what film?

[Birger]

Hi
I am just such a happy guy, having a good photolab just up the street and a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 at work. Im just scanning a ilford FP4 plus BW 100 asa film. Seems nice and fine grained to me but im a beginner so my question:
What films do you experienced guys prefere for colour and black and white and what distinguishes the films?

 

[michaelhcothran]

I own and use the LS-9000 ED scanner, although lately it has been collecting a lot of dust, since I purchased the CFV-16 back a couple of years ago.
You don't say what your subject matter is, which may often define your film of choice.
But generally speaking, and from a landscaper's point of view, my own personal preference is color negative film, and my choice is usually Fuji Reala 100.
The reason for my choice is that I want to shoot with a "flatter" film, one with a wider dynamic range. In addition to the Reala, both Kodak and Fuji make some nice professional film, available in both natural and vivid colors. All these films hold more detail in the deep shadows and bright highlights. A good scanner, and modern post processing software will bring all this to light, so to speak. And the vividness or lack of, can be controlled in your post processing.
Bottom line is, you've got to capture the detail when you click the shutter, and low contrast color negative films do this better (in my opinion).
Michael H. Cothran

 

[wbulte]

Hi
you experienced guys prefere for colour and black and white and what distinguishes the films?

I'd recommend getting a few rolls of Kodak Portra160NC and 400NC to try.

Very nice neutral colors, originally intended for portraits and weddings they say. I use it for everything including landscapes. Works hunkydory for me.

You could try the Portra 160VC and 400VC variants if you want more flashy colors. The VC films are more like consumer film in their color rendering. I tried the VC but decided NC works better for me.

Wilko

 

[Birger]

i have a five pack of both Kodak E100 and 100 Tmax.
What do you think of those?

 

[wbulte]

i have a five pack of both Kodak E100 and 100 Tmax.
What do you think of those?

E100 I also used a couple of times. There are a couple of postings on this forum I made on E100. Beautiful film, and awesome to see 6x6 slides on the light table for the first time. No surprise: exposure latitude is tricky, slides being slides etc. I will deplete my stock of E100 and then stop using it. E6 processing is becoming difficult to get done (although I can still get it done in my home town ;-) and although I love the results I prefer the latitude I get on Portra negative film.

I never used Tmax.

Wilko

 

[fivehundred]

If you're digging some slide film, try some Provia 400X , that stuff is great
For black and white start with Tri-X 400 first

 

[stever]

I'd recommend getting a few rolls of Kodak Portra160NC and 400NC to try.

Very nice neutral colors, originally intended for portraits and weddings they say. I use it for everything including landscapes. Works hunkydory for me.

You could try the Portra 160VC and 400VC variants if you want more flashy colors. The VC films are more like consumer film in their color rendering. I tried the VC but decided NC works better for me.

Wilko

What he said.

NC and VC are good for weddings and protraits, no surprise here that is what they were designed for. I liked 400 UC [Ultra Color] for landscapes in the red rock region of Utah and Arizona. Unfortunately, UC was discontinued, so when I found out I bought up all that I could to keep the hoarders from getting it. Ektar 100 and VC 400 will have to be used for saturated colors.

Search for "Mountains" amd scroll down to my posting to see 400 UC in Moab Utah.

For Black & White start with Tri-X 400 and then Plus-X 125.

Steve

 

[john_r_smith]

I would echo the above recommendations for Kodak Portra colour neg film. For B/W, well in my view you can't beat Ilford HP5 for a grainy, gritty look with great deep blacks. I like it better than Tri-X. But if you want to lose the grain but keep the speed, then Kodak 400 T-Max is my choice. Just a superb all-rounder with great latitude and easy to scan. My winter film of choice.

John

 

[wbulte]

I would echo the above recommendations for Kodak Portra colour neg film. For B/W, well in my view you can't beat Ilford HP5 for a grainy, gritty look with great deep blacks. I like it better than Tri-X. But if you want to lose the grain but keep the speed, then Kodak 400 T-Max is my choice. Just a superb all-rounder with great latitude and easy to scan. My winter film of choice.

