I'd like to look more into black & white. (I have an M6 TTL, 2.8/21 A and 2/35 A.) I have and use and love my Leica Universal-Magnifier 5x (37350) for the simple reason that it allows me to look through unframed (or, of course, framed) slides faster, easier, and more inexpensively in order to pick out which two or three of the hundred shots are going to be worth keeping for large prints on the wall. I hate projectors (yes, even my old Pradovit).

I've done my best to read all about it (the subject of film) in the forum here, which really does provide a lot of good advice, and one of the things I agree most about is "Choose one film and get to know it well". That's what led me long ago to decide on Kodachrome 25 (yes, I know, dammit...).

Scala has often been recommended here and elsewhere, but it looks like this necessitates Agfa's special development labs. I originally wanted to get into truly conventional films like Agfapan APX 25, T-Max or Tri-X, because I think these are good examples of stuff I could develop at home myself.

So... if I want to work on black & white, I like to use the loupe, I go on hating projectors, I'd like to do the developing myself, and I want to hang prints on the wall... what's the film to choose? Whew! Maybe your answer is going to be shorter than I imagined. Thanks a lot. Mike

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), September 20, 2001

Answers

Delta; TMax; Tri-X rated at 200 and pulled one stop.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), September 20, 2001.

Agfa Scala B/W slide film. Give it a go- I love the stuff! Brian http://www.35mmf8.org

-- Brian (brianDavidstevens@excite.com), September 20, 2001.

How does one make a print from Scala? What have projectors done to you that you hate them?

If you are going to love the loupe then with any negative film you are going to have to make a contact print as viewing negatives and then converting them into positives in the brain is pretty difficult. The loupe can then be used to check sharpness on the neg, the contact gives you some idea of what the shot looks like.

I suggest you go for HP5+ or Delta 400 if you want to do it yourself. If you want slow film I like Delta 100. All developed in ID-II or Microphen. I like XP2 too, but that is C41.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), September 20, 2001.

Michael--

You'll get as many answers as there are B&W photogs. I think that a good "old style" film such as Tri-X or HP5+ combined with a good general purpose developer such as D-76 1:1 is a good way to begin, as you'll get good latitude (important while learning the materials) and beautiful pics. I've been shooting B&W almost exclusively for a long time, and in fact use these materials because nothing else looks any better in terms of all-round quality.

-- Douglas Kinnear (douglas.kinnear@colostate.edu), September 20, 2001.

I'm assuming that you're just starting out. If so, I recommend Kodak Tri-x rated at 400 and developed nomally in Kodak D-76. This is a classic combination which will give decent results right off the bat. Tri-X rated normally will give very good results in all types of lighting. As you develop your technique, then you might want to experiment with other films/developers, techniques, etc. The Kodak site has a lot of good reference material, some downloadable and some that has to be ordered. I too use the Leica 5x loupe for scanning my b&w negs. I figure a b&w costs me about 10 cents per neg, and not much more when I do a full frame 8x10 (I buy a 100 sht pack for @ $35.) So I burn a lot of film because it's basically an inexpensive hobby.

-- Leicaddict (leicaddict@hotmail.com), September 20, 2001.

Well, i like FP4+ and HP5+, I also really like Neopan 1600 for a fast film, rated also at 3200. i have tried Tri-x and I wanna love it like everyone else does but for me HP5+ just has a 'creameier' tonal range and I prefer it. Must confess to getting my neg developing done by a chap in cornwall, and I am not sure what he uses - this obviously has an influence. I don't mind Tmax or delta, but they just don't seem to have the 'integration' of HP5. Not that impressed by xp2 personally. If you print your own get a V35 enlarger second hand and save up for a heiland split grade - see darkroom threads for this -

-- Richard (richard@designblue.co.uk), September 20, 2001.

I'm just getting back to B&W developing and printing too. My advice, read all the technique's on the Kodak web site, use Ilford products (FP4+, HP5, Ilfolsol S, Multigrade IV paper). this is a good combination. No one has better resources for reading than Kodak, and their products are great too. But for ease of developing for an amateur, I think Ilfords film, chemical, and papers will give you a very good product. I use a 9x glass, hand held, to look at contacts. It works. PN

-- Paul Nelson (clrfarm@comswest.net.au), September 20, 2001.

Hi Robin!

I don't yet have any real solutions (puns always being intended) but after looking into your decent and faithful questions, I offer the following mini-table:
 

Consideration	Projector/Screen	Loupe
Time (assembly/disassembly)	consuming	saving
Money	expensive	inexpensive
Room/space involved	bulky	minute
Slide frames	necessary	unnecessary

 
Those are just my own personal feelings, but that is why I'm here in the first place.

As for (black & white) film, I now see that I can ignore Scala. It was a mistake of mine to have considered it in the first place. I thought that Scala (being slides and not negatives) would have the advantage of being able to be judged/evaluated/sorted/ under the loupe whereby I can "loupe-select" easily (saving time and money) which shots could then be processed directly into enlarged prints (like I did for decades using Kodachrome 25). Yes, I did the loupe-selecting, and no, I did not do the processing. The Agfa pdf Data Sheets for Scala claimed that such direct processing is possible, but my intervening in the local photo shops here yielded the statements that this is either not true or that if it is true -- theoretically somehow possible -- it is nonetheless lab-wise not unproblematic.

I think I'll just get into an old-style film (nice wording, Douglas) like Tri-X or HP5+. Not tabular and not chromogenic. My only problem right now is that as a black & white newbie I should still first get a contact print (as was usual earlier of course, but now something I thought I could do without) and then get accustomed to judging/selecting their negatives by using the loupe as a way of choosing which ones are to be processed into paper prints.

Thank you all for all of your advice. Mike

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), September 25, 2001.

My own film choices have changed from a year ago (pre-Leica). I now use Ilford Pan F whenever the light allows - with higher speed films I have to shoot everything in sunlight at 1/1000 (actually 1/700th) and f/11). The slower film gives me more flexibility in picking apertures/shutter speeds. When the light goes south I switch to HP5, and then start pushing when it gets REALLY dark. Since I shoot a lot of Velvia, working with slow film is not a problem even for 'documentary'-type subjects (that's what f/1.4-f/2 lense were made for).

As a matter of interest, it is possible to process Scala yourself using Kodak's B&W reversal processing kit (normally designed for Tmax 100). In fact ANY B&W film can be run through that kit, with varying results. I tried it for a while because my scanner prefers positive images to negatives.

But it's almost as complex as E-6 processing, with a short shelf life for the chemicals, so I finally gave up and worked at improving my exposure/developing/scanning techniques with negatives, which has ultimately been the solution.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), September 25, 2001.