B&W Photography Questions

[qaiade]

I was wondering if filters are neccesary for black and white photography. If so what kind would be the best for everyday use?

Can C41 B&W film be developed at home the same way as regular B&W film? If not, what are some good B&W films?

 

[bmattock]

No, filters are not necessary for B&W work - but they can add to the impact of your photo, especially skies and foliage. Many people keep a light yellow filter on their lens at all times if they shoot mostly B&W, but I don't. A common filter that just about everyone uses for color or B&W would be a skylight or haze filter - it protects the lens if nothing else!

C-41 film can be developed at home - B&W and color. But it is more expensive than doing traditional B&W, the temperatures are more critical - in general it is a hassle. Any color film can also be developed AS IF it were B&W with B&W chemistry - but you have to accept that the images will be pretty awful - some people do it to 'rescue' ancient color print film that was never developed - like 20 years old found film, etc.

There are LOTS of good B&W films. One of the best for general all-around use is Kodak Tri-X, but everyone has their favorite and some are better for some things than others. You have to be more specific in your questions along this line!

Welcome!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Magnus]

Manolo: Christopher who ?


How about Neil ..... missed out a great there...

 

[Magnus]

Yes Christopher Plummer ... one of the last great crooners .... hmmmmm, hmmmmm

 

[Magnus]

Manolo, you are right I forgot about that I didn't realize he actually sang, allways thought his singing was dubbed.... Fancy bringing up the Sound of Music here, I must say I really like that film and this is about the first time I openly admitted it (hehehehehe) ... well when on a roll, I like pretty Woman too ! .. phew thats out, feels good

🙂

 

[StuartR]

qaide, there are many, many good black and white films. Certain films are better for different things. If you are not going to do your own developing, you should probably go with a C-41 B&W film like Ilford XP2. The other option is Scala, a black and white transparancy film that gives beautiful results. You can only send it out to a few locations though...I recommend Duggal in New York or DR5.com in LA.

If you are going to do your own developing, here are some good choices:

Extremely Fine Grain, sharp, smooth film: Ilford Delta 100, Tmax 100

Fine grain, good latitude (meaning you can mess up the exposure a bit), long tonal range: Ilford FP4+, Kodak Plus-X.

Good general purpose film, decent grain, very good latitude: HP5+, Tri-X, Neopan 400

Super high speed film. Large grain, high contrast: Ilford Delta 3200, Tmax 3200.


Of course, there are other good films, and the developer(s) you choose has a lot to do with how the film looks. D76 is a good general purpose developer. Xtol and HC110 are good for very fine grain. Rodinal is the best choice for high acutance (how sharp the edges are in the picture).

As you can see, there is a lot to learn, but it is a great experience and a lot of fun.

 

[digitalox]

I'd say all the are above are great films, but maybe something like tri-x or the other asa 400 films may be the best place to start if you're doing your own dev. The Tmax and delta lines can be a bit trickier to dev when your starting out, IMO because they are less tolerant to variances in temperature and time.

 

[ddutchison]

qaiade,

I would highly recommend Kodak Tri-X as your film of choice for starting out, as it is easily available , very forgiving of processing errors, and is one of the best films ever made by anyone. It's an easy film to like. What's most important is that you pick one film and stick with it while you're learning the basics. As others have mentioned, tabular grain films (like Kodak T-Max and Ilford Delta) require very careful handling, so you're best to aviod them until you're getting consistent results from conventional B&W films.

For developers, Kodak D-76 (or Ilford ID-11, which is the same developer) has been used with Tri-X for decades - some say they were made for each other. These days, many people really like Kodak Xtol with this film. You won't go wrong with either. I use HC-110, but it's a very thick liquid (thicker than honey), and therfore tricky to work with.

Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice Is a really good book. Most libraries should have it. I recommend it too.

Filters allow you to control how light/dark-gray a certain colour will appear in the print. They are not necessary, but their use can add a lot to a picture. Any good book on B&W photography will cover their use. Yellow/green and orange/red are the common colours.

C-41 B&W films can be developed in the home, but they use colour chemistry, which is more difficult to work with than B&W. You reallly want to be proficient with B&W processsing before tackling colour.

With a little practice, if you work carefuly, you'll get better results than many "pro" labs provide -at a fraction of the cost- and you'll gain a lot more control over how your pictures look.

 

[Pherdinand]

Tri-X is still hard to beat, as David said above. I even had it (in 120-format) grossly underexposed in a high-contrast situation, developed it normally, the neg is very very thin, but the prints still look good.
C-41 is the easy way - if you drop the neg at a lab for processing. Pick XP2 which has a clear base (not orange) and you can print it yourself. But then you've lost the fun of developing it yourself.

 

[schaubild]

C-41 films are ok if you don't want to develop yourself. In that case it's also unlikely that you do your own analog printing, which brings me to my point: if you let the film develop by a lab you don't know what happens with it. Not in the way it's developed, the process is standardized so there is almost no risk of anything going wrong, but the risk of mechanical damage is high.
I never got such a film back without tiny scratches or other damages. If you scan it, you can correct that digitally in most cases, but in an enlarger these damages will show on the print. Retouching doesn't help always. Therefore I prefer to develop B&W myself, I can control the process until the film is in the protection sleeve.

Just my 5 cents.

 

[Solinar]

C41 Has Its Niche, but don't get over aggressive

C41 Has Its Niche, but don't get over aggressive

Another vote for Tri-X, if you are developing at home. It requires traditional B&W chemicals, which are more readily available in small quantities.

C-41 film requires that a higher temperature be maintained during the developing process and is less user friendly for small batches of film.

If you never plan to make a traditional wet print with an optical enlarger, then C-41 B&W has an advantage. It is scanner friendly. Its main disadvantage is that C-41 B&W is difficult to push into the ISO 800 - 1600 range.

You can use filters with either types of B&W film. Just be aware that the filter factor will require either a slower shutter speed or wider aperture. For example, I normally expose ISO 400 Ilford XP-2 at an E.I. of 200. With a 4X Orange filter fitted, it is like using ISO 50 film.

Ilford XP-2 and Tri-X give two different looks. XP-2 works well in high contrast situations, such as a sunny day with lots of shadows. Tri-X, especially TXP, offers more tonality, which is a very nice look.

 

[peter_n]

I was wondering if filters are neccesary for black and white photography. If so what kind would be the best for everyday use?

Can C41 B&W film be developed at home the same way as regular B&W film? If not, what are some good B&W films?

As others have pointed out, filters are not necessary, but they can enhance contrast if you use an older lens. Like many others, I use yellow/green filters and the occasional orange/red for dramatic effect.

Lots of good advice WRT film. 400ASA is a good place to start and you have your choice of chromogenics (C-41) for the lab and conventional B&W for home development. I am using Neopan 400 but it is being developed in XTOL in a lab. As somebody said XTOL is good for fine grain and the Neopan works well with it in that respect. HP5+ comes out grainier in XTOL.

 

[qaiade]

Thanks for all your help guys. I guess I should have phrased my question better. I was mostly
concerned with how much if any filters enhance black and white images. In any case I learned alot from your posts. Also thanks for the film and developer recomendations.