Elements of Transiton by Barry Thornton

[HSakols]

I have a copy of Elements of Transition from the late Barry Thornton.  In his booklet he discusses the problems encountered when scanning black and white negatives (enhanced grain, and the need to use tanning and staining developers. What I found to be interesting is the way he would use cheap supermarket negative film that he would convert to BW.   Advantage of color film is the ability to make more accurate selections and less distinct grain.   I'm curious, do you scan BW negative film just because it is cheaper?  Are any of you regularly using color negative film for your black and white work.  I'm tempted to revive my old medium format camera, and try both approaches. 

[David Sutton]

Pros and cons for both and I do both.
Images from colour negative film exposed through uncoated lenses have a look that can't be replicated any other way. Then converting the files to B&W gives more options for assigning tones to each colour and lessens or removes the need for filters, which are hard get anyway for the cameras I use.
On the other hand I don't want to get into processing colour negative film at home. So the film gets sent out and you rely on the shop that does the processing to know what they are doing.
With B&W I can process at home in a little over half an hour and the equipment is cheap as chips on ebay or wherever. Scanning can start the same day.
The biggest issue for me is that the scanning process can open up the shadow detail and give the file a "digital" look. I usually end up applying a curve in Photoshop to bring the image back to how my photos from 50 years ago looked. I'm in two minds whether to keep doing my scans and editing this way or re-configure my scanning software to more accurately reproduce the look I'm after.
If you have an old medium format camera it's a bit of fun to use it again. Be ready to do a lot of cloning to get rid of dust spots though.
David

[Alan Klein]

I started to shoot Kodak Tmax 100 in MF.  Developed in Xtol by an outside lab.  There doesn't seem to be much grain that my scanner  an Epson V600 flat bed picked up.  Tmax uses T grain which is not like the heavier grain in older BW film and is very good for scanning.
Here are a couple of medium format 120 shots.
https://flic.kr/p/xoZBD2
https://flic.kr/p/m99R76


I also have converted color film to BW but I started to shoot BW film just to see what up with it.  Here's an album of color shots.  You'll see one BW picture of a fence that is a converted Velvia color slide shot which is also in the album.   I did some of the post processing that David mentions where you can adjust the BW tone for each of the major colors separately.  That provides a lot of flexibility to assign tonal values.  But there is something about just using BW film that I wanted to try.  I still haven't decided which is better, BW film or converting color film to BW,  but I'm trying to learn.  You might try both methods too and see what you like.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums/72157626597775701

[HSakols]

I haven't done traditional BW since high school.  Would something like T-Max and D76 work well enough or does one really need to stain the negative?  Alan thanks for sharing your examples.

[Paul Roark]

Prior to moving to digital, I used medium format image capture for my B&W wall display prints.  I went through a phase of using color negative film due to the advantages cited.  However, I switched back to B&W film due to the lower quality of the color negative material. 

Recall that each color layer of the color negative film has to be exposed by utilizing only a fraction of the full spectrum.  As such, while an un-filtered conversion to B&W may look relatively fine grain (like the color negative technology based 400 ISO B&W films) when the color negative film is filtered to, for example, have a dramatic sky that looks like a red-filtered B&W shot, the grain of that single layer is about the same as a B&W film with a ISO 4 times (estimated) as much as the stated color negative material's rated speed.  It's a low quality image.

In addition to the filtered image being low quality relative to its stated film speed, the "select by color range" selection is low quality.  This approach just did not work for me for high quality wall display size prints until good digital sensors came out.  Now I do post-processing filtration and "select by color range" all that time, and it's a major reason why I don't have a Leica Monochrome. 

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[Alan Klein]

Since I don't process my film, I'm really not an expert on the the different development chemicals and processes. However, I understand from someone else that D76 exemplifies the grain with Tmax.  You should use Xtol if you want minimum grain. 

[deanwork]

I too switched several years ago from using Tmax 100 or Tri X developed in tmax developer or Hc110 to shooting Ilford Delta 100 and developing it in Xtol. There was a big difference for printing scanned negs.

I shoot only 4x5 iso bw and scan with my Aztec 8000  DPL driven drum scanner. I've probably printed about 30 40x60 inch prints from this combination and a lot more smaller sizes over the past few years. I use Piezography K7 Carbon inks in an Epson 9890 printer, driven with QTR and custom linearization. When I compare my older prints scanned and printed the same way but with Tmax I see the grain, even with these great scans and inks. The Xtol is sharper, smoother, and with far less grain. It scans easier and it prints easier.

When you look at these Delta-Xtol prints now you see NO grain, even at this scale. It's remarkable how much different that developer made for me. I hope they keep making it because it's working perfectly. It is inexpensive, comes in dry form with a part A and part B that allows you to mix it at room temperature. Its very easy to use and mix. I have heard that using TMax 100 in this Xtol is also very similar in result. My development time with diluting the stock solution 1:1 is 13 minutes at 68 degrees F. in a tray. I buy it from B&H.

john