A Lazy Appeal for a Unifilm

[Bike Tourist]

I guess my several years' fling with digital is spoiling my comeback to film cameras. I still like my digital darkroom concept, so I have been having my film processed commercially — Develop Only, Do Not Cut — so that I can cut the film into strips for storage and scanning.

For B+W I started out with XP2 and have migrated to BW400CN.

For color I have been using up my wife's out-of-date cheap Fujicolor whatever. For years I was disrespectful of negative color film, having always used my preferred transparency film.

Having been conditioned by digital, though, I would like to use ONE C-41 film for everything and have the option of rendering the images in color or B+W.

My requirements:

a. Good, fairly saturated color

b. Able to be PSed into good black and whites with long tonal range

c. Small, tight grain which might be able to sneak by stock photo reviewers

Does this film exist?

 

[photogdave]

I haven't finished my first roll yet, but the new Kodak Ektar 100 may fit the bill. For something faster I'd suggest 400 Fuji Pro H.

 

[venchka]

And there is always Portra 160 in NC and VC flavors.

Fuji Reala 100 if the Ektar 100 doesn't float your boat. Good saturation. Grain? What grain? High resolving power. A perfect match with the lower contrast of the DR Summicron. My skills are lacking, but I have seen perfect B&W conversions from Reala.

 

[like2fiddle]

I second Wayne's recommendation of Reala, my only 135 color film in the past year or so. Never converted it to B&W though, but it does everything else well, so why not?

 

[mcgrattan]

I'm curious about the same thing. With the 'one camera one lens' thing coming up, and a short vacation planned, it might be nice not to have to carry around 3 or 4 different films, too.

I've liked Reala in the past, but never converted it.

What about an E6 equivalent? Something that has enough of a tonal range to convert to black and white? Astia? Sensia?

 

[Bike Tourist]

Yes, I've converted plenty of E-6 and Kodachrome (which is actually a black and white film) to monochrome, but the tonal range is fairly abbreviated. It seems many favor Reala. I might try it but I forgot to mention cheap. And higher speed. Adorama has Fuji Superia 400 for $1.99 per 36 exposure cassette. I wonder if the results will disappoint? Maybe I'll try it and see.

 

[sojournerphoto]

Reala converts quite nicely, and you can use the photoshop black and white ocntrols which are really neat.

 

[Ronald_H]

Superia is cheap and good. 400 might be bit grainy (but only a bit) and that is easily tamed in PP. If you convert it to B/W it will look quite a bit smoother than Tri-X. If you don't like the tones a simple curves adjustment will fix that.

I hear a lot of people complain that this and that film or developer combo cannot deliver the tones they want. In Photoshop (near) anything can be fixed in this regard though and easily too.