Digital BW, The Print

Hello, Steve.  I am very fond of Kodak Portra b&w film.  It scans very
nicely, and scanner features such as digital ice work with it.  I take mine
to a pro lab, they develop and burn a CD instead of prints, which I use for
a "contact sheet" to find the images I want to scan.  But...it is not
archival.  Developing silver b&w film is not difficult, just boring.  Here
is what I would recommend: 1. Get a table-top film-changing "tent" such as
the one offered by Calumet Photo.  You can load the reels in the tent, and
also dunk them in the developer all at once, before putting the lid on,
which is preferable to pouring developer into the tank, usually.  2. Buy a
copy of "The Negative" by Ansel Adams.  3. Get a Jobo chemistry holder,
which will keep your chemistry at a constant temperature.  4. Get the
developing tank and reels of your choice.  The important thing here is to
avoid cheap stainless ones.  I would get either professional stainless
reels, or the Patterson plastic tank and reels.  5. Get a Jobo hanging
dryer.  This is very important as you do not want dust contamination on the
film.  6. In that regard you will want a filter for your tap water for
rinsing the film.  For developing, stop and fixing you may want to use
distilled.  Distilled water does not give as sharp a grain as filtered water
with minerals, although I think the difference is over-rated.

As you can see, none of this requires a darkroom or much space, and will let
you experiment with exposure ratings and development times accurately, to
find what you like for scanning.  Having said all of that, I must say that
for inkjet b&w printing I prefer the Portra.  It has a tonal range that I
like, much like Plus-X.  Plus, for my own part, I would rather spend my time
making images and printing instead of developing film.  To each his or her
own.  In answer to your question about Tmax, it is a very linear (exacting)
film.  What you might want to do is pick one film and developer and work
with it until you understand its quirks.  A good start would be TriX and
either D-76 1:1 or Ilford DDX.  A rough start would be to cut the exposure
one stop, reduce the recommended developing time by 20% and go from there.
As I recall, Calumet has a UK outlet for all this stuff. Hope this helps a
little.

Regards,

  --Ken Carney
    www.kencarney.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Kale [mailto:stevekale@...]
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 9:46 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] B&W Film, ISO settings and Development


Hi all

I have read with interest the recent posts about Tri-X 400 and would like to
ask for
guidance on a few things.  I have next to no wet darkroom experience (no
space for
the equipment) and have simply taken my film to a lab for development
without ever
asking them how they develop it.  Perhaps partially as a result of this, I
have always
been very unimpressed with my contact sheets from the lab and until moving
to the
_digital darkroom_ have not even bothered to pursue many of the captures
further,
instead focusing on my colour slide film captures and, more recently,
converting them
to B&W with PS and some of the various techniques discussed here.

And so I would like to ask for guidance so that I can explore once again
shooting with
B&W negative film.  In the past I have used T-Max 100 and 400, Tri-X 400
Pro.
Neopan Acros 100 and, recently as a result of this forum, Technical Pan ISO
25.  I use
both 35mm and medium format.

My questions:

Is this a good selection to start with or should I, say, abandon T-Max 400
and just use
the Tri-X?  Are there others that should be _top of list_ ?  (I would like
to keep the
number small at least at first.)

How should each ideally be exposed?  (I think I have read enough on Tri-X
400  -  rate
it at 320 - but what of the others?)

What direction should I give to a lab for processing?  (Is this even
possible/practible?)

I hope this doesn't start a spurious debate on any issue - I am just looking
for a few
pointers to get restarted here.  FYI, I intend to scan the film with my
Epson 2450
initially  but would then rescan my favs on an Imacon which I can rent
hourly at a local
lab (later I hope to purchase the new Nikon MF scanner).

Thanks in advance

Steve



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