Which 35mm ISO100 or 200 B&W film?

Woodsy

Woodsy

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Hi all.

Firstly, please forgive me for yet another "Which blah blah blah" thread!

I am looking for an ISO100/200 B&W film that I can eventually process at home once I kit myself out with the chems, tank, darkbag and scanner.

I shall be shooting mostly landscapes with it (FM2n and Nifty 1.8, and eventually a 28mm f/2.8), with the possibility of some street in there. If I know I'm going to be shooting street, I might stick some ISO400 in there instead.

So what would you good people recommend for A) ISO100/200 for landscapes, and B) ISO400 for street?

Am I correct in my knowledge that XP2 is out due to it being C41?

Many thanks in advance :)
 
I'm going to sound a bit boring now, and suggest that if you're starting with film and processing yourself, to get just one, and use it lots to learn how it works (same film and dev combo).

For your speed requirements I'd recommend Ilford's FP4+ (125), or HP5+ (400), they're both excellent, and I develop both in rodinal.

Rodinal may not be your best choice for landscape work as it does result in fairly grainy negatives, especially from faster film like HP5+, but I like it and use it for everything as the concentrate never goes bad, where as I'd probably end up throwing a lot of other developers away due to my fairly infrequent use.

As for your other question, while XP2 is excellent film, it's probably out due to it being c-41. You can develop it in traditional b&w chemicals (examples can be found at photo.net), but it'd work out more expensive and less reliable than using a conventional emulsion.
 
Yar Ilford XP2 and Kodak CN400 both black and white films but C41 (colour) chemistry developed.

Hmm!!

Kodak TMax 100 is good can be developed in most stuff but would recommend TMax own developer to get the best out of it (think some may disagree)

Ilford is FP4 a 125iso film like Kodak fine grain but this stuff can be done in a varitey of developers, ID-11, Rodinal, D-76 etc.

If you want finer grain then Ilford Pan F (?) a 50iso film, so unless you ae in very good light that a tripod is recommened. Again like the FP4 can be developed in a vaiety of chemistry, personnaly really liked using Rodinal, but that was a few years ago.

Yep 400 would work for street as well if you wish, both Ilford Delta Pro 400 and HP5 are 400 iso. Prefer the Delta as I find it a finer grain.

Kodak also do Tmax in 400 so that might be worth a try.

Worth trying a couple of different films to see what you like and suits your style :D
 
Tri-x for me for street stuff, or neopan 1600 rated at 800.

As for slower stuff, I like my more esoteric films such as adox chs art.

If I was you, I'd probably go for fp4 or Fuji Acros and maybe Ilford delta 100. Try all 3 and see which you prefer.

Deving at home though, you kinda need to standardise the processing so you can predict what results you will get and if anything goes wrong then you will have more of an idea which variables have changed. As such, pick a good, cheap, readily available film to start off with, use the same dev and times and temps etc until you are confident to start altering the variables.

You're a scientist so you should enjoy the empirical nature of film photography. Just remember to keep notes, plenty of them!

Oh, and later on, you'll probably get quite a kick out of mixing and designing your own dev's!
 
Excellent, Many thanks for the advice. Dfhaii, I've done a fair bit of dev'ing myself in the past and am fairly comfortable with it once I get back into the swing of it :D
 
Ok, I have bought 5 rolls of FP4, as that was mentioned in all three posts. Will see how these go :)

Untill I get some cash flow, I will probably have to resort to getting them dev'd and scanned by jessops / snappy snaps / who ever untill I have the cash to A) dev them at home, and B) scan them at home.

Looking forward to shooting with film again! :D
 
Strangely enough, if you're getting Boots or somebody to soup them, you'd have been better with a c41 b/w film, SnappySnaps/Click/doodarr print, they all do c41 its the same chemistry as colour neg.
FP4 might have to be jessops to send out, I'd try one of the online ones if I was gonna send away..
 
A fair point tbh.

Saying that, I've been looking on ebay for a dev tank and reel, thermometer, chems, dark bag, measuring jug etc, and for about £50 I can get all I need to dev at home; maybe cheaper if I get stuff S/H. All I need then is a scanner... But I can try and find someone who can lens me one for a while... or atleast let me use it once every few weeks.
 
Another vote for FP4+ here.

As far as I know, there are no ISO 200 black and white films however, I use HP5+ at EI 200. If you are processing at home you just decrease the development time by about 25% from the standard time to compensate for giving the film extra light.

If you are new to this though, it is probably better to try it at ISO 400 first though.

My website has a couple of articles explaining this:

http://www.freewebs.com/stevesmithphoto/personal.html

http://www.freewebs.com/stevesmithphoto/contrast.html

XP2 is C41 so it could be processed at a local mini-lab (who will give you brown tinted pictures) but the negatives could still be printed at home.




Steve.
 
Personnaly I would not use Jessops, the last E6 film I have had back throu them were very poor and the film scratched.

THere are a few places online that are good UK Darkroom I use and they are not much more expensive than Jessops. Think they will scan B&W film and send it back either printed or on CD, but you'd have to check there website to be sure.
 
I use kodah tmax 100 400 and I'm very happy with the results. recommended
 
Will add that to the list of films that i eventually want to try. Many thanks :)

Does anyone here use fotospeed developer / rinse / fix on their negs? If so, do you rate it? Only I might be able to get some cheap through a friend.
 
Yeah it is used at college and its okish but I have found it to make the negatives "flat", especally on 3200iso film plus it is also a one shot dev.

I get much better results from ID-11 (make 1 litre up from powder and will do 10 films) with Ilford (not tried Kodak stuff yet)

Dev times usually given with info you get with the developer or on the inside of the film box or http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php will give you loads of dev info.

Rinse (make sure the water is same temp as your dev) for about 30secs, but these days I use Stop Bath for 10 seconds

Fix for 4 minutes

I use Ilford stuff for Stop and Fix, but will experiment with other stuff over the coming year.
 
I have, when I needed the results within a couple of hours to evaluate a lens purchase, used a Snappy Snaps for B&W. The results were actually pretty good, not as contrasty as I'd like but they're going for mass market appeal.

I don't know for sure but I'd guess it's a franchise, so results may differ.
 
i'm using Lucky B&W, just US$30 for 10rolls including shipping

sample http://www.flickr.com/search/?q="lucky+b%26w"&ct=0&w=all
 
minolta09 said:
i'm using Lucky B&W, just US$30 for 10rolls including shipping

sample http://www.flickr.com/search/?q="lucky+b%26w"&ct=0&w=all
Click to expand...

I would recommend those, too. you will find the grain not as good as tmax but they are much cheaper and have a different taste:)
 
huanjia said:
I would recommend those, too. you will find the grain not as good as tmax but they are much cheaper and have a different taste:)
Click to expand...

But Woodsy wants 35mm film! It's 120 film that tastes different from brand to brand.

No, seriously. The gum on Ilford films is more minty than the gum on Kodak films.
 
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