Some basic film questions?

[cambsno]

Last year I bought a Zorki for a laugh - enjoyed the experience although it was a hard camera to use! Bought a Nikon FE and enjoy using that, although not a fan of MF, as I have a 4yo and 20mth old and MF is a pain with them!

Now seriously looking at a Nikon F80 - can use my AFS lenses on this. However, film is a strange beast! So many different types of film, tend to go for 400 ISO Ilford as that allows me some degree of shooting inside. But there are so many types, it would be great to know what is good as a general B&W film to use, of any that are better for portraits and people.

Also, when it comes to developing, some places scan. The cheapest is 1800x1200 and says a typical file size of 6mb but optimum print size is only 6x4, which I find strange as 6mb is a perfectly useable digital size - can someone explain the (probably) obvious to me.

 

[excalibur2]

Can't help you with B/W but a cheap scan jpg file @ 1800X1200 is about 1mb.

 

[cambsno]

Thanks, I think both peak imaging and ilford indicated a size of approx 6mb hence my question.

 

[Cuchulainn]

That's the uncompressed tiff equivalent size. Jpeg then compresses it back down to 1mb or so.

 

[boliston]

Last year I bought a Zorki for a laugh - enjoyed the experience although it was a hard camera to use! Bought a Nikon FE and enjoy using that, although not a fan of MF, as I have a 4yo and 20mth old and MF is a pain with them!

Now seriously looking at a Nikon F80 - can use my AFS lenses on this. However, film is a strange beast! So many different types of film, tend to go for 400 ISO Ilford as that allows me some degree of shooting inside. But there are so many types, it would be great to know what is good as a general B&W film to use, of any that are better for portraits and people.

Also, when it comes to developing, some places scan. The cheapest is 1800x1200 and says a typical file size of 6mb but optimum print size is only 6x4, which I find strange as 6mb is a perfectly useable digital size - can someone explain the (probably) obvious to me.

The basic 1200dpi scan they offer will print at 6x4 when printed at 300dpi which is a standard dpi for printing.

The file size in mb is more a matter of the level of jpeg compression they apply and 6mb seems a large file for a 1800x1200 scan. I've had a look at some of the 1200dpi scans i've done myself and the jpegs are mostly about 1.5mb even when saved at 100% in ifranview.

 

[norters]

As there have been replies in relation to the scanning question may I jump in to recommend Ilford XP2 Super as a B&W film choice. C41 process and lovely results.