Film questions ...

[bennybo]

Do you give any special instructions to the labs (particularly the MegaloMart variety) or just let them pretend it's a roll of color?

 

[ElrodCod]

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I don't use B&W C41 films.

 

[colyn]

I've shot several rolls of Kodak's BW400CN but would like to try Neopan.

 

[CJP6008]

C41 B&W filmas are okay if all you want is minilab prints on colour paper - otherwise, avoid them. Melvin Cambette-Davies (one of London's best B&W printers) one said to me, having printed some CN400 negs for me "Do yourself a favour, don't ever use that again. They've got no body. There's no silver in them. They are horribel to print." How right he was.

Portra 800 is great for people, good skin tones straight from the box so to speak. NPZ can make folks skin look like smacked bottoms so excessive is the magenta in it. Good printers will correct this and get a decent result - not your local lab. Too cold, too pink. Fine for non poeple shots. if looking for good skin tones, you or your printer will have to do a bit of work for them.

 

[Dougg]

C41 B&W films with orange mask are ok for lab prints on color paper but they are awful in the darkroom with multi-grade papers. Those without orange mask can be printed with beautiful luscious tones at least equal to traditional films. But both kinds scan just fine, and even pro labs these days make even large display prints with digital printers onto color papers from hi-rez scans. Over 20 years ago I chose to shoot Ilford XP-1 and souped it at home with Ilford's XP1 development kits. I just like the look and tonality of the chromogenic film.

 

[Bryce]

I normally don't use chromogenic B+W film, I much prefer traditional emulsion films. FP4 is the standard in my eyes. This is because of tonality, grain appearance, and convenience.
I do use XP2 for my underground images, because of the extra exposure latitude. I choose Ilford over Kodak for one reason- I print my images in a wet darkroom, something the Kodak film is useless for.

 

[MadMan2k]

I've used some of the BW400CN; it's not the greatest, the prints come back kind of sepia toned from 1-hr labs. I've shot some TMAX but haven't gotten it developed yet (been 3 months... I should), because there's no place locally that does it, and A&I is $17 per roll (ouch). I just discovered there's a lab the next town over that does it, so I might be making a trip over there every couple weeks and shooting a lot more real B&W.