Adios Kodak BW400CN

[c_watson1]

<p>Loved this and T400CN in 120, my favorite chromogenic film. Happy to have some inventory stashed.</p>

<p>Now Ilford XP2's my favorite chromogenic<<sniff>></p>

<p><a href="http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/bw400cn/main2.jhtml?pq-path=13402">http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/films/bw400cn/main2.jhtml?pq-path=13402</a></p>

[Colin O]

This is one that I didn't see much use for anymore anyway. I have a hybrid workflow - anything I shoot on film gets scanned (or will eventually!) In the context of the C-41 process, if I want something in black & white, there is a multitude of flexible ways to digitally convert colour to greyscale. That's just me of course, others will have different viewpoints.

[Rick Helmke]

<p>Damn.<br /><br />Rick H.</p>

[pics]

<p>I'm kind of shocked it lasted this long. I also never saw a need for it (even prior to digital). Today I would assume its usefulness has long since passed for most people. I always felt it defeated the purpose of gaining control over the image by developing your own B+W and now scanning can probably achieve the same result with color C-41. Sad to see any film go however.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>I kept meaning to try it to see how it stacked up against my favorite of all B&W films, Ilford XP2. Now I guess there's not much point to doing so. :(</p>

<p>The Ilford actually does things that none of the color C41 films can quite match, I think. Lots of C/N films have wide latitude, but not the 50-800 with the same processing of Ilford (Ilford's comparison to the Kodak C41 at http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2012761121212399.pdf )<br>

.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I switched to Ilford XP2 Super years ago. The slightly blue base doesn't interfere with enlarging to conventional silver gelatin papers. I can enlarge it without jumping through hoops or weird filter settings, unlike most C-41 process monochrome negs.</p>

<p>Kodak made some good C-41 mono films but they lost me when they screwed around with a good thing too many times. Their best C-41 process monochrome film was Portra b&w in medium format. Naturally they discontinued it. I quit using Kodak C-41 mono films in the mid-2000s after my favorite local pro lab closed shop. They were the only lab in town that could consistently provide good prints from the stuff. Waste of money after that.</p>

<p>And Kodak's branding was often weird, like naming their original C-41 process monochrome film "TMax" back in the 1990s. Very confusing. Even more confusing than naming their new developer "T-Max", even though it wasn't actually required or specifically formulated for TMX, TMY or TMZ. Eventually they changed the C-41 mono film branding to Somethingorother 400CN. I think it was actually sold as "T400CN" for awhile in the late 1990s-early 2000s. A colorless bit of marketing nomenclature, and typical for Kodak's declining era. The "B&W" moniker came later. It still confused most minilabs, which would either refuse to process it, or they'd think it was also okay to soup Tri-X in their C-41 process.</p>

<p>Getting good results from Kodak's stuff was always challenge. It didn't have nearly the exposure latitude claimed for it. No minilab could make decent prints outside an EI 200-800 range. And very few minilabs I tried could get anywhere close to a neutral print on color paper. If they could produce a slightly cool tone print I was satisfied. Usually a single batch of prints from the same run would vary wildly from reddish to greenish to very blue.</p>

<p>But back in the golden era of minilabs you could get free reprints and reject any unsatisfactory prints, no problems. By 2010 or so most labs in my area had switched to dye sub or inkjet printers. Prints cost much more per sheet and the labs didn't want to eat the cost for unsatisfactory prints anymore. Some of the dye sub printers in my area choked on pure monochrome files, clogging up the printer and costing the labs a lot of money. They'd try to avoid it by adjusting the printer to print much lighter or at very low resolution by default, resulting in prints with visible lines and blank spaces.</p>

<p>It was strictly a photography enthusiast's film anyway. I never met anyone who didn't self-identify as a "photographer" who tried Kodak's C-41 process monochrome twice. They were invariably turned off after the first failed results from the typical minilab. Very few people understood what was happening enough to demand reprints to get neutral results, or that they couldn't get decent results shooting wildly from ISO 50-3200.</p>

[casey_c]

I've had a lot of this stuff stored away in my freezer. Haven't shot a lot of it.

