[Leica] Sharp B/W for Learners

[John Maries <jmaries@compuserve.com>]

To the person that needed sharper B/W negatives for his
printing class, I strongly recommend he tries Ilford XP2
(or better, the new "Super").  Whilst I support the ultimate
goal of DIY B/W processing, at the beginner stage there
are just too many variables involved IMHO (even with two
bath developers) - and what we want here is early success.

It is my experience that XP2 will provide very sharp, fine
"grained" (pace!), easily printed negs - and help to mask
beginner's exposure errors.  It's my stuff of choice for
quickly testing out new (old!) Leica lens purchases.

An added benefit is that, in still using local 1-hour colour
labs for development, one will quickly pick up the art of
spotting and retouching - yet another lesson in producing
the perfect print!   8-)

BTW not related to the above, I can also recommend to
LUGggers Erwin's CDROM "Leica History 1925 - 1965".
=46rom the Adobe PDF format, the documents can be
printeded out to produce reasonable facsimiles of the
originals.  As well as the data on Leica kit, there were
some charming period pictures in the old brochures.
Fascinating stuff.

John Maries (UK)
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