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Dabble Again With Film, but Which Type?

MartinC

pfm Member
Visualizing a final image via ground glass has always for me seemed to bring out more creativity for me that squinting through a viewfinder. That combined with the fact I have a lovely 500C/M and Zeiss 50, 80 and 150 glass sitting idle made me think about getting back into film, specifically to create black and white images. Pondering it more, and since I also have a good MF film scanner, should I shoot B&W stock, or instead shooot color film and then post process into B&W? I have had good results with color digital images converting with Silver Efex, so why not with color film stock? The advantage over shooting B&W film is that the choice of filter is made after the fact and one can play around with differing possibilities after the image is taken. The negative is perhaps the lack of dynamic range with slide film compared to modern digital sensors.

Of course I could just buy a mirrorless SLR with a tilting screen but where id the fun in that...

Choices, choices.
 
Visualizing a final image via ground glass has always for me seemed to bring out more creativity for me that squinting through a viewfinder. That combined with the fact I have a lovely 500C/M and Zeiss 50, 80 and 150 glass sitting idle made me think about getting back into film, specifically to create black and white images. Pondering it more, and since I also have a good MF film scanner, should I shoot B&W stock, or instead shooot color film and then post process into B&W? I have had good results with color digital images converting with Silver Efex, so why not with color film stock? The advantage over shooting B&W film is that the choice of filter is made after the fact and one can play around with differing possibilities after the image is taken. The negative is perhaps the lack of dynamic range with slide film compared to modern digital sensors.

Of course I could just buy a mirrorless SLR with a tilting screen but where id the fun in that...

Choices, choices.

Colour film process (C41) is a bit of a compromise and take some experimentation for b&w. Ilford still makes XP2 I think which is a 'chromogenic' monochrome film designed for C41 processing. Some of the colour films leave a background colour cast (orange). I would get started with b&w film Ilford HP5 or Delta.
 
If you want to think in b&w you need to shoot b&w, colour to b&w conversion is never as good as composing and thinking in mono. Also, colour film and processing are expensive. You can develop b&w negative film at home with a dark tank, a changing bag, and some simple chemistry, you don't need a darkroom or a dedicated space to do it unless you want to make traditional prints. Buy a few rolls of Ilford HP5+ to start with, it's a good all-round film with decent exposure latitude.
 
With that amount of high quality film kit, I'd strongly suggest running some film through it. While processing your own b&w film can be very satisfying, there is definitely an attraction to easing back into film by having it processed commercially. As Gav says, Ilford XP2 is a good starting point as it is C41 (colour print) compatible and readily developed, while "traditional" b&w film is quite dependent on developer and not all labs want to do it, plus it is more expensive than the C41 option. I've found a decent lab service from https://filmdev.co.uk/ who'll develop and medium scan a roll of C41 film for £6, then send you the negs in the post. Once you've decided that this is the way you want to go, other options for film and processing are there to be explored. Enjoy! :)
 
There are still plenty of B&W medium format films available. I've got a load of Ilford B&W film (in 120 and 35mm) of various types (including a roll of SFX that I'd forgotten about) in the fridge so really need to get round to shooting some of that as my Pentax 645 (plus a few other medium format bits and pieces) haven't been used in a long time.
 
Martin – that’s very similar to the Hasselblad kit I had for a few years, although I usually ended up using large format, as it turned out that the amount of effort to use the equipment to get the desired result was similar. What type of photography do you want to do with it, and what do you visualise as the kind of black and white image that you would like to create? If it is landscape, using a tripod, that will point in a different direction than hand-held, more dynamic photography, and a different choice of filters. I also think that using colour film, which might subsequently be converted to monochrome, is a viable approach – but I would use slide film, not C41 – the reason being that slide film, despite a more limited tonal range, will give better tonal definition – the richness of black and grey – which I’ve always found to be more diffuse and less satisfactory with C41. I’ve never had good results with XP2 either. YMMV.

