What portrait/street film...

jemdna

jemdna

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Bryan
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Hey guys :)

Following on from a brief chat with TBY etc, I am now more than ever focussed on getting on with portrait/street photography.

Now i'm not a fan of color on film, so looking at B+W. Probably through a few dif' cameras including a Canon Eos XXX and Yashica AF. I LOVE "moody" and "atmospheric" style black and white so presume Im looking for something with a lot of contrast?

Cmon guys help a man out, im on a small budget thanks to wedding/holiday/motorbikes going bang etc :LOL:

Bry
 
Hey Bryan

Are you looking for recommendations on B&W film then essentially?

I've got HP5 loaded in my RZ67 but I'm still waiting to pick up a bloody lens for it,lol.

Must get my priorities straight some day...!

Dan
 
Personally I wouldn't use the Ilford films if it's contrast you want. They're good films with a high dynamic range but if you want something contrasty straight out of the can I'd go for Fuji Acros100 or Neopan400 if you can find any (it has been discontinued by Fuji). Neopan400 is available under a different name that TBY knows but I can't for the life of me remember.

Never tried Kodak films (yet) so can't recommend on for you. For price I'd probably try 7 day shop or mailshots.
 
Kodak Tri-X. I think the Kodak stuff loads more contrasty and nicer looking than HP5+, once I use up the 17 rolls of HP5+ I have I'll probably stick to Kodak stuff.
 
redddraggon said:
Kodak Tri-X. I think the Kodak stuff loads more contrasty and nicer looking than HP5+, once I use up the 17 rolls of HP5+ I have I'll probably stick to Kodak stuff.
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This.

I still prefer my XP2 though.
 
XP2 FTW :D Used in the past and loved it :)

TBY... think think think :LOL:

and as for the infraction - I really didn't think TP was that pedantic...

Bry
 
Kev M said:
Neopan400 is available under a different name that TBY knows but I can't for the life of me remember.
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Is it Legacy Pro?

Andy
 
Kev M said:
...Neopan400 if you can find any (it has been discontinued by Fuji).

>>> Only the 120; there is no end of Fuji Neopan 400 35mm available (7dayshop.com)


Neopan400 is available under a different name that TBY knows but I can't for the life of me remember.

>> That would have been Legacy Pro 400 - now rarer than hens teeth.

.
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Kev M said:
Personally I wouldn't use the Ilford films if it's contrast you want. They're good films with a high dynamic range but if you want something contrasty straight out of the can I'd go for Fuji Acros100 or Neopan400 if you can find any (it has been discontinued by Fuji). Neopan400 is available under a different name that TBY knows but I can't for the life of me remember.

Never tried Kodak films (yet) so can't recommend on for you. For price I'd probably try 7 day shop or mailshots.
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It's Legacy Pro 400, but I think it's probably getting hard to source as well now. The Legacy Pro 100 is Acros 100, a lovely smooth film, good for the classic "hollywood studio" portrait shots as well as being my favourite landscape film. I'm glad this came up, as It's reminded me to get another 10 rolls in stock before it all runs out forever :shake:
 
jemdna said:
XP2 FTW :D Used in the past and loved it :)

TBY... think think think :LOL:

and as for the infraction - I really didn't think TP was that pedantic...

Bry
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I'm thinking Big Thunks Bryan, honest :thinking:

I'd agree that the Proper Ilford B&W film isn't all that contrasty. Personally, I don't find that too much of a problem - A slightly less contrasty negative, provided that it's still got a smooth gradation of tones is a little easier for m scanner to cope with. I can then do a little contrast stretching in the digital domain if I want. Even if I was wet printing, it'd still only be a matter or either altering the filters for multigrade paper or printing on a harder grade paper :shrug:

Unless you're going to be processing your own, it's all moot really, as theres sod all to choose between the C41 chromagenic B&W films - the differences between Ilford XP2, Kodak BW400CN and Fuji Neopan 400CN film is probably less than the differences you'll get from one high street minilab to another - or indeed the same high street minilab on different days/stages of the minilab developing chemical's depletion cycle.

For example - my mate used to run his own processing shop with a Agfa minilab. He could process his own films at any time, but used to save them up and process them after running around 50 customer films through a fresh set of chemicals. He said that the chemicals were just a little "hot" out of the canister, but after 50 rolls had levelled out, and were okay for another 4 days or so - he used to change the chemicals weekly. This was a pre-digital era machine - so used to do proper wet prints of the photo's, hence colour correction wasn't quite as automagical as it is now.
 
Huge thanks TBY for the answer(s) - As you know I've not yet had a chance to delve into home processing at the moment so am relying on C41 highstreet processing. Do you think I should maybe just use perhaps XP2 as usual and rely on digital editing to finalise contrast for now?

As for the infraction I was on about - There was a message left in the thread saying if i was interested I could purchase a camera for beer money (Not really a sale per se' just an offer as i was already looking into portrait lenses/camera) but TP thought it still counted as trading outside of the correct forum :/

Bry
 
jemdna said:
Huge thanks TBY for the answer(s) - As you know I've not yet had a chance to delve into home processing at the moment so am relying on C41 highstreet processing. Do you think I should maybe just use perhaps XP2 as usual and rely on digital editing to finalise contrast for now?

As for the infraction I was on about - There was a message left in the thread saying if i was interested I could purchase a camera for beer money (Not really a sale per se' just an offer as i was already looking into portrait lenses/camera) but TP thought it still counted as trading outside of the correct forum :/

Bry
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Try it and see - get a roll of XP2 and a roll of whatever proper 400iso B&W film is recommended by someone on here. I say 400iso for sake of simplicity - as it's same settings as the XP2 - so even if you're using one film in a non-metered camera, you can transfer settings. Shoot both of 'em side by side, send the XP2 to the labs, and the proper B&W to me and I'll dev/scan it for you so you can make an informed decision. How's that sound?
 
That sounds fantastic if you really don't mind?

Bry
 
If you're not home devving then why go b&w, shoot colour film so you have that available to you if you wish and convert to b&w digitally. Same as if you were shooting digital, you'd shoot raw maybe with a monochrome picture setting in the camera so you can see what you're getting and then do the conversion in pp but you'd have all the colour info there if you decided you wanted it.

However, I'd say home devving was definitely something to get into.
If you are scanning your film your film yourself than you are probably looking at a couple of quid per film so the cost won't add up as quickly but if you're getting the lab to scan for you then for the cost involved in half a dozen films or so you could have kitted yourself out with a tank, a changing back and enough chemistry to do maybe 2 or 3 times the number of films.

If you can do this then you have a much wider range of b&w film available to you and you'll be able to find something that'll be what you want when it comes out the tank rather than after you have scanned and spent ages tweaking digitally.
 
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BW film contrast is also a function of developer and developing time. If you look at the characteristic curves of a film's data sheets (for the developers given anyway), you can see which films have a steeper curve (more contrast).
 
Ive used kodak T-max 100 for street, its not massively fast but with my 50mm f1.7 it did the job, not very contrasty so a bit of tweaking in PP would be needed if scanning in.
Ive got a roll of delta 3200 im working on some street with so that should be interesting.
Shot some rollei retro 100 portraits of my girlfriend a few days ago so when those are devved ill be able to see whether to reccomend it :p
 
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