B&W Film and Minilab Printing

[sheldonnalos]

I was wondering if anyone is getting good results from Noritsu or

Frontier prints from traditional B&W film. Here's my situation...

 

I'm primarily a digital shooter (20D w/ full compliment of L glass

and primes) though I did start out with a film body. I'm fairly well

versed in Photoshop and digital darkroom techniques, and I'm not

really looking to leave any of that behind. What I was hoping to do

was to add a small, cheap rangefinder to my kit that would be

completely pocketable. I'd like to be able to take it anywhere w/o

being concerned about its value, and to shoot more

experimentally/artistically with it. To that end, I have traditional

B&W photography in mind - a grainy/gritty Tri-X pushed two stops

kind of thing.

 

However, when I priced out the cost of developing B&W film to

prints, it's almost $20/roll for 36 exposure 4x6's. That's a little

expensive for what I want to do. I've read up on it, and it seems

relatively easy and inexpensive to develop B&W film at home.

However, optical prints of the film are still expensive. The local

minilabs will print processed negative B&W film at $.19 a print, so

that's totally doable. However, I've not heard good things about the

kind of prints I would get going this route.

 

The the other options are things I'm hesitant to do... Buying a

scanner just means more digital darkroom time - and I spend enough

time in front of a computer. Building a traditional at home darkroom

is a little more than I'm willing to do at this point. I've read

that you can shoot color film and have the minilab print it as

grayscale with decent results - but to me that takes a bit of the

magic out of it.

 

Am I chasing a pipe dream here? Any suggestions?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Sheldon

[alexis_neel]

You get what you pay for.

[neal_wydra1]

Dear Sheldon,

 

Try and find some really outdated chromogenic black and white film. It won't look like Tri-X but you will get significantly more grain than fresh materials and minilab prints should be of reasonable quality.

 

If you must use b&w film, used darkroom equipment is plentiful and 35mm enlargers can be set up and taken down for a temporary setup (no need to invest in plumbing). Check around your area for photo clubs that have darkroom facilities as well.

[trw]

Works for me. Try a few labs till you find a good one.<br /><br />

To my tastes though, Tri-X pushed two stops quality is not something to strive for though.

[john_shriver]

The minilab scanners are designed for high throughput with C-41 film, else they wouldn't be economically practical. They rely on IR dust removal, and they rely on the very low Dmax of C-41 film. Indeed, I understand that the Fuji one does a prescan of the coming frame, notes the density, and then when it's in the gate adjusts the scan speed based on the density. (Non-overexposed negatives get scanned faster.)

 

The digital minilabs can barely scan E-6 slide films, and are just not meant for Kodachrome and B&W negatives, which have high Dmax.

 

That's the missing part of the equation, a cost-effective B&W scanner.

 

You can get very nice digital prints on Kodak B&W paper from http://www.mpix.com. They will even develop and scan film, but only C-41. Same scanning problem.

 

So develop my own B&W film, and then scan on a Nikon Coolscan IV, and send the bits to MPIX. It's a lot less time per print than the wet darkroom was when I was a teenager.

 

Also, $20 a roll for develop and print (4x6) B&W film is a perfectly reasonable price. I have to pay at least that, even more, to get GOOD C-41 and 4x6 color prints. Sure, there are places where I can get that for $12, if I don't mind over-saturated prints and scratched negatives. But when you pay for good people, it costs!

[discpad]

Sheldon,

 

John nailed the problem with scanning B&W, as the infrared Digital ICE doesn't work because of the silver. That being said, some minilabs still use optical printers, so all they need to do is load B&W RA4 paper and print away.

 

Definitely, processing your own film is fun: All you need is a decent sized changing bag, a bag of D76 and a bottle of fixer, and you're off and running.

 

Here's a tip: Get a $20 Holga, or you can get a Woca which is a Holga with a glass lens

 

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_main.php?cat_id=2202

 

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=2202&pid=2682

[jeffpolaski]

It's an imperfect world: you will probably have to compromise.

 

I do still shoot B&W (moving to medium format with older cameras). I use chromogenic film, which costs $4.00 plus tax to develop but not print at a lab nearby. I then read the negatives, select the interesting ones, and mark them for scanning later. I have a Beseler 23 enlarger sitting in a spare bedroom -- I have time for the scanner once in a while, but building a darkroom isn't in the cards this year.

[craig_shearman1]

Minilabs don't process traditional B&W film, only C-41 and occassionally someone is set up for E-6. Traditional B&W processing is mostly a professional lab service today, and unless you have money to burn you're really far better off doing it yourself. It's cheap and easy -- I started when I was 12. Also, making a 4x6 of every frame you shoot is not the way B&W is traditionally done. Instead, you develop the film and make a contact sheet, then pick out the frames that are worth printing. If you don't want to do your own darkroom work, the chromogenic films are the easiest way to go. They're just color film that comes out as B&W and they cost the same to process as regular color C-41. If you don't have a scanner, my local Motophoto develops, makes a single set of 4x6 prints and does high resolution scans burned to CD all for about $13 per 24 exposure roll. BTW, if you're looking for a cheap but high quality rangefinder I highly recommend the Canon GIII QL 17. Google it and you'll find it described as the poor man's Leica. Extraordinarily sharp 1.7 40mm lens, parallax-corrected rangefinder, complete manual exposure (in addition to auto), solidly built, great camera.

[sheldonnalos]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll think I'll try out all the different options with a roll of film or two and see what quality comes out and what gives me the look I'm after.

 

Much appreciated!

[nullfinder]

Make sure you tell the toddler running the minilab to make SURE to put the settings for "B/W Negative" and to turn "B/W Corrections" ON. Otherwise the frontier sees it as a colour negative and your prints will come out with really jaundiced whites. The frontier actually makes decent B/W prints on the color paper... but to me they just don't have that "realness" to them. I haven't run a REAL B/W neg through, just the thermogenic c41 process ones.

[jtk]

If you can't process your own B&W and scan or print it, you aren't a real photographer.

[waite_watson]

If you process your own B&W and do anything (Like scan it) other than print it in a wet darkroom on fibre based paper with archival processing..than your not a real photographer!

[StuartMoxham]

I have put quite a few rolls of traditional B&W film though an AgfaD lab and the results have been rather good. I can of course make better 6x4 inch prints myself but the Dlab is very fast so saves a lot of time and is ideal if you want to know what negs to enlarge to 8x10 or larger. Sometimes I would get a bit carried away and would have many rolls of B&W to print thats why I tried the Dlab in the first place.