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Is it worth shooting in B+W?

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Thanks Scott, glad you liked them!

Greg -- Well, this is good news in a way. Your film should not look like this, so if things are fixed, you should be able to get good results. I am not sure exactly what is wrong here, but part of it may be sharpening in the scanner. When scanning, you want to make sure that all the sharpening in the scanner program is turned off. Scanners do not sharpen well, certainly not as well as photoshop. So it is best to turn off all processing tools that the scanner software may have.

Try to scan as flat as possible, while still setting the black and white points at the edge of usable information. (i.e. don't set the black and white points at 0 and 255 if the information only starts at 25 and stops at 215, but don't clip black and whites yet...you can do that in photoshop). Make sure that all dust and scratches programs and ICE are off with black and white film -- the silver clumps can interfere with the IR beam, and lead to weird effects.

Another possibility here is that your films have been reticulated. This can occur when there are large temperature changes during processing. It has the effect of exaggerated grain in subtle cases and an actual cracked appearance in extreme cases. What happens is the emulsion of the film swells and becomes very delicate when it is wet. If the temperature changes a lot (say 10 degrees or more) rapidly, it can rapidly shrink the film base, thereby cracking the emulsion. An easy way to do this would be to process your film at a normal temperature (or even a warmer than normal temperature) and then wash it straight from the cold water tap. Depending on where you live, this can be much colder. For example, I process at 68 degrees, but the cold water from my tap is around 50 degrees. If I were to wash my film in the cold water, direct from processing, it would result in reticulation.

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/photomicrography/bwprocessingerrors.html
This page is a good reference of black and white processing problems.

I have a feeling it is probably more the scanning technique than the negative though. If you have a microscope or strong loupe, you might be able to verify if the negative is finely grained. A better thing to do would be to find a friend or lab that you know does good black and white scans, and see if when they scan your neg, that the results are good.

Finally, the easiest thing to do is probably just to go to your lab and say and tell them you are concerned that the negs might be processed improperly, and would like them to tell you how they process (what chemicals etc) and if they have a scanner or system where they can verify that they are done correctly. If you are using a professional lab, they should have no problem doing this. Just don't make it accusatory and they shouldn't have a problem with it.
 

gsking

New member
Stu,

Thanks for the advice. I can't recall if this shot was done by Dwayne's or by my local lab...but it may be moot. My local lab shut down. ;) Or at least the closer B&M store...the lab and main store (farther away) are still open I think.

I know I didn't use ICE, and setting the end points is pretty simple. So I guess I'll just blame it on the scanner. :) I still think my shooting style doesn't lend itself to B/W, at least to my eye.

Thanks for the advice, though. Any tips on how to get the most out of the one roll of Panatomic? Sell it to a pro? :ROTFL:

Greg
 

ReeRay

Member
That's some great advice there Stuart.

Just moving on a little; would you advocate exposing for a flatter neg. i.e. say 1/3rd or so overexposure to keep the contrast down?

I seem to remember reading something like this years ago in the darkroom age.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Thanks ReeRay. Well, I tend to try to get exposure spot on and then control things in processing. A lot of people try to overexpose and then underdevelop, as the less time film is in the developer, the finer the grain. But overall I think you have the nicest negatives if you expose properly and give a full development using the right chemical. If you are worried about contrast, I find using a semi-compensating or compensating developer to be a good choice. If you are not careful, they can compress the tonal range, but in scanning this can actually be useful in getting a full dynamic range that the scanner can use.

Examples of compensating developers would be highly diluted rodinal (1:50 or greater, but seeing more of an effect at 1:100), diafine, diluted FX-39 or Xtol and so on. Basically you just want fairly low quantities of developer and fairly low agitation -- this allows the developer to exhaust at the highlights...highlights develop more quickly than the shadows, so a compensating developer evens things out by making the highlights slow down (they run out of "juice") while the shadows keep developing. This gives you good shadow detail without blowing your highlights.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
The timing for this thread couldn't have been better as far as I'm concerned. I am very slowly returning to film and have just received my first rolls of 120 back from a lab. I sent them two rolls of Portra 160 NC to process and scan at their "large" file size (which is the mid-range of their scan-quality offering). So I am encountering a whole range of new stuff all at once. New camera (40 y.o. Rollei) does it function properly? Not to mention the confluence of analog and digital when I popped the CD of scans into the MAC.

