Digital BW, The Print

Jesus RV writes:

> When I make BW out of color film (both negatives and slides), I find
> the result a bit flat, lacking of tonal range.

This is a natural result of the way color gets converted to black and
white.  True black and white films have a different spectral response
and can produce more contrast in a given scene than color will produce
when grayscaled.  For example, the well-known relative insensitivity of
Kodak Tri-X to red light produces sharper contrast in black and white
than you would get from a color conversion (while red is easy to
distinguish from other colors in color images, from a luminance
standpoint it's very close to many other colors, so if you convert it
as-is to black and white, a lack of contrast is often the result).

> Maybe I am not using the right technique to do it (either Photoshop
> Grayscale or TheImagingFactory Convert to BW pro).

There are many ways of converting color to B&W that can improve the
results.  However, you can never obtain the full flexibility of shooting
in black and white to begin with, since so much information is already
gone once you've captured an image in color.

If you want the best black and white, you must shoot in black and white.
You can shoot digitally or on film, but if you shoot digitally, you need
a B&W digital camera, and currently no such digital cameras exist.  So
essentially you have to shoot film for straight black and white.

> I have also noticed that scanning BW negatives is not necessarily an
> easy task.

Black and white films can be very dense (a big difference between the
clear film and the darkest parts of the negative), and only good
scanners can penetrate this.  Nikon scanners are very good, though.

> Is there a good idea about what is the best film (BW, BW for C41,
> color to convert...) to get a good, full tonal range picture in this
> conditions?

Film choices are often a matter of pure personal preference.  I like
Tri-X, except for the grain.  Technical Pan is superb, but it is so slow
that it can't be used in many situations.  Kodak Portra 400BW is very
good for shooting contrasty scenes, especially night scenes, and the
grain is so extraordinarily fine and the resolution so high that it is
almost a poor man's Tech Pan--plus it is quite fast, at ISO 400.