C
craignorris
I have been shooting colour film for many years, but I recently shot several rolls of B&W film at a client's request. For my own confidence, I also shot a few rolls of my usual colour film, Fuji Astia, during the same job (portraits), knowing I could convert the scanned Astia files into B&W images with the Channel Mixer function of Photoshop. The B&W films were various Agfa, Ilford, and Fuji varieties.
My experience from that job made it an easy decision never to shoot B&W film again. Here are the two main reasons why:
1. The B&W negatives are seriously blemished. It's not just grain, but serious flaws in the emulsion. It took me literally hours to touch up the files to remove all the dust, scratches, and other "blemishes". It usually takes me no more than 30 minutes for scanning, adjusting and printing an Astia frame. But it took sometimes more than an hour just to scan and touch up each frame of B&W film. I was very frustrated by the fact that it took me two days longer than I had planned to finish the job, purely because of this extra time required to achieve a clean image file. This is not a scanner issue. It's a film base and emulsion issue. The Fuji film was not as bad as the Agfa and Ilford emulsions. On the other hand, the scanned Astia film was very clean from the beginning, even without Digital ICE, and was perfectly clean with Digital ICE enabled. Conclusion: colour slide film has a very clean and blemish-free emulsion compared to B&W film.
2. When shooting B&W film, the tones and contrast of the captured image can be manipulated by the use of filters on the lens. Therefore to experiment with the "look" of the image, one has to shoot the same subject several times with different filters. But with colour slide film, one can convert to B&W and simulate the effect of filters in the "Channel Mixer" dialog box. Thus, one can shoot the subject just once without any filter on colour slide film, and then have full creative freedom to manipulate the look of the image by simulating the effect of filters during Photoshop processing.
I wasted so much time on that recent job, just to achieve a "clean" file from scanned B&W film. And the photo shoot itself can take a lot longer if you choose to experiment with different filters. And the filters effectively reduce the speed of the B&W film because of the light loss through the filter.
The bottom line: the B&W prints made from scanned Astia slide film not only took far less time to produce, but were in every way superior to the final images from the scanned B&W films of any brand that I tried.
So unless you are into the wet darkroom experience, I seriously question "why bother?" with B&W film. If you want to scan the film yourself and use Photoshop for image adjustment, don't waste your time with B&W film. I did it once, and concluded that I will never do it again.
My experience from that job made it an easy decision never to shoot B&W film again. Here are the two main reasons why:
1. The B&W negatives are seriously blemished. It's not just grain, but serious flaws in the emulsion. It took me literally hours to touch up the files to remove all the dust, scratches, and other "blemishes". It usually takes me no more than 30 minutes for scanning, adjusting and printing an Astia frame. But it took sometimes more than an hour just to scan and touch up each frame of B&W film. I was very frustrated by the fact that it took me two days longer than I had planned to finish the job, purely because of this extra time required to achieve a clean image file. This is not a scanner issue. It's a film base and emulsion issue. The Fuji film was not as bad as the Agfa and Ilford emulsions. On the other hand, the scanned Astia film was very clean from the beginning, even without Digital ICE, and was perfectly clean with Digital ICE enabled. Conclusion: colour slide film has a very clean and blemish-free emulsion compared to B&W film.
2. When shooting B&W film, the tones and contrast of the captured image can be manipulated by the use of filters on the lens. Therefore to experiment with the "look" of the image, one has to shoot the same subject several times with different filters. But with colour slide film, one can convert to B&W and simulate the effect of filters in the "Channel Mixer" dialog box. Thus, one can shoot the subject just once without any filter on colour slide film, and then have full creative freedom to manipulate the look of the image by simulating the effect of filters during Photoshop processing.
I wasted so much time on that recent job, just to achieve a "clean" file from scanned B&W film. And the photo shoot itself can take a lot longer if you choose to experiment with different filters. And the filters effectively reduce the speed of the B&W film because of the light loss through the filter.
The bottom line: the B&W prints made from scanned Astia slide film not only took far less time to produce, but were in every way superior to the final images from the scanned B&W films of any brand that I tried.
So unless you are into the wet darkroom experience, I seriously question "why bother?" with B&W film. If you want to scan the film yourself and use Photoshop for image adjustment, don't waste your time with B&W film. I did it once, and concluded that I will never do it again.