UltraMax vs XP2

[froyd]

Anybody here using color emulsion for shots that will be processed and printed as BW?

I normally use chromogenic BW film (often XP2 metered at 200/320) and I'm wondering if color C41 film, which is much cheaper, could give me similar results to the BW C41 emulsions. An added bonus would be that if I scanned in color, I could apply virtual red or green filters post facto.

Bottom line, is there some secret sauce, other than sensitivity curve, in XP2 that makes it behave differently from, say UltraMax?

I'm dusting off beakers and bottle to go back to silver processing, but for now c41 works for me (plus I like ICE).

 

[froyd]

I should clarify that the negs are always used for digital printing, not enlarger work, in which case XP2 and its clear base has a great advantage.

 

[Steve M.]

I used to before I went strictly to darkroom prints on fiber, and my experience was, unfortunately, that I wished that the shots had been made on Tri-X to begin with instead of going this route. The difference in tonal range, whites, deep blacks, and overall look is startling. You just end up w/ too much grey when you start out w/ colour film and convert it to B&W. It doesn't compare too well to traditional B&W emulsions. Ditto for XP2. I mean, they certainly look OK, but when you look at photos made this way and compare them to photos made w/ B&W film you can't help but see the big difference.

The other issue is that when you use real B&W film you can make large changes in what the shot will look like by using B&W filters, and your choice of developers and agitation schemes will give you much more control over the final image and what it looks like. The same shot made w/ Tri-X and developed in Rodinal, D76, and Mic-X will all look totally different.

If you want to go this route though, I highly recommend printing the inkjet prints using the black only technique (B.O.printing) w/ a printer that can do that. It will give you the closest thing to a darkroom print on fiber w/ deep, deep blacks and whites that will be as white as the paper you use to print the images on. Not the best technique if you have a lot of sky in the picture (depending on the film you used originally and the way you scanned and edited it), but if you shoot 120 film and larger it will look smooth. This technique gives you a final image that has a grain like look close up which is very similar to film grain, not digital noise. But again, even using this technique, if you start w/ a real B&W film it will always look better than a converted colour shot.

 

[froyd]

I'm taking the opposite path. Happy to put wet printing behind me (though after so many years I haven't had the heart to sell the equipment).

Sounds like you do not like Xp2 --which I really like (esp. at lower ISO than 400) so I'm not sure if the fact that you did not like the color emulsions for BW is because they were inferior to monochrome C41 or just not to the liking of somebody who prefers silver stock.

I don't want the thread to be about C41 vs silver halide, rather about the option of using color c41 to achieve a look comparable to XP2 and its ilk.

 

[Doug]

Froyd I think you're right about trimming back the EI to a lower effective film speed... I commonly have set the camera ISO to 2/3 stop under box speed for richer tones and more detail in the darker areas. But I'd do this with color films too. I have done B&W darkroom printing with C-41 color and it is a pain not just from the darkness of the orange mask, but also how the mask upsets using variable-contrast papers. In this regard the clear base of Ilford XP-1/XP-2 and Fuji Neopan chromogenic is far preferable, even over Kodak's chromogenic film which had a milder orange mask that worked better on color paper in automated labs.

Also never happy with the results using B&W papers (Kodak Panalure) made for printing from color negs.

I have long wondered if the dark orange mask of color C-41 films had an effect of limiting the range of tones, as the difference between "clear" and "dense" must be less than with a clear base. Never did any test for this, but it would seem a comparison of scanner output could be interesting.

Give it a try, see what you like?

 

[mcfingon]

My experience developing in Ilford LC29 and scanning C-41 films is that XP2 will give a significantly better B&W scan. It may be because of the orange mask in the colour films like Doug says above.

 

[BLKRCAT]

Not sure what you guys are smoking but I've never found xp2 to have a clear base. Always comes out with a bluish tint for me.

It's nothing like tmax or efke films which have a true clear base in my experience.

 

[froyd]

Here is an UltraMax frame scannend in 48bits and converted to light sepia in LR.

For comparison, here is a scan from XP2 (no warm toning).

Since UltraMax needs to be processed in order to give me a monochrome image, I cannot tell if the characteristics of the image come from the negative or from my poor processing skills. For instance, the "grain" seems finer in the XP2 shot, particularly in the OOF areas, and the contrast seems better too, but perhaps the Kodak color film has the potential to get closer to XP2 and I just haven't gotten there yet.

 

[jazzwave]

I prefer picture no 2 (shot with XP2)


I use XP2 or Kodak BW400CN when lazy to shot with real BW film.
Many people happy with XP2, but for me BW400CN close to my taste.
I do digital post processing to get tone that I want.

But use color film, scan and convert to BW is not easy (at least for me). I tried cheap Kodak color and Ektar 100 (vivid film) and convert to BW but I'm not happy with result.
File from digital camera is more easy to convert to BW.



~ron~