Which B&W film? I'm confused!!!

AndyWest

AndyWest

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Never bought it before so need some advice. I'm after some film for my new Olympus OM-2 and I would like B&W non grainy with decent contrast. 7dayshop looks good and has been recommended. This is my 1st EVER film purchase!! I have no idea what ASA / ISO to go for but usually stick with 100 ISO on my Digi camera.

Any help appreciated.
 
Ilford Pan-F if you want to go down to 50 ASA, it can be taken even lower producing even finer grain if you compensate whilst developing.
Oh how it takes me back to days spent in the darkroom!!!
 
I won't be developing, I take it there are still developers out there?
 
AndyWest said:
I won't be developing, I take it there are still developers out there?
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Not many develop these films, if you want to use any high street lab, you'll need to shoot c41 film...
 
If you just want to pop your B&W film into a normal developers then you need a film that uses the C41 process (LINK). I have used two of these Ilford's B&W C41 film which is called XP2 super 400 (LINK) whilst Kodak do one called BW400CN (LINK)

I find that there is little between them so I buy them on price. I bought 10 rolls of Kodak whilst 7 day shop had it on special offer at under £3 per roll for 36 exp but previously I have used Ilford which tends to be more expensive.

My local Tesco did a really good job of developing it last time !!
 
or a "soup your own" sticky...

bit stuck for choice with c41 b/w'ers
 
I'd highly recommend you try Ilford FP4 (ISO 125) or the Delta 100 if you want fine grain. There is the Pan F (50 ISO) as well, and you can make 10x8 prints out of this film with virtually invisible grain. You won't go wrong with any of the above.

For processing, I'd also recommend Ilford's own in-house lab if you don't fancy doing it yourself. They do an excellent job, and they process both traditional black & white films as well as C41 films.

http://www.ilfordlab.com/
 
This is such great info thanks very much!! I think i'll start with some c41 and see how i get on. This is just an experiment after all but i'm getting quite excited by it all!
 
club 35 develops b/w - both 35 and 120. Pretty good service.

My experience in C41 is that they are never true b/w, there is always a bit of colour cast
 
OK I have ordered a couple rolls of Kodak BW400CN to see how i get on.

Fingers crossed!!:D
 
ujjwaldey8165 said:
club 35 develops b/w - both 35 and 120. Pretty good service.

My experience in C41 is that they are never true b/w, there is always a bit of colour cast
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I can always correct that in lightroom!
 
Lightroom is a new fangled comperuter program Ujjwal... (and also a bad pun on darkroom, only you can work in daylight) :lol:
 
ah...so lightroom is kind of another photoshop? I see...

I thought he meant that the colour cast can be corrected in the printing stage in the darkroom.....

I got to buy a darned book on the digital terms, softwares etc....
 
ujjwaldey8165 said:
ah...so lightroom is kind of another photoshop? I see...

I thought he meant that the colour cast can be corrected in the printing stage in the darkroom.....

I got to buy a darned book on the digital terms, softwares etc....
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it does more of the things you would do in a darkroom than photoshop does, lots of curves, levels, contrast, exposure and setting up colour sliders that I think can give results like diffferent films. It also has a fairly substantial print module in it.

Photoshop can do the cleverer local adjustments like burning and dodging
 
As said above Lightroom is an Adobe product that has all and more features of Photoshop but is far cheaper. Photoshop can do loads more / other stuff but is seriously expensive.

Plan is to shoot some pics, get them developed and scan them into my Mac then process the digital image in lightroom to get it spot on then they can go up on Flickr.
 
ujjwaldey8165 said:
club 35 develops b/w - both 35 and 120. Pretty good service.

My experience in C41 is that they are never true b/w, there is always a bit of colour cast
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I'm sure I read that one of them does give a proper B&W print, but I can't remember which one.
I've only used XP2, but I like it a lot. Good contrast and shadow details.
 
you normally get a colour cast when its printed on colour paper ,,,
 
dylan36 said:
Yeah, but Im glad they did, it encouraged me learn all I have learnt since. but, yes, over here (Ireland) there is only one outlet that processes B&W film (actual b&W, not C41 film) and you pay for it.
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Cant you send the film by post. Club 35 have a free post service; I am sure others do as well
 
I like XP a lot and find it quite tolerant of exposure errors. I have never really got on that well with T-Max - it has a lot of dynamic range but doesn't have the punchy contrast that I like in a mono film. Guess that's why my favourite is Tri-X - surely, no film is responsible for more iconic images than this one!
 
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