Best B&W films with no filter?

[Sirius Glass]

Basically I choose black & white films by speed and traditional grain. Mostly I use Tri-X 400, HP5+ for 4"x5", Plus-X which I still have, FP4, and I am playing with Delta 3200 and P3200 for long lenses.

 

[takilmaboxer]

Films vary at both ends of the spectrum and we can see that in their published data. At the red end they can have cutoffs at any thing from 600 nm (orange) to 700 nm (deep red). These will have a strong effect on human skin, or anything else that is reddish.
At the blue end they vary in both sensitivity to blue light which we can see, and UV light that we can't. Both are abundant in blue skies hence their effect on landscape photography.
And there is often a dip in sensitivity in the middle (green). Vegetation often comes out darker than we visualized it at the scene.
So there isn't really a "neutral" film in that they will all portray colors as grey tones in slightly different ways.
That's why I used to use Efke 25. It was weak in the red, strong in the blue, and had a dip in the middle. It made prints that I loved, they looked like mid-20th Century prints.

 

[George Mann]

We need to petition Kodak for the return of Pan-X!

 

[BrianShaw]

We need to petition Kodak for the return of Pan-X!

Good luck with that. Ask for a return of Kodachrome too and a few people will really appreciate your effort.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Films vary at both ends of the spectrum and we can see that in their published data. At the red end they can have cutoffs at any thing from 600 nm (orange) to 700 nm (deep red). These will have a strong effect on human skin, or anything else that is reddish.
At the blue end they vary in both sensitivity to blue light which we can see, and UV light that we can't. Both are abundant in blue skies hence their effect on landscape photography.
And there is often a dip in sensitivity in the middle (green). Vegetation often comes out darker than we visualized it at the scene.
So there isn't really a "neutral" film in that they will all portray colors as grey tones in slightly different ways.
That's why I used to use Efke 25. It was weak in the red, strong in the blue, and had a dip in the middle. It made prints that I loved, they looked like mid-20th Century prints.

Well your evaluation means that there is no film now, in the past, or in the future will ever have the prefect response to light and therefore we should smash all camera equipment, burn all the film, dump all photochemicals, burn all photographic paper and shut down this website. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. We will right on it immediately!

 

[Helge]

Seems you guys should just shoot more IR.

Delta and TMax are about as good as they come. If you complain about those, you really should do some introspection instead.

 

[Prest_400]

Interesting that Delta 100 and 400 didn't get much protagonism in the thread. In the old world Europe Ilford film seems much evenly distributed and priced.
My few rolls of Delta 100 under sunlight have had nice skies. The Deltas do not have the "response" note of the TMAXes but I notice there is a difference in the skies between the FP/HP and Delta. However haven't compared sensitivity charts.

I've never found a regular B&W film that doesn't give excellent results without a filter. That's Foma, Forte, EFKE, Kodak, Ilford, Fuji. Only reason I say regular because Ortho films are different.

It's very rare I use a filter. However that's the way I work and see, others do use filters to great effect. As I said in your filter post the only one I use is Green.

Ian

Interestingly it seemed much more necessary with older style films like Fomapan. My HP5 with a Yellow filter seems to lower contrast, probably due to the conditions I shoot and that by darkening the sky, it stands out less.

 

[George Mann]

Good luck with that. Ask for a return of Kodachrome too and a few people will really appreciate your effort.

As these are the only two films that really gave me the impetus and joy to shoot, and made me quit shooting when they were pulled from the market, I will champion their return forever!

 

[takilmaboxer]

Well your evaluation means that there is no film now, in the past, or in the future will ever have the prefect response to light and therefore we should smash all camera equipment, burn all the film, dump all photochemicals, burn all photographic paper and shut down this website. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. We will right on it immediately!
That's a wee bit of a stretch The "imperfections" are what give them character! A completely neutral response and the pictures would look...well...d*****l.

 

[jvo]

it's in the development!

 

[George Mann]

Delta and TMax are about as good as they come. If you complain about those, you really should do some introspection instead.

I like Delta. I don't like T-Max. And there is nothing with me for failing to like something that you think is perfect!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Introspection indeed.
The differences people are talking about here are trivial. This entire topic smacks of “which stuff will make my prints good?”.

While some of the tabular grain films have very straight curves and better reciprocity, I do not care for tabular films' grain and use it sparingly. Do I have to still sit in the corner facing the corner, or am I allowed to walk around again? Please advise me quickly, I really have to go to the toilet!

 

[Pieter12]

Does it really matter much with modern films? Experiment, add filtration to taste, print split-grade and get something you like.

 

[takilmaboxer]

And please, let us know about your next gallery show.

