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Which film do you prefer? About to buy another 100 ft bulk roll

CMorris327

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Medium Format
As I have used up my stock of Legacy Pro ISO 100, I am about to purchase another 100 foot bulk roll of film. Freestyle's Legacy Pro was not bad, but I am going to try another kind.
I am debating between Ilford HP5, Ilford Delta 100, Tri-x, and Plus-X. Although I have used these many times in the past, I cannot decide which one will be worth investing in.
I shoot everything from landscapes to landmarks, and everything in between (night, indoor, portrait, etc.). I enlarge up to 11x14, and would like minimal grain, but want it to still possess the classic film appearance so the 11x14's don't appear to be a digital image converted to grayscale.
If there are any films that you recommend, please inform me of them. As it comes down, my main decision is based on buying ISO 100 or 400 film.
Thanks
 
Maybe it's just me, but for that traditional film look, I just love Tri-X; it doesn't pretend to be something it isn't.
 
I haven't used the legacy Pro 100 but do shoot a fair amount of the 400 and it's pretty clean for 400 speed. Its real cheap.

Next would be tri X but I mostly shoot that in 120

11x14 from 35mm takes a bit of doing imo but it all depends on your ascetics.

If you can deal with the grain you cant beat the Arista Premium 400 from Freestyle (they have the AP 100 speed short date special right now but it's not bulk)
 
Ilford Delta 100 is finer grained but a little more digital than HP5+; can you not get FP4+? HP5+ or Tri-X would let you do some shooting indoors without flash while 100 will require flash obviously and even with flash may not offer the depth of field you need. I could probably get away with just shooting HP5+ and considered buying a 50 roll pack at B&H as it is about as cheap as bulk loading it. But I like using a few different films at times to suit my mood and the scene at hand so I usually like to have at least one fast and one slow film around.

I find HP5+ enlarges well to 11x14" when done carefully. My last rolls processed in DD-X came out beautifully. Delta 400 too really has just a bit more grain than Delta 100 even printed to 11x14". The grain will be most noticable in large areas of little detail like the sky.
 
Good ol' Tri-X! For sure! But got some Fuji Acros 100 (120rol) waiting in the fridge. Gonna have a taste of them very soon.
 
For me it's always been Plus-X. I first discovered it when I was in the millitary, and have been using it ever since. I will shoot Tri-X if I'm looking for a more grainy look, but for 90% of my MF work' I love the fine grain, and great tonal ranfe of PXP. The one film I really mis in Panatomic-X. I shot some back in the day, and even though it was prety slow (ISO 32) I blew up a 35mm neg to a little over 11x14, and it was just about as good as any MF neg I've shot. I need to shoot some more Ilford though , just to get a feel for it.
 
I use PlusX/Tmax and Tmax100/400 combination depending on what I want. Even with Tmax100 shot in medium format - which renders pretty much grain-less, it doesn't look like digital conversion. In 35mm format at 11x14 enlargement, you can see some grain. It's sharp and smooth but looks unique. Little too punchy for some applications.

I think the only thing you can do is get a few rolls and try them out yourself. What I think is good and what you think is good are probably not the same. Anyway, this is my recommendation.
 
PX 125 has been my favorite, but last time I went to B&H it looked like the price for a bulk roll had gone up to like $70.00. Yikes!
 
The more I print the more I like Delta and TMax.
 
I like 400TX, but I that said, if you are really on the fence why not buy a roll of each film you are looking at, and shoot them. This will not only show you what film you want to buy and shoot this time around, but it will also give you an archive of all these films that you can look back at next time you plan to buy bulk film. Having a library of test shots can be a great starting place when you are looking for a given results. To paraphrase Gene Simons lead singer of Kiss "Do you know why libraries are expensive to stock? Because it's worth it". Four rolls of film will run you about $30 tops, but what is the education you will gain from this worth to you? I bet it's far more than $30 worth of education.
 

To answer your question more specifically, you can't go wrong with Kodak's Plus-X or Tri-X. These are both classic and very well behaved films that have stood test of time. Now, does that mean I think the others you've mentioned are bad. Not in the least, but your initial choice of Legacy Pro 400 indicates that you're not averse to saving a few bucks if you don't have to give up a quality product to do so. Well, you're in luck if you live in the US. Freestyle is carrying the "Arista Premium" line of films. These films are re-labeled Plus-X and Tri-X and sell for a lot less than the Kodak branded items. For example Arista premium 400 sells for 35% less than Kodak branded Tri-x, while Arista Premium 100 sells for whopping 57% less than Freestyle's retail price for Plus-X. You can't beat that with a stick. I'm a long time Plus-X and Tri-X user so you can trust me on this one, these films are identical to Tri-X and Plus-X in every way except for the labeling and the rebate markings.

...and BTW, it's not a bad idea to pick up an extra bulk loader or two, along with a few re-loadable cassettes. They're cheap as dirt these days on the used market, so keep your eye open for ones that are in good shape.
 
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