Most contrasty, yet versatile B/W 35mm film?

PGraham3 · Dec 11, 2017

Howdy, APUG!
I understand there are many variables at hand, but in your experience shooting indoors and outdoors amid having low-light or plenty of light, in your opinion, what have you found is the most contrasty, yet versatile B/W 35mm film?

It would also be cool if you are able to share a photo example with camera and lens used. Thanks!
-Paul

Minoltafan2904 · Dec 11, 2017

Well the obvious general purpose fast contrasty black and white film is ofcourse old faithful Tri-X or HP5.
I think T-Max 400 is unfairly underrated and still delivers a pretty good amount of contrast and pretty fine grain.

zanxion72 · Dec 11, 2017

Slow films usually offer high contrast. Other than that, over-development can increase contrast. Try underexposure combined with overdevelopment (push processing) to get higher contrast and experiment with it to get the result you desire.

Ian Grant · Dec 11, 2017

Fomapan films are the most contrasty normal B&W films, they are easy to tame though.

Ian

MattKing · Dec 11, 2017

For clarity, when you refer to "contrast" are you referring to the slope of the curve or to the relationship between DMax (highlights) and DMin (shadows) on the negative. When I use "contrast" I mean the former.
My suggestion would be T-Max 400 with increased development.
One caution though. If you are looking to print optically, it makes sense to look for the extra contrast in your film and developer. If you are planning to scan the film, the extra density that comes with increased contrast in a lot of films makes scanning more of a challenge. If scanning, it may make more sense to look for moderate contrast from the film and developer, and use the digital controls available to boost the contrast of the final result.

E. von Hoegh · Dec 11, 2017

MattKing said:
For clarity, when you refer to "contrast" are you referring to the slope of the curve or to the relationship between DMax (highlights) and DMin (shadows) on the negative. When I use "contrast" I mean the former.
My suggestion would be T-Max 400 with increased development.
One caution though. If you are looking to print optically, it makes sense to look for the extra contrast in your film and developer. If you are planning to scan the film, the extra density that comes with increased contrast in a lot of films makes scanning more of a challenge. If scanning, it may make more sense to look for moderate contrast from the film and developer, and use the digital controls available to boost the contrast of the final result.

Second that. When T-Max films were first introduced there were many complaints of uncontrollable contrast, sometimes high and sometimes low. This was due in part to people being lax about consistent time temp and agitation, the first T-max developers were not very forgiving IIRC.
Try developing with various amounts of extra agitation.

R.Gould · Dec 11, 2017

I would go with Fomapan for a lot of contrast, and as Ian says easily tamed
Richard

1kgcoffee · Dec 11, 2017

I like acros, but it's not so good for shooting indoors. In that case I would choose tri-x and push it a few stops

destroya · Dec 11, 2017

rollei retro 80s

Sirius Glass · Dec 11, 2017

Any film will do. Just add 15% more development time and you will have added contrast.

Ko.Fe. · Dec 11, 2017

TMAX 400. It is so good for what you are asking for, no examples needed. Nor I have good ones. Just bunch of scans. I quit from TMAX films once they hit "why bother" price mark. Shortly after it I learned how to deal with adding more contrast on prints

GarageBoy · Dec 12, 2017

TMAX 400 is straight as it gets, add contrast in printing or bend the shape with different developers

darkosaric · Dec 12, 2017

I would strongly advise to add contrast in printing phase, and develop the film normally. After time you could change your taste - and then you will have possibility to print with lower contrast. This is what happened to me, 5-6 years later I reprinted many photos with much lower contrast.

BradS · Dec 12, 2017

More contrasty and versatile than what? What film and developer and film dev technique (time, temperature and agitation regime) are you currently using?

Gerald C Koch · Dec 12, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Any film will do. Just add 15% more development time and you will have added contrast.

+1

As pointed out the brand of film is immaterial. Contrast is mainly determined by development. You can also get more contrast by using a harder paper.

BTW the two conditions of the OP are in conflict. Increased contrast would result in less versatility.

crumpet8 · Dec 12, 2017

A third vote for fomopan. I use 400 a lot without a filter and have nice contrast prints up to 16x20” (subjective of course). It’s cheap and consistent too!

ic-racer · Dec 12, 2017

Overdevelopment will remove most of the mid tones in most B&W films. Tech-Pan was designed for that, but many photographers tried to prevent it from being high contrast.

Currently, Ortho/Lithography film (like Ultrafin Ortho Litho in 35mm) is the best at that. No mid tones at all. They show an example on the film box:

ME Super · Dec 12, 2017

For me, the most versatile B& 35mm film is HP5+. It's a 400 speed film, and when shot as a negative you can get good photos shooting from EI100 all the way up to EI800 or EI1600.
I have a roll of HP5+ in the camera now that I'm going to shoot at EI1600 and send off to DR5 to have made into slides.

baachitraka · Dec 12, 2017

Ian Grant said:
Fomapan films are the most contrasty normal B&W films, they are easy to tame though.

Ian

+1 for Fomapan. 200 is allrounder.

Chuckwade87 · Dec 12, 2017

Anyone ever use Svema?

mooseontheloose · Dec 13, 2017

Another vote for Rollei 400s or 80s. Beautiful film but very contrasty in contrasty conditions. Versatile in that you can get regular black and white and infrared on the same roll of film.

iandvaag · Dec 13, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Any film will do. Just add 15% more development time and you will have added contrast.

darkosaric said:
I would strongly advise to add contrast in printing phase, and develop the film normally.

Gerald C Koch said:
BTW the two conditions of the OP are in conflict. Increased contrast would result in less versatility.

+1 to all of the above. If you want a versatile negative, you want low contrast film with a long stright line portion (aka linear dynamic range). This is why general-purpose photographic emulsions are designed to be low contrast (when developed "normally"), usually about 0.6: they are able to capture detail in both deep shadows and bright highlights. Contrast is "added" during printing, and this is the point where you are selecting which detail is important to the image, and which can be discarded. If you want more contrast in your images, I'd really recommend printing with a higher grade filter/paper, or if you are scanning, applying a steeper contrast curve to the image at that point.

If you really want something contrasty, (but not versatile at all as a camera negative), I agree with ic-racer, Ortho Litho film can almost be made to be 2-tone, with enough development.

I hope you find the images you are searching for!

Minoltafan2904 · Dec 13, 2017

The new Bergger Pancro 400 looks beautiful and contrasty.
I would not overdevelop to add contrast, you'll add grain too...

rpavich · Dec 14, 2017

Chuckwade87 said:
Anyone ever use Svema?

I have, i shot it at 100 (box is 64) and dev'd normally and it was very contrasty!

Minoltafan2904 said:
The new Bergger Pancro 400 looks beautiful and contrasty.
I would not overdevelop to add contrast, you'll add grain too...

I shot this too and the same thing applied...it made negs that were very contrasty at the recommended dev time. I really liked it but for the cost, just stuck with Tri-X and HP5.

Most contrasty, yet versatile B/W 35mm film?

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