After an absense of 25 years I'm back into B&W. Used to use FP4 for 20x16 prints. Any reccomendations of film and developer please.

Also setting up a new darkroom. Enlarger and lense reccomendations appreciated. UK suppliers?

-- Paul Ashton (paul@crocus.demon.co.uk), April 20, 2001

Answers

Paul, FP-4 in its latest incarnation as FP-4+ is still a very fine film. Ilford's Delta 100 is considered by many to be even sharper and more fine-grained. In fact, I think you will find that Delta 400 will give results as good as you were accustomed to from FP-4, with the added gain of nearly two stops of speed. All this is assuming you wish to process your film yourself. If you don't mind sending it out, Ilford's XP-2 Super can be processed in C-41 chemistry at any one-hour lab and will make 16x20 B&W prints that are hard to distinguish from medium format.

There are many good enlargers available. As good as any and easy to come by on the used market is the Beseler 23-C. There are also many good enlarging lenses, but the 50mm EL-Nikkor is reasonably priced and hard to beat.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), April 20, 2001.