C-41 B&W or colour and convert?

[Ben R]

This is actually for a TLR rather than LF, more for walking around photography, I'm going to be scanning anyway. I want to shoot B&W for a few projects but if I shoot colour then I have the opportunity of trying to make some money off stock at the same time. Given that I will be shooting C-41 B&W film anyway for ease of processing and scanning (long story), would I not be better off just shooting colour film (NPH probably as I know it well) and converting as necessary to B&W thereby keeping a colour option open? Will I be seeing a huge difference with C-41 B&W film for scanned output anyway?

I'm used to shooting digital and am happy with what I can do conversion wise. For large prints, exhibition material, LF and real silver film is of course prefered. For documentary street work I'm wondering...

[Donald Qualls]

Given that C-41 B&W is a dye image anyway, and that you're scanning your negatives anyway, I don't see anything to be gained by shooting original B&W vs. converting the images after scanning.

My own preference is to shoot B&W on a silver-image stock, but I also process my own, sometimes have time to print in my wet darkroom, and have a scanner that handles traditional B&W film well.