For Andrew: Kodak vs. Ilford C-41 film

[venchka]

And anyone else interested.

Andrew,

Nothing in this world is perfect. I do a tiny bit of adjusting on my C-41 negative scans in Lightroom. If you recall the link I posted about a month ago to a whole range of Lightroom presets, those seem to work well. The Fuji mini labs can't seem to get all of the green or magenta out of the scans. Wolf Camera does the best job in that regard. At a price. I use Wal-Mart or Wolf depending on how I feel about a particular roll of film.

If you don't want to see any grain, use the Kodak BW400CN. If you like the "atmosphere" that only B&W grain imparts, use the Ilford XP2 Super. The Ilford film is NOT grainy as such. It's just that the Kodak film is grainless.

[shutterdrone]

Originally Posted by venchka

And anyone else interested.
If you don't want to see any grain, use the Kodak BW400CN. If you like the "atmosphere" that only B&W grain imparts, use the Ilford XP2 Super. The Ilford film is NOT grainy as such. It's just that the Kodak film is grainless.

Isn't the BW400CN C-41 b&w? One of the best "true" b&w films I've ever used is the Fuji Neopan Acros 100 - super cheap (about $2/roll) at 100 ISO, the only film with less grain I've used is the Ilford Pan-F 50. The Acros 100 can easily be pushed to 400 using Microphen at 0+1 and 50F resulting in little->no grain for a 400 ISO.

!c

[AndrewCCM]

Originally Posted by venchka

And anyone else interested.

Andrew,

Nothing in this world is perfect. I do a tiny bit of adjusting on my C-41 negative scans in Lightroom. If you recall the link I posted about a month ago to a whole range of Lightroom presets, those seem to work well. The Fuji mini labs can't seem to get all of the green or magenta out of the scans. Wolf Camera does the best job in that regard. At a price. I use Wal-Mart or Wolf depending on how I feel about a particular roll of film.

If you don't want to see any grain, use the Kodak BW400CN. If you like the "atmosphere" that only B&W grain imparts, use the Ilford XP2 Super. The Ilford film is NOT grainy as such. It's just that the Kodak film is grainless.

Thank you! Now I need to go find something worthy of shooting and developing...

[venchka]

True. Both of those are fine grain wonderful films. BUT you can't get them developed at a mini lab. The C-41 B&W films, for some reason, have a very slight green or magenta cast. Or at least the labs I use produce those results. The color cast disappears in Lightroom.

Before and after examples, Ilford XP2 Super. As you can see, the scans clean up nicely.

[shutterdrone]

Originally Posted by venchka

True. Both of those are fine grain wonderful films. BUT you can't get them developed at a mini lab. The C-41 B&W films, for some reason, have a very slight green or magenta cast. Or at least the labs I use produce those results. The color cast disappears in Lightroom.

Before and after examples, Ilford XP2 Super. As you can see, the scans clean up nicely.

Very true - then again, I only shoot 120 film, so no mini lab handles that these days either -- I just develop at home (letting me 'perfect the push', so to speak) or take it to a pro lab when I'm feeling lazy. You're right about the color cast - it's cool to hear that LR easily removes it. Is it working ok with your scans? I tried the demo, but it complained about my MF scans (around 200MB) being too large, so I uninstalled it.

!c

[venchka]

Ouch! I want to get a MF scanner. I should make some large files and see what happens. I better go ask about this at The Rangefinder Forum. Folks over there know a thing or 3.

Somedays I think I should only use 120 film.

[photoByJeremy]

Originally Posted by venchka

The Fuji mini labs can't seem to get all of the green or magenta out of the scans.

That's what happens when people who don't know what they are doing scan the film for you. There actually is a "b&w" (i.e. grayscale) on the Noritsu machines.

Though in the end I'm not sure why a green or magenta tint to your scans is a problem--just turn them into grayscale in photoshop/lightroom.

Finally, I will say that Ilford's formulation for XP-2 Super yields a sharper image than Kodak's C-41 B&W film. You can also look into Fuji's Neopan 400CN which Ilford helped them formulate (can't tell the difference between the Neopan and the XP-2 and it's cheaper!).

[venchka]

Indeed, the Kodak emulsion is smooth and creamy. The Ilford, like I said, closer to real B&W film. Yes, I hit the greysacle switch in Lightroom. Where do you buy Fuji Neopan 400CN? I heard that it wasn't available in the U.S. market.

[josphy]

The Fuji Frontier machines are very capable of producing dead-neutral prints with either of the films you mentioned. The trick, which many operators probably do not know, is that you have to export the images to the PIC unit before printing and desaturate them and then send it back over to the printer. There is also an option to change the film type to black & white, but I think this is geared towards true b&w films, and seemed to give more pronounced grain when I used it. Otherwise you will always end up with just the slightest green or magenta. All Fuji Frontier machines do is scan your film to begin with anyway, so you can desaturate or tweak the image to your heart's content between the scanning and the printing stage.

I am a big fan of XP2. It looks very much like a traditional b&w film, and it does not have the orange mask that C41 films usually have (including the Kodak B&W), so that means you can also print it in a traditional b&w darkroom easily.

And by the way, the way to get finer grain out of XP2 is to shoot it at 200 instead of 400. Process normally. C41 films can easily tolerate a stop or two of overexposure and the result in this case will be finer grain.


Minolta Maxxum 70 + 50mm/1.7, XP2 @ 250, scanned on Fuji Frontier and toned in Photoshop

[pippin]

Originally Posted by photoByJeremy

That's what happens when people who don't know what they are doing scan the film for you. There actually is a "b&w" (i.e. grayscale) on the Noritsu machines.

Though in the end I'm not sure why a green or magenta tint to your scans is a problem--just turn them into grayscale in photoshop/lightroom.

Finally, I will say that Ilford's formulation for XP-2 Super yields a sharper image than Kodak's C-41 B&W film. You can also look into Fuji's Neopan 400CN which Ilford helped them formulate (can't tell the difference between the Neopan and the XP-2 and it's cheaper!).

Ditto to some.

Also, on the fuji frontiers (I work on a frontier 370) there is a monotone correct. Doing that creates a more accurate B&W. Leaving it set for colour film will give the colour cast.

Also, if you are printing, and you're using black and white film, the fact that the labs use colour paper in the machines means that even when the lab operators calibrate the paper (which I do pretty much every time I run a batch of black and white negs), you'll get a cast.

But if you go to the lab to get them scanned, tell them to stick it on monotone correct in the settings (or original select > BW negative works as well), they will come out greyscale.

[pippin]

Originally Posted by josphy

The Fuji Frontier machines are very capable of producing dead-neutral prints with either of the films you mentioned. The trick, which many operators probably do not know, is that you have to export the images to the PIC unit before printing and desaturate them and then send it back over to the printer. There is also an option to change the film type to black & white, but I think this is geared towards true b&w films, and seemed to give more pronounced grain when I used it. Otherwise you will always end up with just the slightest green or magenta. All Fuji Frontier machines do is scan your film to begin with anyway, so you can desaturate or tweak the image to your heart's content between the scanning and the printing stage.

thats what I do usually. Of course, when you're running 20 rolls of film/day plus a buttload of digital orders, when its busy its easier to do a monotone correct which prints pretty much to neutral, although not dead neutral.

but the BW negative option on the frontiers is geared toward true B&W film because when you insert that film the previews will come up all wild tones. I've had magenta, purple, green etc (and not subtle colours either)