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35mm B&W film developing

andrewd said:
I buy my film from AG photolab. £7.82 for Tri-X vs £5.50 for HP5+. An extra £1.30 is hardly crazy expensive unless you are shooting a huge amount of film. I tried to cheap out last time and tried Fomapan 400 for £4.20. I didn’t like it at all, way too grainy.
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I shoot medium and large format - Kodak is at least twice the price of Ilford.

Fomapan 100 is quite nice in large format, as long as you rate it around ISO 40 and take care with developer choice (it's awful with Rodinal, for example)
 
Agreed, film prices have definitely been creeping up.

HP5+ in 120 is around £4.50 a roll, and it was £2 a roll 10 years ago. I still have the feeling it's £2 a roll of 120, having trouble shaking that memory...
 
The last time I bought five rolls of 120 B&W film I said to myself, "Man, that's getting expensive. Better make every frame count, man." Then I checked the price of new and used Leica Monochrom Ms of various vintages and said to myself, "Holy shit, I suppose B&W film isn't that expensive."

I realize it's a niche within a niche, but I think if Fuji* made a B&W only camera it would sell well. I know the recent ones emulate Acros, but I'm thinking of a camera that captures only in B&W like the Monochrom.

Joe

* It doesn't have to be Fuji but I don't think the other camera manufacturers — besides Leica, obviously — would even consider it.
 
I wonder why the B&W sensors are so expensive. All sensors are luminance-capture devices, and the colour ones see in colour only because of the RGB Beyer filter thingies on the sensor. You'd think it would be cheaper to make a pure B&W sensor.

Joe
 
sideshowbob said:
I shoot medium and large format - Kodak is at least twice the price of Ilford.

Fomapan 100 is quite nice in large format, as long as you rate it around ISO 40 and take care with developer choice (it's awful with Rodinal, for example)
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You are right, I thought the 4x5 was about the same price but then I noticed I was comparing 10 sheets of Kodak to 25 sheets of Ilford! What developer do you like for Fomapan 100?
 
andrewd said:
You are right, I thought the 4x5 was about the same price but then I noticed I was comparing 10 sheets of Kodak to 25 sheets of Ilford! What developer do you like for Fomapan 100?
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I shoot it large format, and tray develop it in Pyrocat-HD, a staining developer which gives nice results when contact printed. My usual developer for medium format is Xtol, but I've found Foma blocks the shadows really quickly in that, even at ISO 40, and the grain gets really clumpy and ugly in Rodinal.
 
sideshowbob said:
I shoot it large format, and tray develop it in Pyrocat-HD, a staining developer which gives nice results when contact printed. My usual developer for medium format is Xtol, but I've found Foma blocks the shadows really quickly in that, even at ISO 40, and the grain gets really clumpy and ugly in Rodinal.
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Love reading stuff like this, makes me wish I still had all my gear even though I was fairly basic in what I did. No chance I'm going to re-invest in any of this kit though.....
 
rather than get a darkroom setup, have a dig about and see if there's a community darkroom near you, as borrowing someone else's space now and again is the cheapest and best option. If you do want to get back into printing yourself, the equipment isn't expensive, it's more the time and effort to get things setup, and the reality that the paper and chemistry will degrade quicker than you use it unless you happen to do a lot of printing
 
Developing your own film for scanning is a good route in, you don't need a darkroom, just a changing bag and some daylight developing tanks, some chemistry, and a few measuring jugs. It's fun.
 
sideshowbob said:
Developing your own film for scanning is a good route in, you don't need a darkroom, just a changing bag and some daylight developing tanks, some chemistry, and a few measuring jugs. It's fun.
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Agreed and the kit I had was quite decent, I had a fairly good Durst colour enlarger that did my 6x7 and 4/5 Nikon lenses, Jobo CPE2, drying cupboard and a heated tank for dev, stop and fixer. I also had loads of paper up to maybe 24" including fibre stuff and so on. All of this came from a college that was binning it all so I bought it for a song. When I wanted rid of it all I couldn't give it away, quite literally!
 
sideshowbob said:
I shoot it large format, and tray develop it in Pyrocat-HD, a staining developer which gives nice results when contact printed. My usual developer for medium format is Xtol, but I've found Foma blocks the shadows really quickly in that, even at ISO 40, and the grain gets really clumpy and ugly in Rodinal.
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Thanks, I am dipping my toe in the water of LF. Just picked up a used Technika, but need to get more stuff before I go out shooting.
 
Enjoy. It's a steep learning curve, but great fun and immensely satisfying. Nowadays I shoot 10x8 rather than 5x4, and that took a LOT of getting used to. But when it works out, nothing beats it.
 
Ian,

As an 8x10 film shooter (why do you blokes write 10x8, that's just wrong), have you ever scanned at 6400 dpi just to see if you could create a black hole or something?

Jeez, and to think I figured I was in the big leagues when I got a camera that takes film that measures 2-1/4 square.

Joe
 
Scanning 10x8 (only you colonials call it 8x10 and 4x5, it's 10x8 and 5x4 in the real world) is probably against the law.
 
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