What's a very fine grain B&W film?

AshleyC

AshleyC

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,956
Name
...
Edit My Images
No
I want to do some portraits with some B&W film. However I want the shots as grain free as poss. I've used hp5 and tmax 100 in the past but they both seem to be quite grainey. Maybe due to development issues. Anyway, I did think of shooting in slide and converting to B&W but that just smacks of something a digital user would do ;) so Im looking for a very fine grain B&W for portrait shots. Any suggestions?
 
PanF is very fine, but not sure how well you'd get on shooting a 50 film for portraits :S I'e always found Delta 100 to be fine as wel, but again, it's quite slow.
 
Pan F, is about as fine as it comes and readily available.
Rollei Pan 25 is a little bit smoother but a long time out of production so can be a bit hit or miss if you get any.
Acros is easily the smoothest 100 film.

You might be right about the developer though, what do you usually use?
 
Acros is very fine grained and has a very smooth look which I like for people shots. Fomapan 100 or 200 are both pretty grainless as well.
 
A rough guide to grain is that it increases with ISO so choose a low ISO film. 50 ISO should be fine for a portrait - I cannot see why a sitter should not sit still for 1/100 second!
 
I've not felt the need to use anything other than Acros 100 as a low-grain film provided I was shooting 120 or larger format...
 
Delta 100 looks extremely fine grained to me when I've processed it in HC110. Ilford suggest Perceptol or DD-X to keep grain as fine as possible, so I imagine that would be even better.
 
I used to use Acufine dev back in the day or Microfine.

Unsure if either are still available nowadays.
 
Thanks peeps. I've never used acros before so will give that a try. For development I've always used RO9 one shot for the time listed on the film box. I might try a different dev once my current lot is used up.
 
TMax should be pretty fine, but yes, Pan F is very fine. Optiise your development process for fine grain too.
 
CMS20 is not really a pictorial film although Adox do claim it will resolve 800 line pairs per millimetre. For portraits, you might find tonal range to be a bit restricted.
 
Last edited:
Now I know this is vague but I used a Ilford film I think I exposed it at one speed and processed it at another and it gave a much finer grain but obviously long exposure times.
I might be able to fine my notes from collage but I am sure some one on here will have abetter idea of what I did.
It was a Wow moment for me when I printed them
 
Not sure if it's still available, but Kodak Technical Pan was the finest film I ever shot with (back in the day).
 
BT Bob said:
Not sure if it's still available, but Kodak Technical Pan was the finest film I ever shot with (back in the day).
Click to expand...
Tech Pan is long gone Rob, and was fetching silly money at the end. Acros is pretty good for grain, but will be dependent on developer used. I did have some Technidol developer for Tech Pan at one time, but not sure that any film still exists or that the Technidol would still work.
 
Last edited:
Delta 400 in xtol is as fine grained as your gonna get for a 400 speed film.

Both Delta 100 and acros are pretty slick, pan f is slicker though.

The right film/developer combo can make a big difference..:)
 
BT Bob said:
Not sure if it's still available, but Kodak Technical Pan was the finest film I ever shot with (back in the day).
Click to expand...

Peter B said:
Tech Pan is long gone Rob, and was fetching silly money at the end. Acros is pretty good for grain, but will be dependent on developer used. I did have some Technidol developer for Tech Pan at one time, but not sure that any film still exists or that the Technidol would still work.
Click to expand...

I've still got 3 rolls of it (brought before the prices skyrocketed a few years ago) in the freezer. I had a total of 5 originally and got the two that I've shot developed a few months ago (Palm Labs do a special service for Technical Pan and CMS20 using ultra dilute Rodinal to replace the long gone Technidol developer).. The negs are literally grainless and resolve incredible amounts of detail. I'll post a few up at some point to illustrate.
 
s162216 said:
I've still got 3 rolls of it (brought before the prices skyrocketed a few years ago) in the freezer. I had a total of 5 originally and got the two that I've shot developed a few months ago (Palm Labs do a special service for Technical Pan and CMS20 using ultra dilute Rodinal to replace the long gone Technidol developer).. The negs are literally grainless and resolve incredible amounts of detail. I'll post a few up at some point to illustrate.
Click to expand...

Well, well, well -- still some on eBay and this is the newer and cheaper of the 2 listings!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kodak-Tec...255097?hash=item3d16024ef9:g:sbsAAOSwFMZWrgea
 
Peter B said:
Well, well, well -- still some on eBay and this is the newer and cheaper of the 2 listings!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kodak-Tec...255097?hash=item3d16024ef9:g:sbsAAOSwFMZWrgea
Click to expand...

I got it for about £7.00 a roll frozen from new about 5 years ago, it was outdated by about 7 years but freezer stored that doesn't really matter. I'm surprised that anywhere is selling it buy it now for that price, as usually when you see it it's about 3 times that!

