Hello and the obligatory silly question

[wintoid]

Hi there, I've just joined this forum. Looks to be very good and lots of friendly, helpful mature people here.

I've been using digital SLRs for the last few years, and my photography has come on in leaps and bounds as a result. For some reason though, I've always wanted to know about B+W film, so I'm giving it a try. I've recently picked up a good condition Konica Hexar AF, and have been enjoying the different size and flavour. I'm encouraged to try things I'd never do with an SLR.

I want to learn to develop negatives (we'll worry about prints another time). I've been looking at images on the net to try to make some sort of educated guess at a good film/developer combination for me. I've seen that I like PanF. I've seen that I like ID11. I've seen that PanF and ID11 work well together.

And so to the first really stupid question. Beyond the C41 films, am I right in thinking that pretty much all B+W films are silver-based and can be used with pretty much any B+W developer? In other words, can I use ID11 with PanF, TriX, TMax, HP5? And can I use PanF with ID11, Rodinal and all the other developers?

Many thanks in advance, and sorry for what is probably an embarrassingly stupid question.

 

[back alley]

yes but with mixed results.

some film/dev combos are classic and some just go together better than others.
and some don't really work all that well together.

i'm not the most technical guy on the forum but we have a few that will spin your head and with luck, some of them will be by soon.

welcome.
joe

 

[doubs43]

Beyond the C41 films, am I right in thinking that pretty much all B+W films are silver-based and can be used with pretty much any B+W developer? In other words, can I use ID11 with PanF, TriX, TMax, HP5? And can I use PanF with ID11, Rodinal and all the other developers?

The short answer is "yes" to all. PanF+ is an excellent film and so is FP-4+ rated at ISO 125. Both do quite well developed in ID-11 which is identical to Kodak's D-76. PanF+ in Rodinal is also outstanding. All of the films you mention will do just fine in ID-11/D-76. While some like the grain they get with the faster films and Rodinal, others don't care for the combination. I, myself, pretty much limit Rodinal to films rated at 200 and below.... mostly below.

In terms of all-around developers that work extremely well with many B&W films, it's hard to beat ID-11/D-76 and Rodinal.

Everyone begins somewhere and questions such as you've asked are anything but "dumb" or "stupid". We all had them at one time or another so stop beating yourself up and ask away. 🙂

Walker

 

[wintoid]

Thank you for your responses.

I'm inclined to stick to my plan then and try ID-11 with various films until I work out what is best for me. However, I feel I should ask a bit more about Rodinal. I'd got the impression that PanF was all about grainless images and Rodinal was all about grain. Coming from digital, I'm not at all comfortable with grain (yet?), and I was thinking to avoid it, but are you saying that Rodinal is only really grainy above 200? Are PanF+Rodinal negatives grainless, grainy, or somewhere in between?

Once again, my thanks.

 

[David Doler]

You need to take Ansel Adam's wise advice: Find a combination of film and developer and stick with it for an entire year - never trying anything else. Why?

You'll become very proficient with it and only then can you experiment knowing that you can make a good print with what you already know. If your experiments fail, your confidence doesn't suffer.

I did it and think it was outstanding advice.

Go with Ilford HP5+ and Ilford DDX. Use Ilford Multigrade MG paper and Ilford Multigrade developer for one year exclusively.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I'd completely agree with Joe and completely disagree with David (and Ansel Adams).

Almost all films will dev well in ID11/D76 (which aren't necessarily identical -- some D76 is buffered and some isn't, though this is a fairly arcane technical point) because, as an Ilford spokesman said to me 'If they didn't, we'd be dead'. ID11/D76 gives what many regard as the optimum balance of speed, grain, sharpness, shelf life, ease of use and price. Most other devs can offer an improvement in one (or more) of these areas, but only at the expense of poorer performance elsewhere (more speed but coarser grain, finer grain but less speed, higher price, etc.).

But when it comes to sticking with one film from Day One, no, No, NO! For the first few weeks/months, try anything and everything that takes your fancy. Because of what I do -- check www.rogerandfrances.com -- I have to shoot a lot of different kinds of film and invariably I can see in the first roll or two whether a new film has (for me, of course) a 'magic' or not.

