A mini review after a while working with the Planar

[antiquark]

How are your B&Ws being scanned? Maybe the blown hilights is a scanning problem. Neg film has a huge latitude, it's unlikely that the hilights are actually blown on the negative itself. When you look a the negs with a loupe, can you see detail in the hilights?

 

[Turtle]

How are your B&Ws being scanned? Maybe the blown hilights is a scanning problem. Neg film has a huge latitude, it's unlikely that the hilights are actually blown on the negative itself. When you look a the negs with a loupe, can you see detail in the hilights?

Agreed. its far harder to get a good scan off b&W mono film than colour, whether it be at home or from a lab....labs are sometimes dire. I do alll my own but judging from what I see posted to a good friend, I would not rule out poor lab scanning esp of they develop the negs very fully (as in for conventional printing). To get a good scan, reduced development is often recommended.

When developing the Zeiss negs I have a whole lot more contrast than with Canon SLR lenses in general and have to watch the processing otherwise I have the exact same problem. Zeiss ZMs do produce very smooth looking images though, has to be said, however, this is exacerbated by using devs such as Xtol which produce very fine grain and low acutance with slow films. soup your negs in something a bit sharper (FX-39, Pyrocat, Rodinal or even D76 1+1) and there will be a niticeable increase in visual bite and less of a 'digital look'. FWIW, APX100 in Xtol 1+1 produces astoundingly smooth tonality, so much so that as wonderful as it is to me for portraits of kids (produces sumptuous skin tonality) it would be the last combo on my lits for street images.....it is the OPPOSITE of the 'Salgado' look. You should note that many labs use XTOL too.....and I find too fine grain can result in a lack of depth in shots involving people or street type images - landscapes can be very different. I have some images I am very fond f that I realy struggle to print well for this very reason....no grain pretty well at 16x12 and a kind of smooth flat look with it.....

 

[petercs]

I have used a biogon and found the results to be kind of so so. Maybe its the modern Zeiss lenses that doesn't like my black and white routine. After using the biogon for a while I found that it wasnt so much better then my CV 35 PII to warrant a trade up. I have not tried Tri-x with this lens, mostly because you cannot find it on this side of China very well and also because I try to keep myself to a select few films so I can get to know their qualities better.

I am sure though that the reason the Planar and I dont get along in black and white is that im looking for something a little more punchy with my black and whites, such as the results my old Yashica GSN gives me with HP5:

ps. thanks, I dont like looking at brick walls either, for me a lens is only as good as it works in the real world.

Avotius,
looking at the scan quality of your B&W pics, and beeing a newbie with B&W: how do you get those results (scanner/sofware). Using a Nikon 5000ED and Silverfast I am not able to get good results from my HP5 B&Ws. A bit better with FPS125, but still lacking the quality of my color slide scans.
Best Regards, Peter

 

[infrequent]

@avotious - yes i would also be interested in what sort of scanner your lab is using. what sort of file sizes are you getting back? they definitely don't look like the ones i get from my minilab!

 

[papasnap]

avotius: ah, that's a pity! I absolutely love your colour work with the planar 50, they blow me away every time I see it! You've got an amazing eye.

I've got a strong bias for colour over B&W, but even so, looking at your examples I can certainly see what you mean - the b&w shots don't have the same pleasing characteristics as your colour ones, or your wonderful b&w shots on the 35mm f2.5 pancake II. I assume you're using the same developing and scanning techniques.

on the other hand, the planar does appear to be capable of producing those pleasing characteristics - I love this shot mfogiel put up: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/2214578213/sizes/l/

hmm. tricky! good luck, whichever way you decide to go.

 

[Avotius]

avotius: ah, that's a pity! I absolutely love your colour work with the planar 50, they blow me away every time I see it! You've got an amazing eye.

I've got a strong bias for colour over B&W, but even so, looking at your examples I can certainly see what you mean - the b&w shots don't have the same pleasing characteristics as your colour ones, or your wonderful b&w shots on the 35mm f2.5 pancake II. I assume you're using the same developing and scanning techniques.

on the other hand, the planar does appear to be capable of producing those pleasing characteristics - I love this shot mfogiel put up: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59177039@N00/2214578213/sizes/l/

hmm. tricky! good luck, whichever way you decide to go.

You assume correctly that I am using the same scanning and developing techniques as with my other shots, which have given me a level playing field to compare lenses that I use, otherwise a comparison wouldn't be very useful if you can at least have a good place to start, which is why I dismiss that it could be a problem in there. My teacher agrees though, he says the planar obviously doesn't agree with my work flow the way an older lens, say a vintage nikkor and yashinon would. His advice? Vintage Leica. Im thinking about it too. I would want to have excellent color response as well though, I dont know, the only in depth experience with Leica lenses I have is with an old elmar. I might take a leap of faith though and try it out with a summilux.'

Although I agree, that shot mfogiel took of the guy is really great. Since I dont have access to a lot of different chemicals here to try things out with I will have to make a choice to either keep fumbling with a lens that doesnt fit in the work flow as my other lenses do or keep it just for its outstanding color results and maybe buy something else for black and white.

 

[jplomley]

On the Nikon 5000, always scan B&W neg film as a positive in RGB color mode and then invert the image in PS. Then carefully select your black point and white point to optimize your dynamic range and neutralize the image. You will never clip your highlights using this technique. If you want more detail in the highlights and shadows, apply a contrast mask. In my experience with the 5000, if you scan as a Neg, the highlights get clipped everytime. If you reduce the Analog Gain to preserve the highlights, you lose serious shadow detail. And finally, never scan 35mm film at the max scanner resolution (4,000 ppi). You will emphasize grain reducing your overall signal to noise. You are much better off scanning at no greater than 2400 ppi and up-rezzing using Genuine Fractals. Start with a clean input, and you will furnish a clean output.

 

[jjovin]

May I suggest to try Delta 100 with D23 (or D76) split develop.
I think this will give you what I think you are after in B&W.
With B&W, you really need to experiment with film/developer/agitation
to get it to the point that you like. I normally do not pay attention to
the old rule of thumbs: expose for shadows, develop for highlights.
This works for some but not for all.

 

[Turtle]

Avotius,

It might be easier to make some basic changes in terms of processing (assuming you can) rather than change lenses. I have found the need to do this to get different pictorial effects and when dealing with the ZM lenses there is no doubt that they have extremely smooth tonal rendition and are of relatively high contrast. Reduced development and a developer with good acutance will give your images more 'sparkle'. This is something Roger Hicks talks about a lot (getting sparkle from a dev/film combo) and it is not always easy. Its a bullet one has to bite with mono, especially if wanting to scan because this is where it usually all goes wrong if your negs are developed conventionally by a lab.

 

[Avotius]

I wonder if Roger Hicks knows his website is blocked by the great firewall of china

 

[shadowfox]

Colin, what I noticed in your B&W shots with the Planar is the abundance of white objects in the composition. The one from your Yashica has black background and even the whites are not teribly dominant.

Maybe you want to try scenes with less contrast, then I think you'll find the usual 3D Zeiss quality.

Speaking of 3D quality, most of us "get it", it's just a few who took issue with the term.