[Leica] Re: Film and Grain

[George Huczek <ghuczek@sk.sympatico.ca>]

At 11:10 AM 19/12/99 -0000, Rod Fleming wrote:

Somewhere it has been said that sharpness is not the only quality by which a
lens should be judged; well, nor is graininess the only standard by which to
judge a mono emulsion.

:::::::

If you try to reduce the graininess, by using a fine grain developer, you
loose some sharpness.  If you try to get a sharper negative, with better
acutance, you may find an increase in grain.  Sometimes you can try for a
happy medium.  

I used to develop for finest grain, with Perceptol 1:3 many years ago, but
now I'm more interested in getting sharper images.  I can accept a bit of
grain on a sharp image, but I'm not quite as fond of having less grain but
an image that isn't as sharp.  
This is my personal preference, but I think Leica glass brings out the best
when images are made for maximum sharpness. They just pop out at you.
   John mentioned as well that he used chromogenic films, with C-41
processing.  This is probably not the best choice of film to use to try to
minimize "grain" (dye clouds).  A silver-based film would be better.  The
archival character of chromogenics is also still very suspect, and
definitely less long-lived than most other silver-based materials.  If
convenience in processing C-41 by labs is not needed, and you want to
develop the film yourself, stay away from chromogenic materials in B&W to
strive for the best image quality.