[Leica] Re: C-41 b&w films

[Martin Howard <mvhoward@mac.com>]

> In my current location, the turn-around time for professional b&w 
> processing
> is at least a week and involves two 60-mile round trips. I would 
> appreciate
> hearing from LUGers who currently print their b&w images primarily with
> inkjet printers and papers, regarding their experience with 
> chromogenic b&w
> films (C-41 process). Are there nontrivial differences between XP2, 
> TCN and
> Portra? How do the results of scanning these films differ from scanning
> current generation silver based film? Do they look different? Do they 
> have a
> shorter scale?
> TIA, Oliver Bryk
>

I prefer silver-based films to chromogenic B&W ones, not least for 
archival issues, but also because I like the look of traditional silver 
films (particularly Ilford HP-5+).  I believe that the longevity of 
chromogenic B&W films is in question.  That said, you may want to use 
them at times anyway.

Background: I shoot B&W (mostly HP-5+ and Delta 100) in Leica cameras 
and scan on a Minolta Dual Scan III using Minolta's own Photoshop 
plugin.  I print on a Canon i950, using Canon inks and Canon Photo 
Paper Pro and Canon Matte paper.

In my experience, Ilford XP-2 is good for traditional darkroom work, 
but less suited to scanning.  My scanner (16-bit) often has problems 
capturing the range of this film.  Not sure why, because HP-5+ appears 
to have a greater tonal range (or rather, appears to capture a greater 
range of tones in the photographed scene).  Scanning XP-2 is possible, 
but difficult at times and I find myself having to resort to tricks, 
such as scanning the negs as positives, scanning them as colour 
negatives, or doing two-pass scanning (once for highlights, once for 
shadows).

Kodak Portra B&W scans very nicely.  Very little grain, high apparent 
sharpness, smooth tonality.  Less tonal range than HP-5+, but virtually 
no grain.  Only possible disadvantage is that scanned Portra B&W negs 
have a bit more of a "digital camera" look to them than scanned Tri-X, 
or HP-5+.  I suspect that the orange backing on Portra makes it easier 
to scan than XP-2 Super, because it provides a little more density in 
the extreme highlights, but this is uncofirmed by actual 
experimentation.

I don't recall exactly, but I may have scanned the Portra films as 
color negatives, and then converted them in Photoshop to greyscale.  
This, plus the orange backing, may account for the substantially easier 
workflow with this film.

I haven't used much TCN, and I cannot recall how it compared to the 
others for the digital workflow.  I think it's chiefly designed for B&W 
prints from 1h photo shops, so I've stayed away from it.  I have no 
particular memory of it being difficult to scan.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

M.

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