BW film for Extol and Epson scanner

[newindustar]

I am considering trying BW film for my hybrid workflow, i.e scanned film and

digital prints. In 35mm I have a Nikon Coolscan IV (LS-40) and for medium format

I have a Epson V700.

 

The film would be processed at A&I in Hollywood in Extol.

 

 

My first question is what would be the choices of a film in 120, 220, or 35mm

that would be available relatively cheaply, probably on ebay, possibly expired

that would be a good choice for standard commercial processing in Extol that

would scan well on the my scanners.

 

I have tried BW in the past with 35mm on the Nikon but the results were not

great, thin and grainy. Kodak BW 400CN which I have a lot of scans better than

that. My Nikon is the best scanner I have ever used with 35mm color negs however.

 

My main interest is for the medium format thus the Epson scanner.

 

I have been thus far converting color scans to BW usually with Channel Mixer in

PS. I don't have the option of getting involved in darkroom work now so must

continue the hybrid approach.

 

My second question is would I be able to retain the true BW film's advantage in

tonal range and "the look" after scanning or would the final result be as good

or better by converting color film scans?

 

Thanks

[john_shriver]

You ultimately just have to experiment. Each scanner has certain film/developer combinations where grain aliasing (look it up with Google) becomes a problem, and the grain comes out much worse than it really is.

 

I've had no problems with Ilford Delta 400, and Kodak TMAX 100 with my Coolscan IV. I was slightly pulling the Delta 400, using DD-X developer with an EI of 400. (The native EI with DD-X is 500.) You may have to use analog gain to choose the optimal part of the density range of the negative to scan, as it may well exceed the real dynamic range of the scanner. You also have to know how to run it through a proper S-curved grey-scale transform to get the look of a paper print (expand midtones, compress extremes).

 

If you want less grain, the V700 will give you that, since it has less optical resolution than the Coolscan IV. A good bit less. Also, once you go medium format, grain really ceases to be an issue.

 

The B&W films capture more scene brightness ratio than the C-41 films. The film scanner may not be able to capture the entire dynamic range, but at least the Nikon's analog gain lets you choose what part to capture. (It adjusts how bright the light is.)

[lex_jenkins]

T-Max 100 provided the best scans of any conventional b&w film I've tried.

 

I've never tried Xtol. The main problem I've seen with some labs is a tendency to overdevelop, which can increase contrast and grain. The latter isn't a problem with T-Max 100, which is a fine grain film, but excessive contrast could present problems for scanning negatives. In this case, it might be a good idea to expose T-Max 100 slightly under 100, perhaps around 64 or 80.

 

Otherwise, C-41 process monochrome films like XP2 Super are a good choice when scanning is preferred.

[frank.schifano]

I am 100% in agreement with Lex on this topic. If your workflow includes scanning, then you can't beat the performance of chromogenic B&W films. Ilford makes XP2 Super, which is the better choice if you plan eventually to make traditional prints from your negatives. This film has no orange mask and is designed for conventional printing. Kodak makes a similar product,BW400CN, which has the orange mask common to most color negative films. This one is designed to print on RA-4 papers and doesn't do as well with conventional B&W silver papers. Both scan extremely well however, and will deliver very good results.

[thirteenthumbs]

I do my own processing with Xtol and scan on a Microtek 8700 with silverfast. Films that I have used are Delta 100 in 8x10 format, and HP5+ and Fomapan 100 in 4x5. Normal exposure to 1/2 stop under works best. Send a test roll or two of whatever B&W film you get and bracket, 1 under-normal-1 over of different scenes, have A&I process, then scan and evulate the results. You may need to test for each type of film you use and when dealing with out of date film test within age groups for film more than 5 years old for exposure compensation and fog reasons.

[newindustar]

Ok a lot of information here. I better start from the top. John your suggestions carry extra weight because you have the same scanner or knowledge of my scanners. I much prefer either of my scanners (or the 4870 (same practically as the V700) over color neg results with the Minolta Multi Pro. The V700 has a nice smoothing effect that is still sharp enough with a big sharpening value. yes I would imagine some range would be lost at the scanning stage still the BW may have more to start with.

