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Digital BW, The Print

Index last updated: 2026-04-28 22:56 UTC

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Portra 400BW second example

2003-05-18 by Anthony Atkielski

Another MF shot on a tripod, cable release, pre-release, as in the previous
shot:

http://www.mxsmanic.com/street.jpg (entire image)
http://www.mxsmanic.com/street1.jpg (excerpt at 100% of original scan)

Also as in the previous shot, I metered this with a spot meter for five
minutes or so, in order to find the exposure that would best record as much
detail as I could get.  I was pleased to see that I got more detail than I
had hoped for.

The white hotel sign with the light on it was nearly washed out in the
original scan.  However, the detail was there, and I was able to extract the
lettering clearly without increasing noise.  Similarly, some of the darker
shadows were _really_ black, and I was able to pull detail from those as
well.  The walls of the upper stories of the building in the background are
clearly distinguisable in the original scan.  Again, practically no grain,
very high resolution.  I think I shot this one at f/11 or so to get as much
detail as I could.  What I like about this shot is that there is practically
no spot in the image that is completely blown or blocked; there is at least
some detail everywhere, no matter how light or dark.

Clearly Portra 400BW does well in these situations.  Can anyone tell me if
other chromogenic B&W films offer similar performance?

If you are wondering why I ask specifically about chromogenics, it's that
they tend to be both fast and fine-grained, which seems to be hard to find
among conventional B&W films.

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