When do you choose to use ISO 100 B&W over 400?

[Peter Gomena]

My standard film for years has been Tri-X 320. I'm slowly shifting over to FP4+.

Peter Gomena

[Jim Noel]

Only partially true. Ansel used films with speed ratings as low as 25 by today's standards. He used what was most appropriate for the subject at hand. During the early part of his career there were no films with speed ratings equivalent to 400 that were not excessively grainy.

[Gem Singer]

Jim,

Ansel passed away in 1984.

Long before that, there were faster films available that were capable of making large sized prints without showing excessive grain.

He preferred Tri-X developed in Kodak HC-110. Not much difference in exposure time between an ISO 320 and an ISO 400 film.

He discussed this in "The Negative", which was copy written in 1981.

[Bill_1856]

No 100 ASA, er ISO, for me. It's either Efke 25 or Tri-X. 100 gives the disadvantage of both without the benefits of either.

[lbenac]

I am a newbie at LF but I am using:
1) FP4 in winter when there is low contrat scenes
2) HP5 in spring summer for high contrast scene i.e. shadow under the trees against bright sky

Cheers,

Luc

[John Kasaian]

I shoot a lot of 400 film (HP-5+) for 8x10 aerials and nocturnal stuff. I really liked TMY and TXP but I just can't afford it anymore, nor do i care to jump through the special order hoops. HP-5+ is excellent and does a beautiful job. Slower films I find useful for still life, architecture and sunny day with no wind situations. I have 8x10 sheet film as slow as ISO 4

[MDR]

My most used film is Efke 100, I use Efke 100 or Efke 50 when I am after a certain old style look (nothing looks like EFKE 25/50/100 in Pyro developer it's unique) or if I want to use long exposure times so basically most of the time. I use HP5+ if I want a little amount of grain to give it some atmosphere I also prefer HP5+ for indoor shots.

St. Ansel also used leaded fuel seriously how relevant is the material he used to today's photographers.

Dominik

[SergeiR]

Depending on light/contrast/needed look - i go between 25 and 400 (and steps in between).

[AF-ULF]

I don't really worry about film speed when shooting LF. The one or two stop difference in shutter speed makes little difference for most of my shooting. The other characteristics of the film are much more important to me.

[SpeedGraphicMan]

With large format, it can be pretty hard to tell the difference between 100 & 400... 35mm and 120 is a different story.

Although I rarely use anything over ISO 100.

400 is great for portraits.

St. Ansel... Hee Hee!

So that is what this forum calls him now?