 

[Vaughn]

Hmmm...spectral sensitivity differences...I like Kodak Copy Film and use my small stash of 8x10 when needed. I do not use any filters with it, to keep this topical. I'll have a scene with a 3 or 4 stop spread and might decide I'd like a continous-tone negative with a DR of around 3 for an alt process. That's when I pull out the Kodak Copy Film. If you work at it, I assume one can do something similar with conventional film, but the KCF does it so beautifully and so easily. The KCF has an contrast response to exposure so one has to play with it a little. This scene read from 9 to 12 on my Pentax Spot Meter, ASA 25, exposed at 11 (f64 at 8 seconds), plus another sheet given one stop more to boost contrast (at 10, f64 at 20 seconds). Developed in Ilford Universal PQ Developer, 1:9, 70F and for some reason did not record the time...that would have been handy info. Probably in the neighborhood of 8 minutes.

But whatever the process, there will also be a lot of work (or play) to get the most from both the negative and the print...with a lot of back-and-forth between the two. When I was silver printing, TMax100 w/o a filter gave me the nice 'natural-looking' light skies I often preferred...and a yellow filter on most conventional film. I also tended to go easy on the development and use a Grade 3 Ilford Gallerie or Portriga Rapid to bring the contrast back up.

Carbon print from the second negative:

 

[Helge]

We need to petition Kodak for the return of Pan-X!

Has anyone ever shot Pan-X in and X-Pan?

Pan-X would not be totally out of the question I think. It’s doable and I heard idle remarks about it from Kodak representatives more than once.

 

[Ian Grant]

Interestingly it seemed much more necessary with older style films like Fomapan. My HP5 with a Yellow filter seems to lower contrast, probably due to the conditions I shoot and that by darkening the sky, it stands out less.

I shoot HP5 as well as Fomapan 100 & 200, yes HP5 has a lower contrast at box speed but you can match that contrast with the Foma films by increasing exposure, I shoot at half box speed) and decreasing development. So I develop my Fomapan 100 & 200 for 75% of the times I use for HP5.

Ian

 

[Animalcito]

A few years ago I tried to compare the spectral sensitivity. So I shot several films outside on the same day around noon - without filter (Normal), then with Yellow, Green and Red. For sure not very scientific, just my two cents.

 

[tokam]

Rollei Retro 80 gives nice darker skies without the use of a filter but I find it tends to make foliage too dark.
I have only shot two rolls from a bulk load I bought about 5 years ago and developing in Rodinal and HC-110 it doesn't appear to achieve its rated speed of ISO 80. Processed in Rodinal i reckon it would be closer to ISO 25 and it's at least
1 - 1.5 stops slower in HC-110.

I use it infrequently and I don't think I'll chase down any more. TMX and FP4 are my current medium speed choices, usually with a yellow or yellow-green filter.

 

[markjwyatt]

A few years ago I tried to compare the spectral sensitivity. So I shot several films outside on the same day around noon - without filter (Normal), then with Yellow, Green and Red. For sure not very scientific, just my two cents.

Interesting. One type of contrast or effect that colored filters give is differentiation between colors, as most modern pan films are designed to give a flat response. Foma 200 and to a little lesser degree Foma 400 really create a differentiation between RGB and CMY (Foma 400 a little less here). Foma 400 with a green filter is good also.

Did you just shoot that target pictured, or did you derive those densities from some other scene?

 

[Animalcito]

Interesting. One type of contrast or effect that colored filters give is differentiation between colors, as most modern pan films are designed to give a flat response. Foma 200 and to a little lesser degree Foma 400 really create a differentiation between RGB and CMY (Foma 400 a little less here). Foma 400 with a green filter is good also.

Did you just shoot that target pictured, or did you derive those densities from some other scene?

I used a target made up of several items on a grayish background, see picture attached. The gray card at the bottom was used for metering. The gray card was then also used as reverence point when enlarging the negatives, trying to get the prints as similar as possible. Later the prints were scanned and on the computer I only cut out the upper part you saw in the pdf file for easy comparison.

Beside the increased red sensitivity of Foma 400, Kentmere 400 seems to be a bit more sensitive to blue.

 

[pentaxuser]

So how is everything going in terms of you reaching a conclusion, George? I note that you had a yellow filter on order but I am not clear if you have settled on a film yet to use it with. Most films except one of the long discontinued Kodak films seem to have drawbacks for you and Kodachrome wasn't one that needed a yellow filter

So any decision yet?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[markjwyatt]

I used a target made up of several items on a grayish background, see picture attached. The gray card at the bottom was used for metering. The gray card was then also used as reverence point when enlarging the negatives, trying to get the prints as similar as possible. Later the prints were scanned and on the computer I only cut out the upper part you saw in the pdf file for easy comparison.

Beside the increased red sensitivity of Foma 400, Kentmere 400 seems to be a bit more sensitive to blue.

Thanks for sharing- a really useful study. With that still in my mind, while walking by the beach yesterday I noticed a patio with I think 5 plastic lounge chairs each a different color (Like G, R, Cyan, Y,...). I took a picture with ADOX CHS 100 II and (I believe) a M-Y filter (may have been deep Y, but I think Medium; hopefully I can figure out later which, because I changed within that 20 minutes as light was dropping). Not sure how ADOX CHS 100 II will respond (it was not in your study- maybe APX 100 is close, but that is a stretch), but Fomopan 200 would likely have given good differentiation of tones while TMax 400 with no filter may have been two tones at best per your study.