Does all b/w film (same speed film) looks the same after scanning

I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE THIS BUT....I'm finding that films of the same speed more or less give me the same look when scanned.....can you give me your opinions on this? For example...T-Max 100 looks the same to me as Acros 100 and so on after i scan it.....having used the same developer for the films and the same scanning technique of course.....

T-Max 100 and Acros 100, and Ilford Delta for that matter, have rather similar grain structures to one another. If you compare them to a traditional emulsion like FP4+ or PlusX, they will look quite different.

It also depends on how you're scanning. If you're using anything short of a very high end scanner, then odds are you're seeing digital noise superimposed on a partially resolved grain structure, in part because the grain size will be smaller than the true optical resolution of the device.

Finally, I have drum scanned a lot of my own B&W film lately (generally at an aperture of 11 microns, which is larger than most B&W film grains), and I find that the grain structure of Tmax is very hard to resolve (at least grain for grain) as compared with FP4+ and HP5+. And and if on a drum scanner I'm having difficulty actually resolving Tmax grains at 11 microns, then I have my doubts that you're really seeing the grains unless you happen to be using a drum at 6 or 3 microns to do your scanning.

That said, I don't really care about the grain structure. I actually find the look of Tmax and Acros quite unappealing, and I find that the darker shadows and brighter highlights on these films have a lot less detail than I'm used to getting from other films.

Apart grain structure (which is important, definitely), there's also the fact that: At times, the spectral response / sensitivity of the films can be quite different. (May or may not be noticed according to the subject matter...) Also, a film's response to a particular developer maybe different than another... In any case, if the conditions dictate different results (could be times that won't - other times that will...), they will be certainly apparent in the scans. Just be sure to test the films in various conditions and with various subject matters before drawing a firm conclusion.

Regards,
Loris.

drpablo said:

That said, I don't really care about the grain structure. I actually find the look of Tmax and Acros quite unappealing, and I find that the darker shadows and brighter highlights on these films have a lot less detail than I'm used to getting from other films.

Click to expand...

I have to say that in my work Tmax 100 and Fuji Acros scan beautifully and there is superb detail in all tonal areas of these negatives. These films have very, very fine grain and if you scan the film with too high of a resolution you will run out of detail but you will always see grain. It bears stating for the record that grain size is not a fixed thing. What we perceive as grain is actually clumps of silver grain, and you will always see it no matter what aperture or resolution you use because at its finest the clumps are so small they are much beyond the scale of resolution of any scanner.

The spectral response of both Tmax 100 and Fuji Acros is different from most panchromatic films in that Tmax has greater red sensitivity than most such films, and Acros has less. But for most scenes I find that the slight difference makes little or no difference in the final image quality, though some colors in the scene may be rendered differently.

I personally feel that a really great scan will minimize grain as much as possible. Some people like to see film grain structure in their photographs but I am not one of those persons. And grain definitely interferes with true resolution, though in some cases with wet processing it may enhance *apparent* sharpness.

Sandy King

Sandy, I didn't mean to imply that they didn't scan well. They scan better than most other B&W films with the sole exception (in my own experience) of Tech Pan. I find that Tech Pan scans "perfectly", and of course with peerless detail, though as with Tmax and Acros I find that these attributes are offset by its smaller dynamic range and less pleasing (to me) response curve.

The detail in all tonal areas is indeed excellent with Tmax and Acros, but the highlight detail just cuts out rather steeply and I find the soft highlight shoulder to be one of the greatest differentiators of film from digital.