Digital BW, The Print

A few months ago I tried the Kodak Select \ufffdBlack and 
White\ufffd (\ufffdBW 400-2\ufffd as marked on the film) sold in 
Walmart and had it processed by a local one hour lab. 
I was pleasantly surprised by it.

With a makeshift test target and a Polaroid SS4000 
scanner, I only got about 6 useful zones out of it. 
The curve looks more like ASA 500 than ASA 400. The 
\ufffdgrains\ufffd of the scanned image are very fine and 
compared favorably with the film I used routinely, 
ACROS. To me the apparent higher contrast is not a 
problem since I used the \ufffdBW 400-2\ufffd film in dim light 
situation and the higher contrast turned out to be 
an advantage.

One example from my test shots of \ufffdBW 400-2\ufffd is the 
5th photo of
<http://www.glorious-light.com/beech.html> labeled 
as \ufffdTrillium Trail\ufffd. 

I have not used this film much since I found that it 
is not cheaper than pro BW C41 films. But it did get 
me interested in exploring BW C41 films. 

Regards,

Yih-Tai Chen
------------
http://www.glorious-light.com
e-mail: ytc@...
 
--- Rick Schiller <rschiller@...> wrote:
> There is also Kodak Black & White Select, which I
> only used once and it
> seemed good, much like Portra rather then 400CN.  
> If in fact it is the
> consumer version, I should use it because its
> cheaper.  I'd love to hear
> others comments about these chromogenic Black &
> White films.
> 

--- Richard Smallfield <r.smallfield@...>
wrote:
> Portra seems to be mentioned often, but I wondered
> about the other C-41 Kodak films - 'T400CN' and
> 'Black and White'.
> 
> Some have concluded that the emulsions are the same
> and the differences concern compatibility with the
> likely printing process of the lab down the road
> from wherever. I read that T400CN is more suited to
> black and white paper. Does any of this have any
> significance for us as digital printers?
> 
> What matters to me is the tonal and grain
> characteristics of the films.
> 
> I would appreciate any feedback about ... any of the
> above, really



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