Digital BW, The Print

> First, I shoot XP2 at 320 rather than 400.  Is that common practice, 
> or do people shoot Portra at its nominal speed of 400?

I regurlarly shoot XP2 at anything from 80 to 1600 on the same roll of
film without any problems. It's rated by Ilford for as low as 50, but I
found that it was easy to get blown out highlights when I went that low,
so I use 80 instead. 1600 is very grainy, but sometimes it's better to
get a grainy shot than nothing at all.

I tested XP2 with different ISO settings here:
http://daniel.staver.no/xp2test.jpg (401kb)

> Second, and 
> more subjectively, XP2 has a "creamy" or flowing feeling to it that 
> seems to be missing from Portra.  Has anyone else noticed that?  
> Last, based on two rolls -- not a large sample -- it seems that while 
> Portra scans more easily than XP2 the prints I get back from the 
> processor, which I use only as contacts anyway, are more contrasty 
> and have a more limited tonal range than XP2.  

I hardly ever lose detail in my XP2 shots, no matter what I do. The
scans I get are really flat with low contrast, but usually looks good
once I do some adjustments in photoshop.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no