Developing B/W film with C-41

[ftpaddict]

Originally Posted by Venturi

If you don't have a local lab that can develop "professional" B&W film and you don't want to mess with developing it yourself - give Dwayne's Photo a try.

I'm pretty sure shipping would cost me more than developing. I live on the far side of Europe.

[titrisol]

well seems you'll have to learn to develop yourself
Maybe you can find products from Fotokemika (Croatia) or Foma (Chezck republic)
Otherwise a good order from macodirect.de for 1st time and then you can make your own developer

[John Poirier]

Originally Posted by Ratmagiclady

Well, the first chromogenic film, XP1, was originally actually kind of billed as a sort of wonder-film for serious photographers who might take advantage of all the minilabs springing up. It didn't live up to the grandiose promises of exposure latitude, never mind actually being very good. There was one fun thing, though. I worked at a place with a really overqualified printing machine guy, he could 'tone' the stuff however you wanted. (This man was a genius. Color-corrected near every print that went through the machine by eye, with barely a discernible pause) Only time I ever saw the stuff look *good,* and it still was hardly the same as true B&W.

I have a friend who has actually gotten some pleasing results out of the Kodak CN400... the big issue there is that you don't get a conventionally-printable negative, but they seem to scan OK. Still... Not the same thing. Real B&W is basically the way to go if at all possible, especially when the choice to shoot film is about other things than the most convenience, for the most part.

It's also not difficult to learn to do your own negs... It's like cooking, ...You can get as involved with it as you like, or do a perfectly competent job just by following simple directions.

I'm very puzzled by the negative comments about chromogenic black and white films appearing in this thread. It appears that these comments are based on prints from colour mini-labs, which is a completely inappropriate way to evaluate black and white films.

Chromogenic black and white films were generally designed for printing in a proper darkroom with real black and white papers. They also scan perfectly well. They are capable of excellent results in competent hands.

Even the first generation XP! was quite sharp with beautiful tonal rendition and lots of exposture latitude, especially for overexposure. It is common practice with chromogenic black and white to expose at ISO settings as low as 100 to improve image quality.

Below is a shot made on XP1 in 1982. Is it soft? Is there anything wrong with the "range" (whatever that is). Is it lacking in contrast? Does it have a strange colour cast?.

This image was scanned with very minor sharpening, and was not sharpened during post-processing. Other corrections included very basic levels and curves
adjustments and minor burning-in of the lower right corner. Looks OK to me.

Cheers

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnpoi...85718/sizes/l/

[John Poirier]

Oops- forgot to insert image properly in previous posting. Here it is:

[John Poirier]

Sorry about that- I'll try the image once more. Still figuring this forum out.
XP1 shot in 1982- see my earlier posting about accuracy of comments re chromogenic black and white.