b&w film choices

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33L

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Hi all,

looking a doing a film project over winter and looking at some high contrast b&w film.

preferably c41 for ease of getting process however that is not a deal breaker. Looking at some maybe iso 100/200 and also some higher iso film for a bit more of a noise/grain.

Any suggestions.

Cheers Lee
 
Personally, I love love love acros 100. Epic reciprocity, great contrast b&w process and fairly cheap (at least in sheet film).
 
I haven't used C41 black and white films, so this is hearsay. As they are processed as colour films, there's no real opportunity to use development to control the contrast, so high contrast results will be difficult unless you use Photoshop (my assumption being that if you were making your own conventional prints, you wouldn't be looking for ease of high street film developing). Also, since chromogenic films end up with no silver but dyes instead, the grains won't be there anyway to give grainy results.

Your best chance for high contrast will usually be a slow film as slow films are usually made to have a higher inherent contrast (but never personally had a problem with PanF which I use a lot in 120 and did in 35mm). Overdevelop and you'll push the contrast up (development controls the contrast). Or use something like TMax or the other tabular grain films which respond well (or badly, depending on how you like excessive contrast) to overdevelopment.

For grain - high speed film (the faster the better) and overdevelop in something like Rodinal to give sharpness and golf ball grain.
 
Very limited for C41 these days,XP2,BW400CN and for some reason expensive,I,like,Jonathan prefer Acros 100,good B&W with excellent grain quality and renders very sharp images.
 
I will look into all of these recommendations, cheers for the help so far.
 
If you look at the info given on the Ag site for Adotech developer, it notes that Adox CMS20 is essentially a high contrast document film so if you use this (available in 35mm, 120 and 5x4) with a standard developer you should get high contrast.
 
If you do use a document emulsion you'll probably still want to tame the contrast a little. Very dilute rodinal is usually the way to go but I'm not sure how easy that'll be if you're sending away for processing.
 
ok i think i may need to clarify that I haven't taken the plunge to start developing my own film and having a change of house over the next 6 months means i cant commit to anything like that at the moment. It will be sent off for processing. Normally this would be to Peak Imaging. This is why i was seeing about out of the box high contrast films. I want to stay away from tweaking it later in PS so appreciate that C41 is not going to be my best option.
 
You'll not find any inherently high contrast c41 films. There's only 2 chromogenic films and both are fairly normal contrast. You'll have to scan them and play with the contrast options.
 
I've always found XP2 to be fairly contrasty, it's C41-based and widely available (eg Boots BOGOHP)... B$400CN (the Kodak equivalent) is near impossible to find these days, and Neopan400CN is not much easier...
 
i think im straying away from C41 as i dont mind sending off for developing elsewhere. I like the look of acros 100 which Jonathan mentioned.
 
The only two C41 process black and white films currently being produced are Ilford XP2 Super and Fuji 400CN, I believe. Although Kodak discontinued their C41 offering some time ago, you can still find some remaining stock online and in some stores.

Both XP2 and 400CN are great and are available online without a problem. You can easily shoot both from EI 100 to 800 without adjusting development; I'd recommend reading their respective info sheets for more information in this regard.
 
You could control the contrast to a large extent by using filters and use any film you fancy?
 
Can't speak for the OP, but for most of us, b&w has to be posted off, and is often more expensive. There are, clearly, some very good labs that do excellent b&w work! :)
 
paper, paper negs have alot of contrast, its the nature of them

rollei 400, old russian films too
 
What about Fuji Neopan, that's C41 and still available isn't it?
 
RaglanSurf said:
What about Fuji Neopan, that's C41 and still available isn't it?
Click to expand...

That's bw and I see plenty of it though there was a C41 fuji bw but I can't remember the last time I saw any. The acros is nice and punchy though.
 
RumpFace said:
That's bw and I see plenty of it though there was a C41 fuji bw but I can't remember the last time I saw any. The acros is nice and punchy though.
Click to expand...
I meant this stuff
 
Ah yes that went under my radar. Yeah that's a good shout as well.
 
I have to send of for my bw film. I can drop it in to Harrison cameras and they send it off to peak imaging for me. Itake it that fujifilm is available in 35mm too. On my mobile at the moment so too lazy to check lol.
 
33L said:
I have to send of for my bw film. I can drop it in to Harrison cameras and they send it off to peak imaging for me. Itake it that fujifilm is available in 35mm too. On my mobile at the moment so too lazy to check lol.
Click to expand...
Neopan CN is available in 35mm form as well. Just out of interest why don't you send your films direct to Peak yourself?
 
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