can find it, Technical Pan @ 25 ASA developed in Technidol, good for what ails ya.

440Hz

Roen wrote:

Will you be developing and printing the negs yourself?

Yup! May as well make the most of the facilities

As for effect, dunno. Not really sure.. havent really picked subject matter yet either, just trying to see what I should stock up on before starting.

Some good tips there, thanks!

Fionn

you know this is akin to building a CMS with notepad...it's sorta soo yesterday!!

this statement may go on and on ...
but anyway

not from my experience but from what i have read observed etc.

film is no longer the definitave, there is nothing that cant be done, reproduced etc. in digital that used to be the domain of film..
really it should be consigned to the past and people should move on and take on the new superior medium....film has had it's day!!! even the companys that made huge fortunes from it are relagating it to a niche market with some of the major players even indicating that they are withdrawing from production altoghter!!!!
like there's not too many people making silent movies any more......ya know!!!

really it's time to move on...

Dr.Louis

The quality you get with good black and white film on fibre based paper will never be matched by digital and I'm not some old guy clinging onto what once was- I'm speaking purely from experience! I'll agree that with colour film and colour digital, it's a different ball game altogether- But bw film is the best!

Roen

Horses for courses, the old 50ASA 5x4 inch sheets of B&W neg I used will certainly knock the socks off the slr digi cams, but I wonder would the medium format and large format digital backs have an answer to the 5x4 sheets?

mloc

funny how these threads always spiral into a digital vs film debate, one way or another. maybe someone should sticky a definative film vs digital debate thread! keep the whole thing there?

peter1892

leinsterman wrote:

They recommended Fuji Neopan 400

Seconded, nice grain on that film. The 100 iso is great too, although a bit limited in low light. Mind you I did take this one using the 100:

halenger

Recently been trying a lot of this stuff, I haven't developed anything yet so my opinions are based on other recommendations and just general testing.

So far I've shot two rolls of high ISO stuff - Ilford Delta 3200 (very grainy - by reputation) and Fuji Neopan 1600 (less grainy). Kodak T-max 3200 is a middle ground and popular with the film shooters I know - seemingly difficult for photography shops in this country who mostly pander Neopan with some Delta. *shrugs*

Currently I'm using a roll of Agfa APX100 (no longer made but can be found on e-bay and is well in date). A number of threads over on Nikon Cafe got me interested in this stuff. One in particular: http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=92881

In my medium format camera I've just loaded up some Ilford HP5. If you can I suggest trying lots.

I have some Kodak Tri-X 400 also - that came very highly recommended.

Rojo

I've always got nice results from fuji neopan 400, but I'm pretty uncultured with film. That's all I've tried!