 

 

Lex, Frank- An iso 100 would be ideal and T-max has got to one of the easiest to find I imagine. The lab I mentioned says Xtol is a very general process that cover many films like D76 does ??. They have been using it exclusively for a long time. I have a bit of the c41 BW in 35mm. For 120 are the choices the same for chromogenics? I was reading at the large format forum and some think there are some advantages converting color film to BW because you have some much control in say Channel Mixer over which part of the image you affect based on color instead of mono tones. I can see this may be true when on wants to create perhaps an IR look in Channel Mixer like I do. I almost never use grayscale or desaturate except for some images that are already complex and contrasty. I tried the new BW converter in CS3 but still prefer Channel Mixer. It is nice to get both color and bw from the same image.

 

I'd better watch it or I'll talk myself out of the premise of my post!

 

Preserving Digital Ice with chromogenicss or color is not an insignificant aspect either.

 

Charles - Good advice. My main concept for using film generally and espicially when compared to digital, is to achieve different looks and moods based on the film and the way I work with it. Even between film and digital the final results can sometimes be made to look very similar. I can see a different look with Kodak chromgenic over converted color, not sure how the look compares to true BW scanned.

 

My goal would be to achieve a seperate "look" for scanning BW than I can get for converting color or using c41BW.

 

Do you think I preserve a different look with this approach even after the scanning. If not it may be pointless. I do tend to work ever file from every process including digital to optimize the look I prefer for each image.

 

Leaving C41 BW out of the equation for the moment, do you think scanned true BW will give me a significantly seperate medium espicially in the face of the sacrafices made by not using color film?

[thirteenthumbs]

My previous suggestion will get you "In the Ballpark" of usable scans that you can fine tune to your needs/taste. I scan B&W in the highest color mode available on my setup and like the results better than the highest greyscale setting available.<br>Xtol is simular to D76 but is more enviormently friendly than other developers and is the main reason some labs switched to it.

[obakesan]

Hi

 

this may be tangential to your questions, but I've been working on similar issues using 4x5 sheet film. While I'm presently conenctrating on maximizing density and tonal ranges in the film by developing.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00O41C

 

I'm presently using the epson 3200 (because I'm in Finland and my 4870 is in Australia where I'm from) which is 'so so'. In terms of sharpening I've discovered that I get better results with large %ages (such as 200%) with small pixel diameters (like between 0.7 and 1.3) expecially when I scan at 4800 dpi.

 

Now, I know that some people argue that this is well outside the ability of the optics, but the optics / physics of sharpening seems to be perhaps counter intuitive (I have a friend who did algorithms for over the horizon radar work which is quite similar in concpet although dealing with data of a different source).

 

Anways, with out publishing a page on the subject, I've found that 4800dpi sharpening and downsizing to needs to yield dam nice results. Such as this segment below from the image in the above posting<div></div>

[obakesan]

dam that looks worse after a screen snapshot and a jpg save for posting

 

sigh..

[newindustar]

Chris I've worked with 3200, 4870 and V700 and with all I have noticed are very similar and show a decrease in sharpness higher than 2400. I seemed to get back the the 2400 sharpness at 6400 but of course the file size would be huge so I reduce the percentage while keeping the 6400. Lately I just scan 120 at 2400 to yield a 60 meg file at 8 bit from 645. Scanning MF from the Epsons I use often use Smart Sharpen at 2 pixels or below with percentages running usually over 200 sometimes over 300 percent with good results. I have to use absolutely zero sharpening at scan time or else there is non-removable noise.

 

 

For some reason my Nikon Coolscan IV has been letting me down being able to handle Astia and Velvia that look great on the light table while the V700 does very well with Velvia in 120 and with negs as well.

 

With the Kodak BW400CN it seems there is not a lot of range to push it around in post processing, the highlights are pretty fragile and the look is what it is. Something like Velvia seems to give more options to create various looks and I like what the Epsons do over all despite them not being quite edgy enough.

[jimsimmons]

I scan my MF FP4+ negs and Fuji Acros negs on a V700. I expose both at ISO 80 and develop in Xtol 1+2. I scan in Vuescan, and the scanner handles the contrast just fine. I scan most negs at 3200ppi, but will scan at 1600 if I'm in a hurry and only need small prints or web images. The V700 uses, I believe, a 3200ppi native resolution. Telling it to scan at 2400ppi means it's having to interpolate its data to a smaller size. I'd rather do that in photoshop.

