RE: "I see a lot of black and white, very little grey tones."
Some, including Ferrania, have said commercial labs tend to produce too-contrasty results. In <
this discussion> from Feb. 2018, James Tocciho talks to Ferrania US director David Bias, who says:
"More than any other black-and-white film on the market, the developer that you use really affects the final image..." and,
"...Ferrania, on the other hand, has produced a different type of film. With high silver content and roots in cinema stock, P30 responds best when processed as a cinema film would be processed; in a low-contrast developer like D-96 and with continuous gentle agitation."
“I think the best thing for users to do is decide if they want really high contrast images or if they want something closer to that ideal tone. If you want contrast, send it to a lab. If you want tone, develop at home. That way you can control the development process and the scanning and post-processing.”
In their PDF document, "FERRANIA P30® BEST PRACTICES" <
available here> Ferrania say:
"Hand processing is best. P30 is a unique film, and we have found hands-on processing to yield the most consistent results. Listed below are developers and techniques we recommend for a small tank environment."
But that document does go on to say "Lab processing is ok, too" - and they provide suggested times, temps, and agitation routines for developers other than D-96.
Edit: this was a reply to Scott Micciche - but after going back through the thread, I realized Scott clearly knows a lot more about P30 than most - certainly more than me. So I removed the quote, because Scott already knows all this. But there may be other members in the group who, like me, may be just now learning about this film.
