Which 35mm B/W films best for scanning?

[visiondr]

IMHO, properly exposed and developed t-grain and e-grain films (TMX and Delta 100 in particular) scan the best, have the lowest grain, and the highest sharpness I've seen. But they have a radically different H&D curve so...

Enlighten me on this (not being sarcastic). How is the curve so different with these kinds of emulsions and how does that change exposure/development? I hope that's not too big a big question, Alan.

 

[photophorous]

Dear Paul,

So do I. I'm advocating minimal exposure, not underexposure. The latter will, as you say, give empty shadows.

That's why I say that 'minimal' is the least that is acceptable to you, and why I said 'don't be surprised if you like box speed'.

All I'm suggesting is that you don't want overexposure -- to any degree at all.

Cheers,

R.

Oh, okay. Less exposure = smaller grain, right? So, only expose as much as you need. I agree. I must have been reading to fast. 😀

Paul

 

[kaiyen]

Enlighten me on this (not being sarcastic). How is the curve so different with these kinds of emulsions and how does that change exposure/development? I hope that's not too big a big question, Alan.

Not at all. I'm running off to a meeting, but I'm way too addicted to online forums so.. 🙂

quickly - t-grain and e-grain films (technically the Delta films are epixial-grain, not t-grain like the Tmax stock) have a ridiculously straight response curve. There is almost no toe or shoulder in most developers.

With most film, the bottom end is not linear in response. X amount of light = Y density. X+1 amount of light = Y density. Density does not change. That's the toe. It's like a flat area in the curve.

However, the newer emulsions have almost no toe. So X+1 = Y+1.

It doesn't change exposure or development, really. I mean, you do have to be more careful wth exposure because at the upper end, X+1 might blast you right into blown highlights whereas a film with a shoulder (same effect as toe, where X+1 no longer means Y+1) will hold them a bit better. And you do have to be more careful with development for the same reasons.

But the look is different. That's what I meant - some people just don't like the look. I apologize for being unclear. They scan great, but perhaps don't look great to everyone.

 

[visiondr]

So, if I understand correctly, at the shoulder and toe of a film's response curve, there's more forgiveness wrt exposure. You have a greater amount of exposure latitude at these endpoints. With the t-grain and e-grain films some of that latitude is lost. Be careful not to overexpose these films, especially when the desired output is via scanner/software, right?

 

[kaiyen]

yeah, that's right, basically. more right on the highlight side, actually. On the toe end, it means that the whole "overexpose when in doubt" concept kicks in. You need to give it a bit more "oomph" to push it out of the toe region, so if you aren't sure, use EI 64 instead of 80 or whatever.

With a t-grain or e-grain film, you want to shoot at exactly 80 because that is what you tested it to be, and to develop for exactly X minutes because that is what you've found to be the right amount of time for that developer at that dilution with that EI.

And overexposure and overdevelopment is bad for scanning.

So my answer is "yes" to your last post. I just like to write very long versions of "yes." 🙂

allan

 

[hansformat]

I'm not sure what issues you are having scanning regular (non C41) black and white film. I use a Nikon 5000 scanner and mostly shoot with Tri-X. The scans I get are great and lead to very nice prints. However, the one problem I do have is I find that spotting in PhotoShop after the scans is a bigger job on black and white than on color. I would estimate I spend about 30 minutes per black&white photo using the spot healing photoshop tool to get rid of dust, scratches, etc . In color this process tends to take 10 minutes per photo at the absolute most.

What is interesting is that I don't use ICE on either one. So I'm not sure if the issue is the lab I use to process black and white film, or whether the scanner just picks up more crap when scanning black and white film.

Once spotted though everything is fine.

 

[briandaly]

Thanks for all the replies.
I'm going to give Neopan 400 and XP2 a try,and maybe even some ISO100 films like Across 100.
C-41 processed film certainly is by far the cleanest looking of the films I've tried, but looking at the results, my first impressions are that I might as well be shooting with digital.
I think poor development on my part might also be causing excessive grain with the traditional B/W films.