[stevebrot]

Do you mean to imply that scans from color films don't require as much postprocessing (generally speaking)? That matches my experience so far.

Love the lemonade shot, BTW

At risk of putting words in Tuco's mouth, I believe he means that for control of results, you need full control of the process. While it is possible to get good results from a mini-lab scanner (several users on this site are testimony to what one may accomplish with a Pakon), few labs are willing to deviate from "auto everything" mode.


Steve

[murrelet]

Just to follow-up, I just got scans back (same lab) of Delta 100. Much more to my liking. Good thing, since they made a mistake and scanned as JPG instead of TIFF, so I won't be doing much postprocessing at all.

[K David]

This should help:

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

But yes, scans should be flat. You can always add contrast to an image; you cannot take it out. The flat scans allow the image to preserve shadow and highlight details for post. Scans aren't a completed image and more than the negative is. I think it helps to think of scans as prints, first prints, before adding colored filters to the enlarger and touching up the print's dust spots.

---------- Post added 04-27-17 at 06:07 PM ----------

Acros is on my list

This might help:

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

Eastman 5222

Right, but also available in rolls no smaller than 400 feet. So it can be a bit difficult to manage. <<-Just finishing up his first 400 feet of it.

5222 also has a distinct image characteristic that many people will not be drawn to. It has cinema grain which is intended to be viewed moving, not still. In fact, when I talked to a Kodak cinema stock engineer a couple years back about using 5222 as still film, she seemed perplexed as to why anyone would do that as it's much harder to use for still than motion (lots of reasons, mostly gamma.)

For context, I'm trying to figure out a "go-to" 100-ish speed BW film.

If you want more contrast, have you tried Rollei Retro 80S? It has a STEEP learning curve but looks great once you learn to use it. Here are three samples.

[rob1234]

As said, you can always at contrast in PP, but you can't really remove it!

Here's a reasonably contrasty shot on FP4:



P67
105/2.4
FP4+ shot at 100ASA, normal (lab) dev

[goatsNdonkey]

I just shot a roll of FP4 Plus in my Pentax ME Super SE. I forgot it said "Plus" on the film, till I checked one of the unexposed rolls of it I have. Since I'm not developing film now, and don't have any way to scan negs if I did, I mainly send B&W film to Old School Photo Lab in New Hampshire. I've previously sent them Fomopan 100 and Tmax 100.

The scans always look good. I will tweak some of them a little, but mainly just to get a bit more detail in highlights or shadows. The very basic software I use doesn't do sharpening. I don't know what auto or operator adjustment might be getting made when Old School scans. Although the grain is different between the FP4 Plus and the two other films, the scan results look comparable quality-wise. Old School's website currently says they process B&W film "with Clayton F76+ developer; we adjust our processing for the specific film type and speed you use." ***Actually, I always shoot negative films at 1/3-stop lower iso than they are rated. I didn't tell Old School, I shot the FP4 Plus at 100 and not 125. I just hate thin negatives.

I'm not doing a commercial for Old School here. There might be better places, and there certainly are more expensive ones. I did find a few spots from lint on a few of the scans this time, so I'll tell them to be sure the negs are clean next time. Here is one of their scans I really couldn't improve on. The shot was taken at f/8, 1/1000 sec, with a Sears/Ricoh f/1.7 50mm. Old wood-framed grain elevator at London Mills, Illinois. (cross-posted)

[tuco]

Do you mean to imply that scans from color films don't require as much postprocessing (generally speaking)? That matches my experience so far.

Love the lemonade shot, BTW

Thanks.

No, I'm talking BW film film development. There are things you can do with its processing to improve your results such as dynamic range, tonal scale and artistic effects that you typically won't get when someone else develops your film for you. Labs will typically push develop film but things like highlight compression for dynamic range ( trial/error process to work out development time and is developer dependent on how it works) and developer choice are usually not services they offer.

[tuco]

...Actually, I always shoot negative films at 1/3-stop lower iso than they are rated. \

If you look at the characteristic curve in the data sheet of your film, you should see that typically BW film has such a wide exposure latitude, you'd never notice a 1/3 stop difference in placement of your middle gray exposure ( what you get when you change the camera's ISO setting). But it doesn't hurt either especially for developers that are not box speed rated.

For example, in Kodak's Tri-X Data Sheet it says you can expose 400TX at EI800 and develop normally without push processing because of its wide exposure latitude.

---

Last edited by tuco; 04-28-2017 at 08:41 AM.

[tuco]

Here's a reasonably contrasty shot on FP4:
P67
105/2.4
FP4+ shot at 100ASA, normal (lab) dev

Yeah, the shot has a good tonal scale.

Here is FP4+ developed with PMK Pyro from way back on my Pentax 6x7.

[ChrisPlatt]

Right, but also available in rolls no smaller than 400 feet. So it can be a bit difficult to manage. <<-Just finishing up his first 400 feet of it.

5222 also has a distinct image characteristic that many people will not be drawn to. It has cinema grain which is intended to be viewed moving, not still.
In fact, when I talked to a Kodak cinema stock engineer a couple years back about using 5222 as still film, she seemed perplexed as to why anyone
would do that as it's much harder to use for still than motion (lots of reasons, mostly gamma.)

Film Photography Project and Ultrafine sell 100 ft spools of 5222,
and numerous sellers on eBay sell it in 24 and 36 exposure rolls.
The 100 ft spool of 5222 is priced lower than 100 ft of Kodak Tri-X.

I'm not sure what "cinema grain" is but I really like the look of 5222 for stills. It reminds me of old Tri-X.
There are threads featuring photos from Eastman 5222 on RFF and APUG. It seems pretty popular there.

Chris