I was surprised to see the scan's histogram was always centered with a fair amount of space on either side of the image info. Is it possible that the Lab simply errs on the safe side by setting up their scanner that way?

I have a lot to learn and really appreciate this thread and others here with posts by folks who have made the analog-to-digital combination work.

This is from my first roll of 120 in about 30 years, with a camera that predates even that.
 

sizifo

New member
Here is one observation I have regarding B&W film photography.

While my first impressions are somewhat comparable when confronted with B&W film vs. B&W from digital, for some reason, it's almost invariably the film photos that stay with me, for whatever reason.

For example, I can bring back to memory so many of the photos from two fun threads in the analogue section, while many of the digital conversions that I was very impressed at first with are not so readily available. Of course this is not a rule, as there are exceptions, but I don't mean this in any passionate or political manner :) , it just honestly seems to be the case.

On the other hand, e.g. Stuarts posts above exemplify the amount of experience and work both scanning and developing (and an order of magnitude more for analogue printing), that one needs to have in order start feeling in control. But one step at a time...
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Hey Tim -- nice shot. I think one reason labs tend to give you scans like you have experienced is so that they don't have to do any work. If they just set up the scanner to scan with the widest possible histogram, they don't have to go in and adjust it for individual scans. They figure that the person can adjust it at home. This has the downside of compressing the overall tones, but the upside would be that they are not clipping you shadows and highlights for you.

I really think doing your own developing and scanning is akin to shooting RAW in digital. It is the same basic premise and even has some similar workflow choices to be made. Just dropping your stuff off at a lab is like shooting JPEG -- depending on the lab (or the camera) it can be a very good option, but it is rarely AS good as shooting RAW (or doing it yourself in the case of film).

Sizifo -- I think your statement is also pretty applicable to digital. While it does take some experience to get the most out of your film, I think it takes as much or more to get results out of digital (particularly out of digital BW). Of course, you can just do auto everything and get decent results in certain cases, but that is basically the same thing as dropping your film off with a lab.

But I definitely think there is something about film -- it does not matter so much to me what exactly that something is, but there is a charm in it that persists even as it is translated into 1's and 0's for viewing on the web. It is even more obvious in person when holding a silver gelatin print.
 

sizifo

New member
Sizifo -- I think your statement is also pretty applicable to digital. While it does take some experience to get the most out of your film, I think it takes as much or more to get results out of digital (particularly out of digital BW). Of course, you can just do auto everything and get decent results in certain cases, but that is basically the same thing as dropping your film off with a lab.
It was just from my perspective, as I've spent some time with digital, and film is completely new to me. Of course, I agree with this sensible statement. I'd most love to do set up a proper darkroom, and do analogue printing. Did it for a short while, and enjoyed it a lot, but moved in the meantime, and setting the stuff up again is too difficult, and will be for a while. The convenience of digital is an unfortunate thing.

On a different note, do you worry about the arsenal of tools decreasing? Starting from films being discontinued. E.g. it's already much more difficult to get graded paper, as opposed to variable grade - and the former was apparently preferable (I could be wrong here). Many of the chemicals I've read about in old books on printing (e.g. Ansel Adams books), I'd have no idea if equivalents still exist, or how to go about getting them
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
I am not particularly worried about it disappearing altogether, but I certainly do think it will become increasingly difficult to find certain things. The market will shrink a great deal (it already has), and a lot of the variety of options we have now will disappear. But what I think will happen is that as the large players exit the business, we will be left with smaller, boutique manufacturers. You will see things happen like what happened with Agfa -- they will exit the film business and a smaller company will buy some or all of their machinery and engage in low-volume production. Instead of offering a huge range of films and chemicals, they will offer just a few.

The chemicals are pretty easy to make even yourself, so that is not really the problem. Films and papers are the things that are harder to deal with. At the most basic level, it is possible to make your own papers -- people do it all the time in alternative processes. Making them consistent and readily available is another story. But I think Ilford will be in the game for a long time -- they are pretty much the world standard at this point, and they don't have much competition. As long as there are people shooting black and white, they will probably be in the game.

The area where you will see the most dramatic contraction is in things that are difficult to make and low volume sellers -- things like the highest end enlargers (particularly larger than 4x5 enlargers), scanners, professional processing equipment, large easels, specialty darkroom equipment (large color processors, film washers, etc etc) and so on. You will have to look for this stuff used.

