In praise of Kentmere

Two years ago I shot a handful of rolls of Kentmere 100 and 400. I saw a lot to like ($40 for a bulk roll! From a company dedicated to supporting B&W!), but I quickly found a lot of things I didn't like. The D76 dev times are long, the film is a pain to load in the reels, and the nail in the coffin for me at the time, it scans like crap on my V600. So I'd just spend a couple of bucks more per roll and go with HP5 or Delta.

After last night in the darkroom, I've changed my tune on Kentmere. The negatives (processed in D76, and shot using the guidance of my OM40's light meter) are beautifully dense. There is a tonne of dynamic range (a little bit of dodging and burning made a world of difference from the work print). The scans suggeted nasty grain, but in fact it is a really nice grain. It is very crisp and high contrast, making it easy to focus in the grain finder, but on the print it doesn't feel intrusive at all (5x7 prints have essentially no grain).

For the past few nights I've been printing from C41 films (talk about hard to find grain) and some very thin (my error) rolls of Plus-X. The difference from those to the Kentmere is just a wonderfully pleasant surprise.

So there you go, if you've been put off Kentmere because of scans you've seen, but haven't used it in a darkroom, it's well worth trying.

I understand that Ilford are suing all the scanner makers. It is ruining their products' reputation

Seriously though a lot of film problems discussed here on APUG seem to be scanner problems and not film problems.

pentaxuser

all problems are related to . . . . you guessed it! digital. The bane of our existence!

Agreed - I have a lovely print I did with 400 at box speed. But the scans look awful, like you push processed fp4 to 800 iso or something.

I don't have problems with Kentmere, scans and prints.

But I stopped to use d76, before I started to use Kentmere.

Tighten up your temperature control to +/- 1ºC at all stages including washing and the apparent graininess in scans will almost certainly disappear.

Kodak had a huge problem with apparent graininess with their films and the first Digital Minilabs which scanned the negatives. They ahd to improve the hardening.

Ian

I quite like Kentmere 400, specifically the grain, in Xtol. It also made me curious about the 100 flavor, but haven't tried it yet. Unfortunately K400 is about to disappear from the German market (at least in 36 exp. rolls), so I will have to turn to one of its clones instead.

Where have you that information about Kentmere 400 on the german marked from?

Regards,
Chomper

Chomper said:

Where have you that information about Kentmere 400 on the german marked from?

Regards,
Chomper

Click to expand...

Yes and what's worse is that there was a thread on this only a few days ago and Simon Galley replied to the effect that Kentmere was not being withdrawn and why would it? Why would any company withdraw a product that it makes to sell to consumers???

pentaxuser

gzinsel said:

all problems are related to . . . . you guessed it! digital. The bane of our existence!

Click to expand...

Not quite....

pentaxuser said:

I understand that Ilford are suing all the scanner makers. It is ruining their products' reputation

Seriously though a lot of film problems discussed here on APUG seem to be scanner problems and not film problems.

pentaxuser

Click to expand...

Scanning technique has always been under rated by the novice. Unlike the darkroom, all it takes is a good neg to make a decent print. Like the darkroom, to master may take a lifetime.

ok maybe I was over simplifying "a bit too much"

Life is good.... don't sweat it.

The photo won't win any awards, but I was really pleased with how easy it was to print and the over all dynamic range (in the straight print those rocks are just white with no details)

I always enjoyed Kentmere 400. It has a beautiful stony look. It was my favorite and official film negative for street photography until I found Formapan 400 with lower proice.

I don't understand the prejudice many people have about Kentmere and Formapan negatives. For me they are better than HP5, Fuji and kodak because they have their very own look and quality. hP5 is very good but very genetal look and I don't like Kodak negatives unless the large format ones.

I recently tried Kentmere 100, and really like it after the first roll. Developed 19:30 in Arista Premium Liquid Developer 1:9, 30s agitation, then two inversions every minute. Prints right to Grade 2 paper with great contrast range. I usually print 5x7s from 35mm and the grain looks great

Here are two more images of Kentmere 100, developed in D76 1+1, and printed on 5x7.

Always found Kentmere 400 to be a good product with nice results at a very cheap price. Next time I see a load, I'll probably buy a lot in.

MattKrull said:

Here are two more images of Kentmere 100, developed in D76 1+1, and printed on 5x7.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing.
I especially like the first one.

I started shooting bulk Kentmere 400 out of frugality and had the same experience, it's picky about what developer you use; I settled on X-Tol and when I started darkroom printing, i was pleased with how the grain looked. Not at all like a scan.

I don't have any problem using Kentmere 400 or Foma 400 for most of my 35mm.
I don't mind grain.