B&W Film: I want to try a roll or two. What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it. I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film?? From your experience...

wsa111 Loc: Goose Creek, South Carolina

I want to try a roll or two.
What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it.
I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film??
From your experience does film give a better picture than just setting a digital camera on B&W setting?? Thanks Bill

RobertMaxey

wsa111 wrote:

I want to try a roll or two.
What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it.
I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film??
From your experience does film give a better picture than just setting a digital camera on B&W setting?? Thanks Bill

If you decide to stick with black and white, invest in a tank and some chemistry and process the film yourself. Bad negatives produce bad prints and beautiful negatives can also yield bad prints.

When you negatives are poorly processed, you are stuck; bad prints can always be made over.

Try Kodak T-Max 400. About all that is left. But since you are learning, use any old film on sale.

snowbear

I'm partial to Kodak Tri-X Pan 400 (though it's been hard to find, locally) because that's what we used and developed when I was in class. My youngest son likes Kodak T-Max B&W for the same reason - that's which developer is at his school. I can process the film at home (but not prints).

RobertMaxey

snowbear wrote:

I'm partial to Kodak Tri-X Pan 400 (though it's been hard to find, locally) because that's what we used and developed when I was in class. My youngest son likes Kodak T-Max B&W for the same reason - that's which developer is at his school. I can process the film at home (but not prints).

Everything must start with the negative. Bad negatives mean bad prints unless you go to a custom printer with experience, then some problem negatives can be corrected.

But that depends on the darkroom worker. Give me a roll of film you are not sure about and I'll process by inspection. I can tell when enough is enough under the glow of a Kodak green safelight. I can account for extremes in contrast by using water bath development.

As can you or anyone that processes their own film.

Processing film is easy and it ensures your success with printing because you can correct many errors your local lab does not care about.

Vern49 Loc: Lakeside,Ca.(eastern San Diego County)

Howdy......
Didn't anyone ever use ILFORD???
That was my favorite!!

Vern...

tkhphotography Loc: Gresham, Or, not Seattle

wsa111 wrote:

I want to try a roll or two.
What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it.
I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film??
From your experience does film give a better picture than just setting a digital camera on B&W setting?? Thanks Bill

I like Ilford HP5 Plus better than Tri-Max.

RobertMaxey

Vern49 wrote:

Howdy......
Didn't anyone ever use ILFORD???
That was my favorite!!

Vern...

Yup. I ma experimenting with Illford Micrographic film next week. It is slow . . . below 1 ASA. But extremely sharp and because it is a silver=bleach process, quite archival.

Over the years, I used quite a few Illford films. Very good quality.

Vern49 Loc: Lakeside,Ca.(eastern San Diego County)

tkhphotography wrote:

wsa111 wrote:

I want to try a roll or two.
What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it.
I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film??
From your experience does film give a better picture than just setting a digital camera on B&W setting?? Thanks Bill

I like Ilford HP5 Plus better than Tri-Max.

DUDE....
:thumbup:

Vern...

Roger Hicks Loc: Aquitaine

There are still many, many B+W films left, from Ilford, Kodak, Fuji, Efke, Foma, and others. If any single one were 'best' it would have edged all the others out by now.

Take a close look at Ilford XP2. It is a 'chromogenic' film, which is to say, it is processed in the same chemistry as colour films, even though it gives a black and white image. There is a Kodak equivalent but they keep changing the name.

There's lots on my site about choosing and using film, and film cameras. You might find this best as the introduction: http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/blackwhite.html

Cheers,

R.

Photoman74 Loc: Conroe Tx

ISO - depends on what conditions you are shooting.
Once you determine that,what size 120mm - 35mm google Kodak B&W films. Tri X 400 ASA Daylight Pan X 125 ASA Daylight

DougW Loc: SoCal

I like the Ilford delta films, am going to try some efke, and also shoot kodak pan 125. What format are you shooting?

Vern49 Loc: Lakeside,Ca.(eastern San Diego County)

I still have some....

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

wsa111 wrote:

I want to try a roll or two.
What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it.
I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film??
From your experience does film give a better picture than just setting a digital camera on B&W setting?? Thanks Bill

Film is a whole new technology. I have the feeling that Bill does not have extensive experience with digital. If I am right, I would say learn digital and forget about film. Too hard to learn two technologies at the same time. I did film for over forty years and I think the world of it. However, its time has come and gone as symbolized by Kodak's recent bankruptcy filing.

I believe that digital will give as good results as film. The purists will probably be up in arms over this but that is my opinion. Bill's next question is whether to shoot as monochrome or color. I say color because you can always convert color to monochrome but not the other way without expensive manipulation. There are several ways to convert. Among the most popular are letting the software do it or removing all the saturation. In either case, if you are using jpg's, do it on a copy. If raw, it does not matter. Once converted to monochrome, you can apply any and all the adjustments, masks or whatever to the image to fine tune it.

Good luck.

Festina Lente Loc: Florida & Missouri

Having moved to 100% digital, I'm not current with B&W film offerings. Last time I checked, true silver halide film was all but gone. Most B&W film offerings were processed using the same chemical process as color and prints were made using the same dye-sublimination process as color prints. Is this true?

A true silver halide print has a character that is hard to replicate with dyes.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

wsa111 wrote:

I want to try a roll or two.
What B&W film gives the best quality & who can process it.
I believe walmarts & wallgreens pharmacy still process film??
From your experience does film give a better picture than just setting a digital camera on B&W setting?? Thanks Bill

Even after meticulous processing, you need to be able to get a good print- hard with either film or digital.