Color neg or trans

[ignatiusjk]

What film will give you a better print a good color neg or a good transparency? I would like to limit using two different types of film. I have a good scanner so scanning is not a issue. Have any of you also tried printing B&W pictures with color neg film. i recently turned off the color on a neg and was wondering how it would work. I'm old school and couldn't imagine not using B&W for B&W photos.

[Ron Marshall]

Neg will handle a wider range of light levels than positive film. Current neg film has fine grain and good color saturation. You can easily convert to b+w using Photoshop.

[Bruce Watson]

What film will give you a better print a good color neg or a good transparency?
In the past I've had good results with either one in the darkroom. With scanning I like negative films a lot better.

I would like to limit using two different types of film. I have a good scanner so scanning is not a issue.
Then negative films get my vote.

Have any of you also tried printing B&W pictures with color neg film. I recently turned off the color on a neg and was wondering how it would work. I'm old school and couldn't imagine not using B&W for B&W photos.
I've tried this. Never very successfully; couldn't get it to do quite what I wanted. I'm told that one will likely get best results from the most saturated color films, or from increasing color saturation before converting to B&W in Photoshop. I don't remember why that is exactly.

I personally much prefer to use B&W materials when my final print is going to be B&W. I've learned over the years that if I can't see it in my head at exposure time that I'm not likely going to print it anyway. As a result I've become pretty good at choosing the correct film to use to capture what I'm seeing in my head at the time of exposure. ;) And it really pains me to admit that all those people who hounded me since I was old enough to carry a camera where right -- practice really does make perfect (or at least pretty good). I just want to know why couldn't I figure that out when I was 10? It would have made life to this point so much easier. Or at least somewhat less frustrating ;)

[ignatiusjk]

It seems like cheating. I can't imagine Ansel Adams using color film for B&W. Granted he shot only B&W but it still seems wrong. Is there any tonal advantage to using B&W film over color.

[Bruce Watson]

It seems like cheating. I can't imagine Ansel Adams using color film for B&W. Granted he shot only B&W but it still seems wrong. Is there any tonal advantage to using B&W film over color.

I wouldn't call it cheating. I think it comes under the adage "there are many paths to the waterfall."

There are some advantages to B&W. Since B&W has (a lot) fewer layers it's both sharper and exhibits less graininess for a similar ISO rating. Most older B&W emulsions have different response curves -- they aren't as linear as modern color films. This gives them their own character. It's why there are a number of Photoshop plugins to make it easy for people to capture with color or digital and then mimic traditional B&W films.

When you see products like that it's a clue that there is a reason to use B&W in the first place.

[Kirk Gittings]

It is just another tool to solve problems and be creative. I sometimes intentionally shoot color negative film for the sole purpose of converting it to b&w. So I always carry a few sheets with me along with regular b&w film. There is more control sometimes for separating closely colored tones by this route than with traditional filters and b&W. FE I recently photographed some pale magenta pictographs on yellow sandstone. I wanted to get more separation, darkening the pictographs without washing out the rich detail in the sandstone. None of the b&w filters that I had with me seemed to work so I went with the Fuji NPS. In the scan I saturated the reds which gave me allot of control in the conversion of the tones and allowed me to get significant separation and hold the detail in the snadstone. The more saturated the color the greater range of b&w tones can be pulled from a color.

[Don Hutton]

You have everything you need - film, scanner, camera etc, to find out exactly what works for you - the only way you will ever be 100% sure is to test the options and find out what works FOR YOU.

Today I shot identical test shots with 4x5 and 8x10 - fujinon A 180 on 4x5 and A 360 on 8x10 - drum scanned the negs and changed some of my own pre-conceived ideas about the merits of both formats... The only way I was ever going to sort this out for sure for myself was to do the tests.

[Robert Fisher]

Don, what were your thoughts after the test?

[Don Hutton]

If you throw excellent technique and optics into the mix, you can start to see dsicernable differences on prints above 24x30 - at 24x30 they are extremely small and subtle and increase a fair bit as you go larger.

I shot Tmax 100 on both formats, both at f22, drum scanned the 4x5 at 4000DPI and the 8x10 at 2000DPI to give files of exactly the same size. I also did separate shots of test targets with both systems to test resolutions of the optics under the test conditions - the 360 did around 40LP/mm and the 180 around 50LP/mm - at around 1:3 contrast ratio (i.e. lower than most conventional ideal "test conditions" so both lenses actually performed very well). I then made prints - crops from a 16x20, 24x30 and 36x45 (approx). At 24x30 print size, you'd be hard pressed to pick any differences in the prints right up to the end of your nose. At 36x45, the 8x10 is clearly a little sharper and smoother, even though it doesn't hold much more worthwhile "detail". Basically, I have to be making prints around 40x50 to see any appreciable difference in these formats under just about perfect conditions (great optics, scans etc). Below 24x30, there simply is more detail on a 4x5 drum scan than the print can show - let alone the 8x10 drum scan. I duplicated the test with Fuji Pro 160S color neg too - I just haven't had time to process and drum scan that. I suspect the results will be extremely similar.

Obviously, all of this information really only applies to my set-up of lenses, scanner etc. If you were scanning on a consumer flatbed, I'd expect the advantages of 8x10 would jump out a lot sooner. My point is, this changed some of the ideas I had about what was worthwhile and what was not in terms of format for specific applications. There's only one way to asnwer these questions...

[butterfly]

I cannot get decent result from velvia (maybe it's my technique). I get far better output using Kodak Portra. It is far easier to scan and is less contrasty.

[scott russell]

I've found that slides are much easier to scan, especially on flatbed scanners. You can also see exactly what you're shot looks like if you have a positive on it, and just wait till you have enough winners to send to a drum scanning service. I personally, cannot read a color negative so right now i'm committed to one type of black and white film, and one type of slide film.

[mrladewig]

I've been trying all types of film lately. Color negative certainly seems doable to me. But I like color transparency better. And even within these films, remember that there are huge differences in films.

Within color films, I've recently shot Velvia 50, Velvia 100, Provia, Astia and E100VS. All of them have big differences in their properties. Provia is what I use most often, but all of them can be useful to me for some applications.

Within the color negative I've just been dappling and am now trying the pro color neg films from Kodak and Fuji in 35mm format to see how they'll scan. If i find that something will have an advantage, I might add some color neg 4X5 quickloads to my bag.

If I were to limit myself to only one color film and one B&W film, I suspect my choice might be Provia for color and Kodak TMY for B&W. But why put those constraints on yourself?