[Leica] Fuji Neopan ACROS 100?

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

On 3/31/05 11:59 PM, "Daniel Ridings" <daniel.ridings@edd.uio.no> typed:

> Isn't BW400CN a C-41 film? I seem to recall people feeling that those
> films (color neg) actually do quite will if you rate them lower. Less
> grain, still get good tones.
> 
> Why not just rate BW400CN at 200 instead of 400?
> 
> Daniel
> 
I've done all kinds of testing with C41 films as I've over the decades done
all my own printing at a rental color lab.

Up to the mid 80's most of the very many pros and serious amateurs I knew
from the color lab... Waiting shoulder to shoulder for our prints to come
out the day side of the Kreonite machine.... Would rate a 125 color neg.
film at 100 and so on.
When Fuji began to be used by lots of people this changed to people using
pretty much using the number on the box.
Commercial photographers. Wedding photographers. You name it.
Fuji was not like Kodak overly optimistic about the speed of there films,
both C41 and E6.

A test for me was exposing a roll of film bracketing various subjects in
third  or half stops AND PRINTING THE RESULTS as 8x10s.
I'd pick a neg. , the center bracket (as in the number on the box) and print
that. Then I'd pick one which looked thinner as in less exposure and I'd see
if that really printed with less saturation and more grain. Sometimes it
would not. It would be fine. Films will fool you. Especially since T grain.
Rarely but sometimes it was not the number on the box.

Printing a frame with even more exposure:
A third or half stop more made of a slightly more saturated look and with
less grain in a really large print, say an 11x14.
But the tones did not separate like they did in the print from the frame
which got optimal exposure. Highlights would be slightly blocked. You got a
muddier looking print. Just like black and white.

So just adding exposures to c41 film turns out to be just as bad as adding
exposure to a black and white neg.

Over exposure is pretty much the worst thing you can do.

But while in normal black and white I'd rather be printing from an
underexposed neg than an over exposed neg. with color neg. an under exposed
neg. is really murder. You will NOT get the saturation and grain that the
rest of the prints in your stack of prints got. An over exposed frame will
match up better. So err on that side.
But don't just over expose everything.
Use the true optimal iso of the film.


Crushed highlights are crushed highlights and that's where your eye goes
first when you look at a print. To the bright areas. Even if the main
subject of the shot is dark.
Highlight separation is the single more important part of just about any
photographic images.
Hence the reason why you definably don't want to causally over expose.
A shot with muddy highlights spells shlock.

Pulling film might work out ok for transparency shooting but for black and
white and C41 its the worst thing you can do.

You don't have to suffer to be great.



Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/