[newindustar]

Jim, perfect. I don't know FP4+ and Fuji Acros, are they both BW iso 100 neg? I assume so.

 

The reason I made the statement regarding 2400 is because I did test scans on each resolution in the menus from the same trans. Some of the tests were with Silverfast AI, others with Epson Scan.I looked at each at pixel level and I saw a softening on each of the above mentioned scanners above 2400. Resolution may be one thing but in my experience sharpening was another. I'd love for someone else to run this test.

 

Now this may be my chance to ask you your opinion of the final results of scanning BW. Do you like the results espicially as compared to scanned color film converted to BW digitally? Do you end up with a different look overall between the processes and if so which do you prefer?

[jimsimmons]

Hey, sorry for being off the forum for so long. I hope you still find this info, Newindustar. Fp4+ is normally an ISO 125 film, but I rate it at 64 or 80 and then underdevelop a bit, giving me lower contrast negs that contain lots of info and are easy to scan. Acros is ISO 100, and I rate it 80. Sharpening is best done in stages. I scan at 3200ppi and do a mild sharpening pass on that file. Then I reduce it to about half the final size I'll be printing at and do a mild sharpening pass on that. Then I do a final sharpening pass at the final size, and I'll make that a pretty aggressive pass. Sometimes I'll even do another sharpen layer if I still want it harder. I use Focalblade Sharpener (google it, it's only about $50 as a download, and it's excellent), and it has a really cool feature where you can force it to prevent it from creating those white or black haloes that happen when you sharpen too much. It's sort of like driving really fast with a foot on the brake. You can download a trial version of Focalblade and try out what I'm talking about.

 

As for scanning colour vs. B&W, I can't say too much. When I want a colour image, I shoot colour, and when I'm doing a B&W project, I shoot B&W. I've done a little bit of converting colour to B&W, and it does give you some unique contrast control options, but I've not felt like it gives me the "bite" I like to get out of B&W film. It's always a bit too smooth to my taste.

[newindustar]

Sorry to here, I got the bronchitis bug like so many others which kept me away from this.

 

I did feel well enough to shoot off a roll of expired Kodak 160 VC in the my bronica S2A and have that on the Epson V700 as I write. I did a test at 2400, 3200, and 6400. using the percentage to hit a 280 meg file at 16 bit for all three resolutions. This time i did not find the 2400 the best as the final pick went to 6400 scanned at 50%. It was not really sharper but was cleaner than the other two res. It was not much difference in reality. I did read somewhere 6400 definitely locks in the hi-res lens but others have said using the hi-res lens is just a function of using the holder vs the area guide. I don't know for a fact but I think I'll stay at 6400 using the percent option to reduce file size.

 

As these epson scans require some pretty big moves in sharpening which can cause halo and fringing your recommendation of the Focalblade product is noted though I haven't tried it yet. Nor have I gotten any black and white 120 film yet.

 

I did experiment with the BW conversion adjustment that comes with CS3 and had some good luck using its filter options.

 

I also shot a roll of Kodak BW400CN in 35mm my Konica Auto S2 and it did remind me that it has a distinctive look different from converted color.

 

I took a good read on your supplied film info Jim and will utilize the suggestions in this post when I get some BW film.

 

Bad news, A and I just went up 2 bucks to 8.00 for 120 processing. Too bad as it is so fun to pull the trigger on the Bronica S2A!

[newindustar]

I did get my hands on a roll of Tri-X 400 which was processed it Swan in LA somewhere and I don't know what the chemistry was. I shot it on my Bronica S2A with the 75mm. I rated it at 320 or so.

 

I scanned it on the V700 at 48 bit color and things did not come out as rich nor as sharp as I had hoped. The negs seemed kinda thin with fragile highlights and so so edges. I shot some of the same scenes with M645 on NPC 160 and converted then to BW. Over all these were better than the Tri X. Sharper with more of a tight gloss vs a more porous look to the tri x. I think it was the film more than the Bronica at issue although I am fairly new to the Bronica and still trying to compared it's lens to the M645. I will run some of the same tri x in the M645 and compare.

 

Getting back to my old question of the "look" of converted color vs real BW it was not obvious to me if I hadn't known which was which.