XP-2 has a purple base/mask. This color can be minimized with
extended washing. Most minilabs wash the film too short of time
to clear this base/mask. If scanning, leave it alone. If
darkroom printing, soak the film for another 15 minutes in
water. XP-2 is about 1/2 stop off in printing on Multigrade
paper. Whatever the darkroom meter says, expect to add about 1/2
stop additional time. It is pretty close to native match for
Grade 3, depending on how you rated the film.
T400CN is about 1 stop off in printing on Multigrade paper.
Whatever the darkroom meter says, expect to add about 1 stop
additional time. It is pretty close to native match for Grade
3.5, depending on how you rated the film. However, see note
later in this post regarding this.
Kodak BW400 is worthless in the darkroom. The base is so dense
you can barely get a print larger than 8x10 without having to
open the enlarger lens wide open. Forget trying to focus the
enlarger. But it does scan well.
Kodak Portra BW is NOT intended for darkroom printing. Although
it can be done, the gamma is way off and it's hard to get tones
to land right. I've done some Portra BW printing in the
darkroom and have decided that getting a root-canal is probably
more fun.
Regarding paper grade selection and C41 films: With the
exception of XP-2, these films have a difficult time achieving
"maximum black" on the print. You'll be tempted to increase the
paper grade to 4 or 4.5, but you'll get noticable tonal steps
(you'll see four distinct tones with nothing in between). The
only way I've found to print T400CN acceptably is to use
split-grade printing. With split-grade, you can keep the tonal
sweep intact and you'll be able to boost the blacks.
When scanning and digitally editing T400CN images you'll need to
make changes to the curves (pulling down the lows) or adjusting
the gamma to compress the bottom end. In the darkroom, you use
split-grade to accomplish the same task.
My preference for C41 BW films is definitely XP-2. The grain is
very traditional in look, but extremely fine. Massive
enlargements are possible with this film and when using
split-grade printing on a diffusion enlarger, prints up to 11x14
are essentially grainless.
How do these films stack up against traditional B&W?
Emulsions, such as Tri-X, HP5+, Delta 400 and some of the lower
speed films, tend to lift skin tones slightly. This is mostly
due to an extended red sensitivity. T400CN and Portra BW mimick
this characteristic pretty well. XP-2 doesn't and will typically
require a light orange filter on the lens to lift the skin to
the same level.
Traditional emulsions are grainier. This is a major advantage to
using XP-2 and T400CN. You can gain almost an entire format
size in effect. In otherwords, the grain in a 35mm XP-2 print
is nearly the same as Tri-X/HP5+ in medium format.
B&W C-41 films are "all toe" and "all shoulder". There is no
straightline section on these films. This allows you tremendous
exposure flexibility as you can under-expose it two stops or
over expose it four stops and still get usable negatives. This
exposure flexibility comes at the expense of tonal seperations.
The more you lean into the shoulder (overexposing), the cleaner
the shadows, but the more compressed the mids and highs. Leaning
into the toe (underexposing) causes muddy shadows, but more
seperation in the mids and highs.
My recommendation for XP-2 is to shoot it right at ISO 400 or
320. This gives just enough seperation in the shadows without
killing the highs. If the film is shot at ISO 200, (one stop
overexposure), the highlights tend to cause grief.
My recommendation for T400CN is to shoot it at ISO 320 or even
200. Due to the way the film is designed, it is dramatically
sharper in the high values than the low values. However, by
overexposing the film, you will be forced to use split-grade
printing or scanning.
Of all of these films, I find T400CN to scan the best. It is a
good film capture - digital edit film. XP-2 scans ok, but tends
to alias just a little.
If I were to no longer process my own film (of which PanF+,
Delta 100 and Delta 400 souped in DD-X is the preference), but
I'd keep the darkroom alive for printing, my film selection
would be Ilford XP-2. It darkroom prints the best of the C41
films yet scans ok.
If I were to no longer darkroom print, but digitally scan and
edit I'd prefer T400CN.
And THAT, folks, is how you build a watch.
AG
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|