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Thread: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

  1. #1

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    Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    Just finished disposing of the last of my 8x10 equipment (for physical & fiscal reasons), which leaves me with only my Fuji 690WII for high quality image making. I know it'll never come close to 8x10, but it's a compromise I've decided to live with. I've shot some really nice stuff with it over the past 25+ years, and it's still damn near mint.

    Here's the question: Since I can't switch up film types as with sheet film, I'm wondering if keeping the camera loaded only with color neg - Ektar 100 or Portra 400 - will still give me high quality black and white when scanned and converted in Lightroom or PS - as compared to TMAX 100 or 400 (or other). And I mean images that are pre-visualized and intended to be printed black and white from the get-go.

    This allows the same post-exposure "filtering" as digital, but what about tonal range and detail? The hybrid work flow affords so much more control than printing B&W on Panalure (anyone else remember that?), and I'm sorely tempted to stick with just one film. What would I be giving up?

    (I should add that I no longer have a darkroom, so no extensive development control would be possible with B&W film anyway. And I've hardly ever done that with 120, since I was seldom inclined to sacrifice most of a roll to salvage one or two wayward frames.)

    Thoughts and comments?

  2. #2

    Join Date
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    Re: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    this weeks discussion on the subject:
    http://www.largeformatphotography.in...r+w%2Bw+prints

  3. #3

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    Re: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    Yep, I shoot only Portra 400. Real B&W has a different grain/texture but it's not better or worse, just different.

  4. #4
    hacker extraordinaire
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    Re: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    I actually use color slide film when I think I might want to choose between color/B&W in post. Because I like to print B&W in the darkroom, I like the fact that I can easily make an interneg on TMX, including playing all the filter tricks. I have to print color digitally, whether slide or negative, but slide gives an easier path back to the darkroom.
    Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
    --A=B by Petkovšek et. al.

  5. #5
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    You'll sacrifice a lot of range and gradation in the shot, esp in the high and low values, probably sharpness too; but it's obviously been done before.

  6. #6

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    Re: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    I'm suffering!

  7. #7
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Color neg as 'universal' film for B&W as well as color?

    Way back when I'd make contact b&w negs from chromes myself just for fun. One of those
    phases. But nowadays I frequently make silver contrast control masks for color neg printing, and it's fun to view these interpositives as if they were b&w prints.

  8. #8

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    If you do go down that path I would thoroughly research converting to monochrome in Photoshop via the channel mixer, rather than just convert to greyscale.

    Jon

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