John

Want gritty? HP5 in Agfa Rodinal 1+25.. Grain the size of bricks

Want even more gritty? Get Ilford Delta3200.

I use Delta400 these days for non-gritty.

Wilko

 

[wbulte]

What he said.

NC and VC are good for weddings and protraits, no surprise here that is what they were designed for. I liked 400 UC [Ultra Color] for landscapes in the red rock region of Utah and Arizona. Unfortunately, UC was discontinued, so when I found out I bought up all that I could to keep the hoarders from getting it. Ektar 100 and VC 400 will have to be used for saturated colors.

Search for "Mountains" amd scroll down to my posting to see 400 UC in Moab Utah.

For Black & White start with Tri-X 400 and then Plus-X 125.

Steve

UC for red rock country?? I never felt the need for that myself. NC does just fine, VC if you want. UC I tried and could really live without. Really not nice to my retinas. But I typically also do not like Velvia colours. (note: I wrote typically..)

The Ektar 100 I still have to try myself.

Wilko

 

[simonpg]

For colour neg film I agree with Wilko, the Portra 160 NC and VC are superb films - very fine grain and seem to scan well. Their tonality are superb.

Now, courtesy of Jurgen, I've been shooting Kodak Ektar 100 and like him thing the look is somewhere between NC and VC - a superb film of super fine grain - NC/VC like tonality and scans perfectly.

These days I am preferring the tonality look (warmer) of Kodak to Fuji.

Positive film seems all to be great today although I am not a Velvia fan and find Fujifilm a bit too cool for me. So I shoot Kodak VS100 and GX100 which are great films.

 

[Birger]

Hi
Thanks for god advice.
I was just wondering if it was possible to collect the information about the films. Like what is the grain, the colour, the tone, the contrast etc of each film and how do they scan?
I had a chat with the photo lab and the guy there told me things like the Porta NC (or was it VC?) were preferable for scanning because it had less contrast. His argument was that it is easy to increae the contrast but you will loos detail in a more contrasted film.

So im just asking you experts to be a bit more spesific

 

[simonpg]

That's a good idea Birger.

I think my day-to-day lab (Fuji Frontier) for 35mm and 120mm film development and scanning prefer negative film to scan and if they have a preference they think Kodak's recent emulsions are better designed for scanning.

I previously shot Fujifilm and Fujichrome exclusively (still really like Sensia 100 and 400). But in the past 2 years I had read such comments about scanning qualities of Portra I gave all Kodak emulsions a go and settled for NC and VC 160 for negatives and VS and GX 100 for positives.

A couple of things to note:
1. It seems that the grain structure of Portra and now Ektar are somewhat more "optimised" for scanning (don't think I am saying Fuji does not try the same and I also know other people have their views that may differ to mine - I am referring to MY personal preferences of course);

2. The most wonderful attribute of Portra NC 160 is its colour tonality / characteristics.

Here I mean that while the colour of any scene is "natural / neutral"; if something is in the scene that has vibrant colour/s , these vibrant colours will not be subdued by the film - they will pop out just like they did when you saw them with your own eyes.

So, if you only use 1 Portra 160, NC is the pick IMHO, because you can adjust saturation up in PS to suit your taste, without creating issues with tonality if you take reasonable care.

3. Ektar is remarkable - on a light box under a 3.5x loupe the grain is very hard to see and scans come up beautifully. The grain is (quite like Kodak says) about as fine as their excellent positive films. But I have not done as much shooting with it as I want to yet.

4. I think sometimes the shorter dynamic range of positive films can pose a bit of a challenge for scanning - BUT VS and GX 100 do scan well all the same.

Of course like gear, the matter of "different horses for different courses" applies to films.

5. Finally, Lenses of course have a large impact on tonality and the best of these like Carl Zeiss (IMHO) have tonality to die for - so I don't want films to mess with that.