For example, Maco Cube did; Fuji Acros didn't. Now suppose I had decided to standardize on Acros, without knowing anything about it except that it is fine-grained and admired by many photographers. It would have taken a long time to find the developer and development regime that I found even tolerable.

Sure, once you have found a film you like in D76, stick with it for months or a year -- but this isn't so much 'getting to know it' as 'why change?' But until you have found that combination, be as promiscuous as you can.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[wintoid]

Thanks for your input David.

I'm definitely the kind of person who is likely to settle with 1 particular combination of film/developer but I'm not sure HP5+ will be it. Based on what I've seen so far, if I had to pick one film it would be PanF. Would your approach work with PanF, or is it fiddlier to process somehow?

I'm not planning to make prints, just negatives.

 

[wintoid]

Thanks Roger, much of that rings true.

I am, perhaps foolishly, trying to reduce my promiscuity by using the internet to find good examples of film+developer I like. I've got to start somewhere, and frankly as soon as I start getting results that I like, I will probably stop and spend some time with that film/developer combination. I'm thinking of picking up this tangled ball of string from the PanF end. Any reason to try ID11 or DDX first?

 

[sunsworth]

The problem with trying to stick to one film for a year is that the light changes enormously. Suppose you pick FP4, what do you do in the depths of winter on a dark day, or what if you want to take available light shots. Or if you pick Tri-X, what if you want to play around with depth of field in summer and find you're shooting at f8-16 all the time?

I'm not sure if Pan F would be my first choise for a slow film. Personally I'd go for FP4, the extra stop can come in handy. The films I use the most are, from slowest to fastest, FP4, Tri-X, Neopan 1600.

I use Xtol, but as has been said you can't really go wrong with ID11/D76.

Steve

 

[schaubild]

When you talk about "what you have seen so far", do you mean images on the internet? If this is the case, be very cautious, these images are down-ressed a lot, maybe denoised, maybe sharpened. Normally you don't know about the scanner and the workflow thats been used.
There is no way how you coud judge the quality of a certain film/developer combination from a screen representation of an image that has in the best case a resolution of 1024x768. For example: when I do a scan of a 6x9 negative, I typically get approx. 13000x8500 pixels resolution. There grain is clearly visible. But when resizing to print or screen resolution, it's no issue to eliminate the grain even with faster films, it just depends on the workflow. Almost similar situation with sharpness.

There are only two ways to get a (fair?) comparison of films: analog prints or negatives that have been scanned and treated exactly in the same way.

Just my 5 cents.

 

[wintoid]

Yes ISO50 isn't ideal. I'd love to find a grainless ISO400 film which would be much more all-purpose, but everything I've seen has looked pretty grainy to me. Maybe someone has an example of a good smooth ISO400 film to show me?

I understand your points, Schaubild, about judging from the internet. I'm taking the view that it's better than nothing. There isn't enough resolution to tell me if I like something, but often I can tell that I DON'T like something, and that helps narrow down the choices a bit.

 

[sunsworth]

Try Tri-X.

Steve

 

[back alley]

ya know, if grain and smoothness is your goal, maybe think about medium format. the size alone helps give what you're wanting.
there is nothing quite like a large neg for making those fabulous prints with great tonality.

but for 35mm grain will be a factor.

you might want to try delta or t-max films. i preferred the delta when i was using them.
they have a different look to them that may be what you're looking for.

joe

 

[wintoid]

Honestly, I don't think medium format is for me. I've got a DSLR + lenses which I consider quite big and bulky, so part of what drove me to get a Hexar was wanting a small, relatively high quality street shooter. I don't need to compete with my 20D, but I've developed a taste for grain-free smooth images, so that's approximately the "flavour" I'm looking for. It's entirely possible that in 1 year I'll be shooting film specifically FOR the grain, but at the moment I'm seeking familiarity I suppose.