I think it is fairly similar to vinyl records -- with the advent of the CD, vinyl made a very dramatic contraction. It never quite died, and in the last 5 years or so, sales are increasing. There are still musicians releasing on vinyl, new turntables and cartridges being made, and a legion of devotees. It's never going to be the standard that it once was, but there are people who prefer it in the same way there are people who prefer black and white film.
 

sizifo

New member
Making your own photographic paper sounds cool. I can imagine doing it when I'm 80 while b******g about the youth of today.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Hey Tim -- nice shot. I think one reason labs tend to give you scans like you have experienced is so that they don't have to do any work. If they just set up the scanner to scan with the widest possible histogram, they don't have to go in and adjust it for individual scans. They figure that the person can adjust it at home. This has the downside of compressing the overall tones, but the upside would be that they are not clipping you shadows and highlights for you.

I really think doing your own developing and scanning is akin to shooting RAW in digital. It is the same basic premise and even has some similar workflow choices to be made. Just dropping your stuff off at a lab is like shooting JPEG -- depending on the lab (or the camera) it can be a very good option, but it is rarely AS good as shooting RAW (or doing it yourself in the case of film).
Thanks Stuart. First roll on a new (old) camera and all that. But I agree and after this experiment with C-41 (The scans were indeed like working with jpegs), my plan is to stick with B&W and develop/scan myself. Unfortunately that means a two hour drive to a rental darkroom space. So there's a time gap after shooting before I can see the results. For which I am willing to wait. I can already see stuff in the Rollei negs that gets me salivating. It will be slower but I'm not opposed to that.
 

sizifo

New member
Is that some large format Rollei, I mean, since you need a darkroom? Or are you planning to do analogue prints?
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
One thing that works really well -- if you have a light table, you can put the negs on the light table, and use a macro lens to photograph the photos using your best digital camera. You can also do this for contact sheets. Just bring the file into photoshop, convert it to B&W and invert it. Voila, instant contact sheet or web resolution scan. When I was living in Japan, this is how I put photos on the web without a scanner.

For example, this is just a shot of the negative using the DMR and 100mm macro lens:



While the one I posted before is a real scan:


The second is obviously better and has hugely more resolution in real life, but the difference is not large on the web. This is quite easy to do with black and white medium format negs. It does not work as well with slide film, which is very contrasty and hard to get exact color with.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Is that some large format Rollei, I mean, since you need a darkroom? Or are you planning to do analogue prints?
Technically I don't need a darkroom to do the negs. But it has been over 20 years since I developed film and I am (was) used to a water temp. controlled darkroom. I know it's not completely necessary, but for my first few rolls at least I want to go that route. Once I break the ice I will probably end up with a changing bag for loading and the kitchen sink for the processing. And yes, I also want to make some silver prints.

Cool idea on the lightbox thing Stuart. Alas, the only macro I have is a lensbaby with magnification filters for the nikon! A scanner is on my list for sure.
 

ReeRay

Member
The self processing v Lab is an interesting topic.

Out of convenience I've elected to use a lab. I know this removes a lot from the process and mixing my own "soup" is lost but I remember years back spending hours/days/months experimenting with various mixes and still never felt totally happy that I'd hit the right formula.

Now, coupled with a Thai wife who would be convinced I'm mixing magic potions for evil purposes leaves me no route to a darkroom or enlarger. :ROTFL:

So, extending this topic, may I ask what software process you adopt having scanned in a nice flat, fully toned neg.

Currently I just work in CS3 and Lightroom but have read about silverFX (?) and the like.

What do you find to be most appropriate?
 

Tim Gray

Member
It's probably already been stated, but negative film can capture more dynamic range, but the actual dynamic range of the negative is much less than slide film. Most scanners can easily get capture all the dynamic range.

As far as not using ICE, as long as you get your developing down pretty clean, it's not a big deal. Just get it right so you don't have a lot of water marks and dust.

B&W film is awesome. I'd give up color (even with B&W conversions) long before I gave up B&W negative film.
 

sizifo

New member
This is something I'm never 100% sure about, so maybe somebody can clarify.

First, I'm utterly confused regarding your first sentence. I think I understand what you mean but am probably confused by the terminology.

I also thought the following was true. Whereas analogue printing from B&W film can cover 10 stops, there is actual information in the negative highlights that goes beyond that, to 12 stops and beyond. Is this correct?
 
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