Digital BW, The Print

Marc,

> I am also planning to do some testing with the ISO 100
>B&W films (i.e. Tmax, Delta and Neopan Acros) and would much
>appreciate to hear your views on which film/development combination
>offers the best negatives for scanning.

I have not excluded the possibility that I'll go back to 100 ISO films
either.  When Tmax 100 and Neopan Acros 100 are developed in Xtol (1:1 is
easiest to deal with -- temp. control, one-shot, etc.), their grain is
almost as good as Tech Pan developed in any developer other than Xtol.  It
really is that good a developer.  (Too bad it's only sold in 5 liter
packages.  I mix -- with distilled water -- in a large kitchen pot and pour
into smaller bottles.)


The problems I ran into with my TP-Xtol approach was probably due to 2
things.  First, Xtol appears to be inconsistent with high dilutions
(anything over 1:1 appears to have been dropped from the Kodak
recommendations; see
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j109/j109.jhtml
?&#table%201:%20processing%20roll%20films%20in%20small%20tanks).  The second
problem was probably that TP simply magnifies any inconsistencies there are,
whether they would affect normal film or not.

The bottom line is that Tmax or Neopan 100 in Xtol is still in the running
for me.

In general, while I used to go for sharpness, all of the films mentioned
above are fine even in soft Xtol.  What I now find most important is low
grain.

I also think that I get better scans if the B&W film is developed to a
higher than normal contrast.  The modern scanners are designed to handle
slide film's very high contrast and densities.  I think I get better results
when I take advantage of that capability.  I take the 2 end charts of my
13-stop test range and scan them (cut as appropriate) in the same "frame" of
the scanner.  Looking at the scanner software histogram, I want to see the
shoulder reasonably close to the end of the graph.  After the scan, I want
to see clear separation of the values and good quality (low noise) at both
ends of the scale.   So, the scanning/scanner is integrated into the test
evaluation.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com