Since I shoot Leica 35mm lenses as well as Zeiss 6x6 lenses, I find the tonality match among these lenses and the films I mention is spot on.

Interestingly, being a new Leica M8 user I have seen that its sensor has tonality very like Portra NC - the sensor / lens combination gives results just like NC / Leica lens combination, which pleases me greatly.

So, always be prepared to give films you've never used a go as you just may stumble on a combination that you really like.

 

[klat]

Luckily for me, Santa is bringing me a roll of Ektar 100 for Christmas

.

Ho ho ho (thanks Simon!)

 

[simonpg]

Me too! Well, all the way from Germany, Santa made a generous delivery of Ektar 120 roll film! I must have been very good this year!

Jurgen reminded me today that I had not mentioned B&W film. Like him, I love Fuji Across 100. It is simply a superb film with an excellent tonal range from rich blacks to bright whites and a long range in between.

I learnt when shooting it on my Hasselblad gear in the outback in about 2003, that if you nail the exposure Acros 100 will reward you in spades!

My lab called to say the first batch of negs had the best exposure and tonal range they'd seen. All this despite the fact the shots were of dead trees!!

I also really like Neopan 400 for much the same reasons.

Then of course there are the Ilford family Ilford of B&W.

Funnily enough my favourite B&W film is the XP2 Super - C41 process B&W. Unlike its Kodak competitor the negs come out monochrome, while the Kodak film produces quite orange negs like colour film. I'm not sure what this means, but it does explain this - my lab says that only Ilford XP2 produces real B&W tonality without any sign of colour fringing. They print just like genuine B&W negs!

The brilliant characteristic of XP2 is that you can shoot it at any ISO from 100 to 1600 - even mid-roll changes have no adverse effect on exposures. The latitude is so great the film does NOT need any pushing - just set your ISO where you want it and shoot.

If you need speed or want grain just wind up the ISO!

The "nominal" ISO of XP2 is 400ISO. I find the nicest exposures are made at 250ISO.

It is quite a contrasty film in full or flash light (and not in a negative way), so I like the lower grain at 250ISO.

Yes, of course I like the other Ilford B&W emulsions, but Acros, Neopan and XP2 are my favourites.

Again buy a few and take them for a test drive!

 

[stever]

Just a thought and a simple suggestion. I have found that the best film to load into a camera is unexposed film. Has anyone else found this to be true?

Steve

 

[polypal]

Sometimes I load exposed film but that is only done for testing filmbacks!

 

[michaelhcothran]

Just a thought and a simple suggestion. I have found that the best film to load into a camera is unexposed film. Has anyone else found this to be true?
Steve

Yes, this is true. But...The film weighs more once exposed. In fact, the more you expose it, the heavier it gets.
Several exposed rolls of film in my bag, and I can hardly carry it home!

 

[stever]

Yes, this is true. But...The film weighs more once exposed. In fact, the more you expose it, the heavier it gets.
Several exposed rolls of film in my bag, and I can hardly carry it home!

One of my friends is 45 and he dates 20-somethings. One of these girls asked him to help her buy a laptop computer. He asked her what she was going to do with it.

She said that she was going put put MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint on it.

He said wow that is a lot of software and wondered out loud how much the laptop would weigh then.

Then they went to Best Buy. He stood back as she talked to one salesman when she asked about the weight after adding the software. Soon she had several salesmen there and she was getting more and more frustrated.

Suddenly she turned and took him by the elbow walked out as she was grumbling that "These Best Buy guys don't know anything!"

A couple of weeks later I asked him how he was doing with her and her search for a computer.

He said that he kept putting off telling her. Then when she was on the verge of figuring it out. He stopped seeing her and switched to another twenty-something. He said that he did not want to be around when she figured it out.

Steve

 

[bensonga]

I've noticed that higher ISO films also weigh more.

I just bought a dozen rolls of Ilford PanF 50.....trying to save weight in any way I can, just like those bicycle racers who drill out their chain rings, brake calipers etc.

Gary