[dave_s]

<p>Won't miss it. I've been using XP2 since it was XP1.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>I've not shot a lot of it, but I quite liked it, though results are a bit 'flat' (maybe because of what Lex wrote - no idea, I'm not spoilt for choices when it comes to development labs). I'm using XP2 at the moment, and I like it a bit better, but where I live, it's harder to find Ilford than it is to find Kodak, and as a result, the Ilford stuff ends up costing quite a bit more.<br>

If I trip over the last stock in some store, it'll probably find its way into my fridge.</p>

[c_watson1]

<p>Uncomplimetary epitaphs aside, Kodak's chromogenic materials always delivered for me. While Ilford XP2 did often stymie inept mini-lab staff when it came to producing neutral-toned prints, Kodak C-41 b&w films' orange mask caused fewer screw-ups. Enough of it went through labs in my area that Noritsu and Frontier labs set-up print channels for chromogenic films. Only one particularly challenged mini-lab mistook it for true b&w film and refused it. Perhaps literacy rates are higher where I live?</p>

<p>Never any latitude-related printing mishaps, either. It had limits but so does XP2 outside its underexposure range. I'll miss it.</p>

[Colin O]

I don't understand how any lab could have refused chromogenic black & white film. It says Process C-41 right on the canister. How can they call themselves a photo lab if they don't know what Process C-41 means or what chromogenic black & white film is. Never encountered this.

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Played with both Kodak and Ilford C-41 B&W a couple of times but never saw much point to it for my purposes. It was more trouble to develop than regular B&W and didn't give me anything that regular B&W didn't. But I'm sure it came in handing for those who had various reasons not to want to develop B&W themselves.<br /><br /></p>

[CoryAmmerman]

<p>I always kinda liked BW400CN. I find that the grain is better suited to scanning than converting color to black and white. I've been considering buying some more now that 'm having a hard time finding time to process B&W myself. Guess I should go ahead a stock up, or give the Ilford stuff a try, though I've never seen any of it stocked locally.</p><div></div>

[randall_pukalo]

<p>A sad loss of a little discussed on the net, but excellent, film. BW400CN was originally part of the Portra family of Kodak films, and as such, provides wonderful smooth skin tones, yet excellent contrast. It is one of my favorites, soon to join the ranks of 400UC, another classic that died a few years back.</p>

[henryp]

<blockquote>

<p>I don't understand how any lab could have refused chromogenic black & white film.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Processing wasn't the real issue. Printing was. Kodak used to have two chromogenic b&w films. One had the same base tint as color film so mass-market processors didn't have to stop a production line to change filter packs to print one or two rolls. The other had a more traditional b&w film look and was aimed at the photographer who wanted the convenience of drug-store developing but who then printed at home.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

[allancobb]

<blockquote>

<p>Processing wasn't the real issue. Printing was. Kodak used to have two chromogenic b&w films. One had the same base tint as color film so mass-market processors didn't have to stop a production line to change filter packs to print one or two rolls. The other had a more traditional b&w film look and was aimed at the photographer who wanted the convenience of drug-store developing but who then printed at home.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The first one you refer to was "Black and White 400+", part of Kodak's "Select Series" which had the traditional deep orange mask more suited to automatic processing. The second was T400CN, while still having an orange mask, it was much more pale in comparison, thus capable of printing either through automatic processors or in the traditional darkroom since the paler mask was less of an obstacle to printing than through the deep orange mask the B&W 400+ and subsequent Kodak CN films, i.e., the Portra version and BW400CN had.</p>

<p>Pop Photo did an excellent discussion of B&W CN films in the Feb 1998 issue. I wish I could provide a link of some sort, but am unable for now. In any case, I liked the T400CN version so much, I never switched to its successors and continue to scrounge it up when I can and shoot it to this day, getting great machine prints or printing it traditionally at home.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>I use to bypass this film regularly and only purchased it once when I was out of film and that was the only film available at the time. I was not to crazy about the results when I had it developed either, but maybe I'll get a roll @ $10.25 and see how I like it when it's scanned.</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>I used a few rolls of it 10 years ago, it had a nice look. But with quality C-41 processing getting so expensive (due to falling demand), it makes much more sense to develop conventional B&W film at home.</p>