Kodak 400 B &W film

[Socke]

I had bad results with XP2 in various minilabs, too much green and blue in what should be black and white, and the Kodack BW400CN doesn't scan so good with my Canon FS2710 scanner.

Both Kodak and Ilford chromogenics are much more expensive than traditional B/W films and so I switched to mostly HP5 and FP4 with some Tri-X and APX100 thrown in for good measure.

What I want to try some time is XP2 crossprocessed in E6 chemistry, a friend has awesome ilfochromes from a model shot.

 

[Doug]

Minilab printing of these films is often unsatisfactory, probably reflecting the care or lack of care of the operator. The orange mask is apparently intended to make it easy on the lab, not having to change their color printing setup.

Ilford XP1 (and now XP2 Super) has been my favorite B&W film for a couple decades, and I've processed XP1 at home with the chemical kit Ilford used to offer. There was also an Agfa entry called AgfaPan Vario XL that (like the Ilford) had no mask.

I bought some Fuji Neopan CN from Robert White; having shot some now I'm of the opinion it IS Ilford XP2 Super, as it appears identical.

Cross-processing XP? Wild idea... 🙂

 

[Russ]

How does the Kodak one compare to Iford Super XP2?

It's not bad. I prefer the Fuji Neopan 400CN, when using chromogenic B/W. Great for street shooting and wedding work. Love the stuff.

Russ

 

[Kragmeister]

Since restarting photography in 2003 I've been using C41 Kodak BWC400 almost exclusively in 35mm, and Portra B&W in 120. Some day I'll have a darkroom again and I'll switch back to traditional B&W. For now this is my best option.

I've found the BWC400 to be pretty decent, I normally rate it at about 320 instead of 400 and when shooting outdoors use a light or medium yellow filter so that the skies don't get blown out. The processor I use does a great job printing and scanning in TIFF format on CDROM with a Fuji Frontier machine.

Recently I forgot to specify a CD when dropping off film and had to use my Epson 3170 flatbed to scan from 35mm BWC400 negs. I decided to go with higher resolution than I usually get with the CD. In this case the scans were 1200 DPI.

I uploaded images from one scan here. The close crop was reduced to 300 DPI for file size for upload. The larger view was reduced to 72 DPI for file size for upload. The shot was taken with an Olympus XA without any filter on the lens (for obvious reasons).

Later,
Greg

 

[boilerdoc2]

The chromogenic films are outstanding products. Buy plenty before they quit making them too. A big advantage other than those already mentioned is that the more you overexpose them the finer the grain! And superb latitiude (obviously). An additional advantage is that when scanning you can use Digital ICE for scratch and dust removal. Cool huh? Don't try that on silver B&W films. Ilford is better for printing in the darkroom, but for a hybrid approach of scanning and inkjet printing- what is called silver/carbon technique- it doesn't matter. I prefer neither. although Ilford is more film friendly these days.