Film Recommendations?

I recommend Fuji Reala (ISO 100) color negative film. The color is really impressive without being oversaturated and the B&W you can make from a scanned negative is surprisingly good. Give it a try!
 
themerinator said:
Yeah but forwarding film usually gets expensive. In Houston it's roughly $25 to have a roll of Ilford HP5 with singles developed at another lab . When I'm at school, in San Marcos, there's a great lab. But it's $15 for a contact sheet and negatives, and then roughly $3 for 5x7 prints. Oyveh. Anywho. Perhaps I should just start home developing my own negatives, and then have the labs do only my prints.
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Wow!

In NYC I bring my HP5 or TMax to the Allkit outlet on 50th and 3rd. They do not do "pro B&W film" on-site so send it to an indy lab.

I just do "develop only" and it costs about $5. If I wanted prints too I guess it would be about $8 or $9 for a roll of 36 exp.
 
themerinator said:
Yeah but forwarding film usually gets expensive. In Houston it's roughly $25 to have a roll of Ilford HP5 with singles developed at another lab . When I'm at school, in San Marcos, there's a great lab. But it's $15 for a contact sheet and negatives, and then roughly $3 for 5x7 prints. Oyveh. Anywho. Perhaps I should just start home developing my own negatives, and then have the labs do only my prints.
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$9.50 for B&W processing and contact sheet... four hour service here in LA.
 
BrianShaw said:
$9.50 for B&W processing and contact sheet... four hour service here in LA.
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Oh my, that's depressing. But I did just find a place called Hot Flash. They develop w/ contact sheet for 9.25 and then prints are something like .80; that's a deal (around here anyways). It makes me sad to know that film processing is deteriorating so quickly.
 
themerinator said:
Well, I'm open to color film. What would you suggest? I've heard people raving about fuji.
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After becoming seriously interested in photography a few years ago I went through a phase of reading all about films technical merits, color accuracy, user reviews etc. and basically tried almost everything I could get my hands on. What I found after all of that was that what ultimately mattered was whether or not a given film was pleasing to my eye, regardless of technical merits. I've gone through phases of what I found to be pleasing. It seemed like 90% of the reviews said Fuji color films were way better than Kodak's for this or that reason but after several years of playing around I've fallen in love with the way Kodak Porta 800 looks. It probably sucks for accurate color rendition, resolution, grain etc but man, it just looks beautiful to me. Unfortunately it is silly expensive and they'll probably stop making it but for now I'm hooked on the stuff. Oddly enough, I don't like any of the other Portra films... just the 800.

For B&W I've settled on Ilford's HP5 for both 35mm and 120mm. For a while I was all about Tri-X then it was Neopan 1600. In the ended I just decided that I liked the way HP5 looked and that was that.

Having gone through Color and B&W films I'm now ready to start trying all the slide films....I'll probably want something w/ funky vintage color rendition.
 
RE: Guy Mann

I've been scanning some old Kodachrome transparencies (ISO 25) and the results are pretty good. It is expensive to buy and even more so to get processed, so that might not work for a lot of people.
 
I don't buy that you can't get "true" black and white performance and tonality out of C-41 films. You can get great prints, though the archival longevity of the negs is not as long, and there is a different type of grain. The prints however, still look great. If anyone can tell me (without cheating or foreknowledge) which of these are "real" black and white and which are c-41, I would be interested to hear how:

xp2-aki.jpg


shinto-teki2.jpg


vik-church-bw.jpg
 
StuartR said:
I don't buy that you can't get "true" black and white performance and tonality out of C-41 films. You can get great prints, though the archival longevity of the negs is not as long, and there is a different type of grain. The prints however, still look great. If anyone can tell me (without cheating or foreknowledge) which of these are "real" black and white and which are c-41, I would be interested to hear how:

xp2-aki.jpg


shinto-teki2.jpg


vik-church-bw.jpg
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I'll bite.

I think the first one is C-41 and you have adjusted the tonality via PS.

The second I believe is "true" B&W and probably so is the third.

So - do I get the "booby prize"?
 
Reading through this thread, I'll simply say two things as my votes -

Color? Fuji Reala CS at box.
B&W? Kodak Plus-X @ EI400.

I do the Reala at my neighborhood Walgreens (dunk & scan, no prints) and the Plus-X in Diafine at home. Then, due to a dead Windog PC, I have the Plus-X negs scanned at Walgreens. Cheap enough for the results... ;)

William
 
copake_ham said:
I'll bite.

I think the first one is C-41 and you have adjusted the tonality via PS.

The second I believe is "true" B&W and probably so is the third.

So - do I get the "booby prize"?
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I'll agree, the last two look more pure B&W.
 
I've also tried pretty much everything but some of the Kodak chromes.

Without any question, my favorite chome is Provia 400F : http://www.shutterflower.com/street scene gallery/pages/old-ladiesRFF.htm - very very perfect rendition of the way it looked. Totally neutral. A very good choice for street shooting.

For B&W, I'd have to say I like Neopan 100 Acros the best, really, http://www.shutterflower.com/street scene gallery/pages/old ladyRFF.htm

but for half the price (or less), Fomapan 200 is amazing : http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=34778&cat=500&ppuser=2147

C41 for general use : NPH400. For portraits . . . Portra 160NC - duh

portra 160NC : http://www.shutterflower.com/portrait gallery/pages/sierra-2RFF.htm
 
bmattock said:
If you are converting to B&W, why not go with the cheapest color film you can find? Seriously, as long as the colors are more-or-less accurately portrayed, if you're going to desaturate, I'm not sure that any difference in the overall quality of the color film would matter - perhaps 'grain' as expressed in color film (RMS value) would be better if smaller - but again, not sure that you'd see much in the way of a difference once scanned.

So if it were me, I'd go cheap! House-brand low-ISO color film, as close to a buck a roll as I could manage.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
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That works for me, I get Walgreens on sale about $1.20 a roll 400 asa then photshop it B/W
 
I like Ilford XP2 exposed at ASA 200. It looks great when scanned. Ifyour final result will be a print, I recommend using a Silver based B&W film. Here, I like EFKE 25, 50, and 100 or Ilford HP5.
 
My favourite true black and white films are:
Ilford HP5, Delta 100
Adox 100,
Agfa APX 100 and 400
Fuji Neopan
Kodak Tri-x
and I am test driving Classicpan 400

I started doing my own processing at home, its at the break even point now. I find the Labs at least in my part of the woods save for Elevator and Toronto Black and White treat B&W film as an afterhtought, charge you a fortune and take forever to turn around.

I have always been a Fuji guy when it came to colour c-41 and slid but I am willing to test drive Kodak.

Bill
 
Prints can be made from Transperancies right? I mean I would imaigne so as almost every major photo agency has used transperancies/chrome for decades right?



I'm planning on taking some color rolls with me to San Francisco so I was wondering what has the most vivid colors. From what I understand Velvia has beautiful color representations... Though sometimes the skintones are overdone from what i hear.
 
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