If you’re able to develop B&W film at home, the choice of developer is also integral to the choice of film. With the slower films (ISO 50 – 100), I have consistently found that the staining developers give the tonal definition, range and edge effect that help to produce the final print I had in mind when taking the photograph. PMK Pyro was a developer I used for many years, and now that this has become difficult to source, I’ve found Moersch Tanol to be a more than decent substitute. These developers doesn’t work so well with faster film, and you may get better results with a more conventional developer – Ilford Perceptol has often worked for me with faster films, for example.

For landscape / studio on a tripod, I’d try films like Ilford Delta 100, FP4, and Pan F, with a developer like Tanol. Fuji Acros is also worth trying. I’ve tried many other films, and like the look of many of them – but try getting an Adox film onto a developing spool!

For other work, I’ve never got HP5 or Delta 400 to work well for me, so tend to push Delta 100 to ISO250, and then develop accordingly in something like Perceptol. This image was actually taken on a Hasselblad 501CM with a Distagon 50mm lense, using Delta 400 (at ISO 250), and developed in Tanol – although I like the composition, I can’t print this greater than 8x8 inches, because the grain is excessive, and I wish I had taken a different camera and film with me on that trip;

 
When I went back to using film I too tried colour film at first for the same reasons you mention - the ability to tonally separate using the colour sliders in the conversion, and SilverEfex facilitates this very well. However, the results with film weren't better than ok and failed to properly inspire me, and I quickly moved onto XP2 and getting it developed and scanned by a lab, and then back to B&W stock and developing and scanning it at home. A recent trip to Cornwall with a Pentax 645n, a yellow filter and a good stock of HP5 and FP4 has served to relight the film fire, and I'm absolutely loving it. I'm posting some of the results on the Pic a Week thread at the moment.
 
Ilford FP5, Kodak Tri-X. There are also a lot of other traditional B&W films around, many from eastern Europe. Developer, I would stick to D-76/ ID11 to begin with, Tried and tested, easy, and give excellent results.
 
Thanks everyone for the thoughts / comments, I am encouraged to delve back into film. I have 2 film backs so will be able to try a few options to compare on the same scene. On a side note just repaired my Distagon 50mm which had a sticky slow shutter, despite the trepidation of opening up the lens if you work carefully it's not too daunting, the mechanical complexity of the Compur shutter is quite an eye opener.
 
Yes, agreed, nice photographs, quite reminiscent of Fay Goodwins work.

That can't pass without comment from me, which is to say that that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my photographs, but that it were really the case. Fay Godwin is my first inspiration. In the late 1970s I was accepted onto the Fine Art Photography BA course at (the then) Nottingham-Trent Poly, the same course that Paul Hart, another great inspiration, attended a few years later. Godwin was a visiting tutor. Sadly for me, other things intervened, and I never took up my place.
 
Hope what happened instead was good stuff. I am much too uninformed about photographers. I'd never heard of her, but have spent the last half hour looking at the work. I like it a lot, esp her portraits of the farmers in the dales.
I feel a thread coming on. :)
 
That's interesting, I was also inspired by her work after visiting an exhibition at The Watershed in Bristol. I have a couple of her books.

For your shots can you share what you use for the toning and getting the coloration you have? I have played around with differing options in Lightroom and Photoshop but have not been totally happy with the results. A plug in for Selenium toned Record Rapid would be nice!
 
Thanks everyone for the thoughts / comments, I am encouraged to delve back into film. I have 2 film backs so will be able to try a few options to compare on the same scene. On a side note just repaired my Distagon 50mm which had a sticky slow shutter, despite the trepidation of opening up the lens if you work carefully it's not too daunting, the mechanical complexity of the Compur shutter is quite an eye opener.

You are a brave man!
 
That's true, I accidentally disassembled the with the shutter cocked and had to release it, at which point two gears flew out and the whole mechanism became out of sync. The 'repair' without that would have been an hour without that, as it was it took most of the day. It did however save me around $300...
 
While raking through the drawers in my study yesterday I found two unused rolls of Kodak HIE with an expiry date of 1997. Wonder what the chances are that they'll work!
 


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