The one I really want to use just once is Kodak HIE infra-red film as no film has ever replaced it's sensitivity into the IR range, there again I wouldn't half mind trying some EIR false-colour IR film, but both of them now sell for silly prices as they've been gone so long and are so well known. You could still get EIR in 120 until a couple of years ago as there was a guy cutting down bulk rolls of the Aero-EIR aerial mapping version of it, unfortunately his supply came to an end.
 
john.margetts said:
A rough guide to grain is that it increases with ISO so choose a low ISO film. 50 ISO should be fine for a portrait - I cannot see why a sitter should not sit still for 1/100 second!
Click to expand...

All other things being equal, film speed depends on the volume of the film grain, and the grain on the cross sectional area of the film grain. As area depends on r squared and volume on r cubed, roughly speaking you'll double the grain size as you multiply the speed by 8 - so PanF should have a grain size about half that of a 400 ASA film. Perceived grain is due to grain clumping though, and this is affected by the developer. R09, as a Rodinal variant, is high acutance and large grain. A fine grain developer will reduce graininess (usually at the expense of film speed) and also the apparent sharpness of the image. An acutance developer works like the unsharp mask in Photoshop to enhance edge contrast.

I'm happy with 50 ASA (sorry, I think ASA not ISO), and with the faster lenses you get with 35mm it shouldn't be a problem.

The Ilford film to use to reduce grain by overexposing is the C41 one (XP2?).

Grain with a normal film is increased by overexposure, hence the need for minimum exposure when using small negatives.
 
s162216 said:
I wouldn't half mind trying some EIR false-colour IR film, but both of them now sell for silly prices
Click to expand...

Hah. I have a roll of this - it was in a bunch of expired film I was given. I may have to list it on eBay and see if someone bites, although it's not been cold-stored so it'd be a bit of a gamble for them.
 
abdoujaparov said:
Hah. I have a roll of this - it was in a bunch of expired film I was given. I may have to list it on eBay and see if someone bites, although it's not been cold-stored so it'd be a bit of a gamble for them.
Click to expand...

Holy crap, you weren't joking about silly prices. £60+ for fridge-stored ones.
 
AshleyC said:
I've used hp5 and tmax 100 in the past but they both seem to be quite grainey.
Click to expand...

I've never heard TMax 100 described as grainy before so I think something must have gone wrong with your development. You don't say what film size you're going to use; if you're using medium format then any of TMax 100, Acros, FP4, or Delta 100 should give you no problems with grain.

In 35mm it may be worth dropping a stop of speed and using Pan F.

Other slow films seem to have issues with availability, curl, or developer choices.
 
abdoujaparov said:
Holy crap, you weren't joking about silly prices. £60+ for fridge-stored ones.
Click to expand...

Which is why I really regret not buying any of that cut down bulk stock that guy was selling in 120 format, he was doing it for something like $25 + postage, but I didn't (and still don't) have any 120 format cameras yet so I kept putting off buying any, and the supply just suddenly ended before I got the chance. Just to have shot it once would have been enough as there are some amazing examples out there of stuff shot with it.
 
Much is said about films but little about shooting and lighting styles...so here is my tuppence FWIW

Kodak Tri-X 400 makes Ilford's HP5 look very bad unless you want the grain. I would imagine I did most of my B&W photography with FP4 as I discovered PANF 50 way too late. I am tempted to try Delta 100 and I always develop with perceptol if I have the choice. If not, I use ID-11.

I am not big on studio work and anything involving complex lighting so I mostly shoot on a tripod with natural light. As for the rest, I am pretty much still trying to figure it out myself. I reckon my top 2 films would be Tri-X 400 and PANF 50 with FP4 a very strong third place.

Will report back if Delta 100 blows me away!
 
I was given an expired roll of Delta 100, shot it at about 64 I think, and indeed it blew me away. Since then I've bought several rolls and have been unimpressed!:confused:

TBF Anton, your comments might be influenced by the fact you're probably rarely short of light? Perhaps a bit contrasty too?:cool:
 
ChrisR said:
I was given an expired roll of Delta 100, shot it at about 64 I think, and indeed it blew me away. Since then I've bought several rolls and have been unimpressed!:confused:

TBF Anton, your comments might be influenced by the fact you're probably rarely short of light? Perhaps a bit contrasty too?:cool:
Click to expand...

ChrisR, you mean B&W is NOT always high contrast?? LOL...

But seriously, yes, life at the bottom end of Africa is probably slightly different, even from a photographic point of view...

And now more serious than ever to try Delta...
 
Adox CMS is about the finest grain film available, but it's a pig to work with and needs a special developer.

I use Pan F most of the time if fine grain is needed.
 
Finest grain films I've used when developed with D-76/ID-11:
Rollei RPX 25 - essentially grainless
PanF 50
Rollei Retro 80S
Fuji Acros 100 - looks very similar to Tmax 100
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top