New M2 + 5cm Elmar + BW400CN - amazed with results

[hlockwood]

Looks like you have a slightly red tint in there, but not much.

I had 38 frames on a APX 400 roll some time ago. So this could happen once in a while, I guess. But I'm still a newbie, too. 😎

Your posted photo looks good. Curious to see some more.🙂

When my XP2 comes back from the lab, along with a low res CD, there is a color cast because the scan is left in RGB mode. For simplicity, I convert to grayscale by changing to Lab and dumping the a&b channels.

The attached shot is taken from the CD, converted to grayscale and given a Levels adjustment with no sharpening.

It was shot with the 50mm Elmar-M collapsible mounted on a Hexar RF.

Harry

 

[Avotius]

Here is an old shot with my 5cm elmar red scale with XP2

 

[mr_phillip]

Also, I got 38 and a half frames from the roll - is this normal

Quite normal yes. I can easily get 37-39 shots from my Ms, but I deliberately try NOT to. If I can keep it down to 36 exposures from a roll I'm not left trying to store or scan a lone single frame, which can be a real pain.

 

[Athos6]

EXTERMINATE!!!

Ahh you beat me to it! DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!

 

[sockeyed]

Well if we're going to start digging out XP2 samples...

Olympus Stylus Epic, XP2 rated at 400, Frontier scans:

Again, a real strength of this film (besides ease of development) is that the negs can be used to print in a traditional wet darkroom with wonderful results.

 

[vrgard]

The problem I had with XP2 is the greater contrast than BW400CN. And I used the same lens as briandaly (early 50/2.8 Elmar) which I love. My recollection is that there have been discussions on this forum previously about this difference and some seemed to like the greater contrast and others did not. Being lazy and not bothering to do a search, am I misremembering all this? Or to put the issue more directly, on the table, do others agree with this distinction? The reason I ask is because I did not like the contrast I got with XP2 and so went back to BW400CN. If that's a mistake for some reason I would like to know it.

Thanks,
Randy

 

[Leighgion]

Getting 38 shots from a 36 roll is normal if you've loaded into a camera with a physically shorter transport stretch. I get a LOT of frames out of my Olympus XA.

The color cast is from the fact the scans are still in RGB. Normal. You can do away with it by converting to greyscale.

I'm with Bill and vastly prefer Kodak 400CN to XP2. I've found XP to be too low contrast, rather harsh in how it handles details and it offends me that I should have to rate a 400 speed film down to 250 to get results that I'd even start to find acceptable. I don't do wet printing right now, so that's an non-issue to me an in any case, if I really wanted to do wet printing I'd be shooting Tri-X.

Nikon FE2, 50mm f1.4 AIS, yellow filter on Kodak BW400CN

 

[vrgard]

Interesting, Leighgion, that you find XP2 too low contrast as I was positing just the opposite. I'm curious to hear other's experiences.

-Randy

 

[quizzard87]

XP2 flat and muddy?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2019/2371476764_90feafba8f_b.jpg

is that the robot from "dr.who"?

 

[briandaly]

is that the robot from "dr.who"?

That's no robot - it's a Dalek!🙂