With the number of recommendations of film I've got now, I find myself coming back to Roger's words. I probably do need to try all of these to form a decent opinion. I'm literally off on my holidays once I've posted this message, so I guess I'll try to pick up differing films here and there along my way 😀

Thanks to everyone for all the advice. I really like this place.

 

[David Doler]

I'm a big fan of Roger Hicks and I'm honored that he would disagree with me. But I'm stiking to my guns on this - only because it worked for me. If I interpret Ansel Adams properly, it is for the beginner to gain a technical understanding of the materials and techniques as well as building confidence in one's abilities that he offers that advice. Roger is anything but a beginner. That being said, IMHO, when Roger offers advice, you'd be well served to consider it.

 

[wlewisiii]

For what my opinion is worth, I'd suggest that using a basic pairing of similar films and a single developer might be better. I use Plus-X and Tri-X in Diafine. This gives me a much greater level of flexability while still holding downthe number of variables. The specific pair isn't important - that the films are similar I think is more so. The TMax pair, or Ilfords FP4+/HP5+ pair or Delta pair would all work just as well.

I do think, also, that you should try all of them first and see which films you like the look of. Internet examples are nothing compared to looking at your own negatives.

Have fun!

William

 

[Doug]

Hi, and welcome wintoid... Don't be discouraged from using Ilford Pan-F! I rather like it, and it is very smooth and low in grain. It's fine for daylight use at EI 50, and in normal shade you'll be around 1/60 and f/4 or 5.6. It IS fun to be able to crank the lens seriously open to limit DoF, and this film would be a good choice if you like to do that. I like Ilford FP4+ also, as it has a nice tonality and the grain is still not intrusive. And the stop or so extra speed lends it a little more versatility. This is a pretty good general-use film unless you find yourself shooting indoors; there you'll want at least another stop of speed I think.

Another versatile choice is Ilford XP2 Super, a quite different variety of B&W film that is processed in standard C41 color processing like color negative film. Handy for one-hour labs. Nominally a 400 speed, I think it works better given at bit more exposure at EI 250, where this smooths out the "grain" and enhances shadow detail (given normal processing). It can be used successfully from EI 50 through about EI 500 to give different effects. Quite a few of us in RFF are fond of it... give it a try.

 

[wintoid]

I'm back from my holiday now and have read all your responses, and thank you to everyone who has contributed.

As it happens, we were blessed with a good amount of sunshine over the last week here in the UK. My Hexar has a max shutter speed of 1/250s so really PanF was an excellent match for the conditions, so I shot 3 rolls of that. Had the film been any faster, I'd have had no aperture choices beyond f/22.0 I think 😀

I've ordered an entry-level kit for developing negatives, including a bottle of Ilford DD-X and we'll see how I get on. I'm probably going to burn a roll of film just so that my first attempt at developing it is just trivial stuff. If the first one develops ok, I'll move on to my holiday pictures. Hoping to do this at the weekend, which is quite exciting. I've already got all the 20D shots to look at, but looking forward to finding out how I did with the Hexar.

 

[wintoid]

Well some time passed. I didn't dare develop my holiday pictures myself, so those have gone off to various labs, which have been hideously slow so far. Meanwhile, I burned through a roll of film yesterday... one I didn't expect to like, which is Tri-X, and developed it in DD-X just now. My first EVER self-developed film. Of course I made lots of mistakes, and scratched the negatives (not sure when. when are they most vulnerable?).

So here it is, my first shot, Tri-X and DD-X...

 

[Doug]

Well, that's certainly an interestingly grotesque subject, but the photo looks technically good too! Nice tonal qualities resulting from accurate exposure and proper development. An outstanding first attempt!

Film is vulnerable to scratches at any time, but is softest when wet. If the scratches were caused as the film passed through the camera, or by debris in the cartridge's fabric light trap, they'll appear parallel all the way along the film (unless the debris shifted part way through). If the scratches appear wavy or curve off one direction or another, they more likely came from an attempt to squeegee or sponge off water when hung up to dry.

I recall one mystery case mentioned here where the scratches were cross-wise to the film... That had to be from the lab dragging the film sideways against lab equipment or the floor.