Which BW film gives best results when scanned

[Peter De Smidt]

Like others, I'd recommend really fine-grained film developed in non-acutance developers. For example, TMX or Acros are really good choices. Develop them in D76, Xtol, Microdol-X ... As other's have said, you can get more out of the toe of the film with scanning than with optical printing. Thus, you can really shoot these film at EI 100, whereas with optical printing I preferred an EI of 50. This speed boost, combined with their excellent reciprocity characteristics, means that they'll work for a large range of subjects. If you really need more speed, TMY-2 is a good choice.

[Bruce Watson]

... which made me think that for some scanners density built on silver isn't the same as one built with dye clouds.

Light through silver evinces Callier Effect, where light through dye clouds does not. That's true for all scanners and darkroom enlargers. It even shows up in contact printing.

When you build up density from silver, you also build up grain clump size. This is part of what causes the increase in graininess in the highlights of the print. Notice that there is less graininess in the shadow details, because there is much less density on the film where the shadow details are recorded, and therefore the grain clumps are smaller.

Aside from graininess, you also have increasing Callier Effect with increasing density. The light scatter from Callier Effect causes a decrease in local contrast. What this means in the final print is that the highlight values get compressed somewhat. You can always apply a curve in Photoshop to correct this, but I much prefer to not have to. And when I develop to a lower contrast index than I would for the darkroom, my scan files don't need such a corrective curve. Which is one of the reasons I advocate this method.

But there are many paths to the waterfall. None of them are really right or really wrong because they all get you where you are going eventually. So use the workflow with which you are most comfortable.

[Cesar Barreto]

Hi, Bruce.

I'm pretty aware of Callier effects, but what was meant when I mentioned problems with high densities on b&w films is that on some cases scanners couldn't read through them, delivering bad files, full of noise and so on. I had a chance to test Microtek, Epson, Nikon and my old Cèzanne with the same bunch of old negatives and the best results I had came from Nikon scanner and Nikon D200 camera. But as there were negatives of many different formats, I had a hard time struggling with the flatbed scanners.

[Joanna Carter]

I've mixed feelings about that matter, because soft negatives may easily show a lot of graininess if the corrective curve imposed by scanner software is too harsh. Not so different from what happens when printing soft negatives with grade 4 or higher filters.

I would agree totally that digital expansion of flat negs seems to cause "grain", or more correctly, noise. I have a good friend, who uses the BTZS software, who took almost the same shot at an exposure and a development determined by the BTZS system for wet printing. The result was a very flat negative that was a joy to print "wet" but which still lacked the detail in the shadows and highlights that my scanned version exhibits. If you hadn't seen the extra detail in my print, you would have said that his print was a superb B&W; but if you were to look at my digital print from his "flat" negative, you would have seen noise, especially in the highlights, like the gas mantle in the desklamp. So, using the "wet" BTZS numbers, his print was superb overall but lacking detail in extreme highlights and shadows, whereas my scan pulled out the detail in the shadows and highlights but, in so doing, introduced digital noise.

As Bruce notes, it is far better to underexpose a neg for scanning than to overexpose it. I have found that Zone 1 is about as far as I can go for shadow detail and anything above Zone 10 either needs compressing or will be more difficult to scan.

[Ken Lee]

"I use Acros 100 and get stunning results".

But do yourself a favor: Get a new telephone - and some modern office furniture !

What do you develop the Acros in ?

[dcypher]

Can't buy Acros in my country... What about Ilford HP5? This was the film I preferred in my 35mm and 120 days... I'm considering TMX and TMY in x-tol for 4x5"

[sanking]

"I use Acros 100 and get stunning results".


But do yourself a favor: Get a new telephone - and some modern office furniture !

What do you develop the Acros in ?

Acros is my favorite B&W film in medium format. The grain and sharpness is similar to Tmax-100 but it has less reciprocity failure, which makes it ideal for use in conditions of low light. In such conditions actual exposures are often less than would be the case with ASA 400 films where recirpocity has to be taken into account.

I develop it in either Pyrocat-HD, with minimal agitation, or in divided D23. It gives very sharp results with almost no grain in both.

Sandy King

[Joanna Carter]

"I use Acros 100 and get stunning results".
But do yourself a favor: Get a new telephone - and some modern office furniture !

Heheh, yeah and having the trains stop outside every 20 minutes is a bit distracting

What do you develop the Acros in ?

Ilford DD-X 1+6 in a Jobo ATL 1500 for 6'15" @ 24°, but I'm looking at moving to 1+9 for 7'30" according to Fred Newman's advice.

[kaiyen]

Just to throw in another vote for Pyrocat HD with Acros...I am throwing in another vote. I have been playing with Pyrocat HD in general and am really liking what I'm getting with Acros.

[Allen in Montreal]

......

I drum scan my 5x4 TMY-2. I process in XTOL 1:3, but I "pull" about a stop to make a thinner negative that's optimized for my particular scanner. My film scans just beautifully even at 12x enlargement. Clearly, YMMV.

Bruce, do you wet print anymore? And if so, so you expose two negs, one for scanning one for printing?