Why shoot black and white or chromogenic film to scan?

I've been experimenting with film for about a year now and scanning with an Epson 4180 flatbed scanner. Mostly I've scanned slide and colour negative films, especially portra 160nc and velvia 100 slide film. My few results with black and white film did not come out as well. First, I don't develop it myself, so I'm missing the opportunity to tailor the developer and develop time to the look I want to get. Second, I think the scanner lacks enough Dmax (it's rated 3.4) to cover black and white film adequately. My questions are:

1. For scanning, why shoot chromogenic film, such as Ilford XP2, when C41 colour negative film can be converted to black and white after scanning and offers the added ability to apply the effect of coloured filters in post processing, e.g. orange filter to darken sky?

2. Can the "look" of black and white film be replicated using colour negative film and post-scanning black and white conversion?

For me, ( do my own developing ) those films are going to fade. Sooner or later they fade.

I have negatives that are over 60 years old that I can still print. I recently was looking at some negatives for a family member shot on a chromogenic film that have faded and they have been kept in an archival box away from light and extreme heat.

I am sure someone will come along with more scanning experience and skill than I and give you some tips

Second, I think the scanner lacks enough Dmax (it's rated 3.4) to cover black and white film adequately.

This may be an issue for contrasty transparencies, but not b&w negatives. Do you have negatives that
have a dmax > log 2.x? Trouble scanning b&w is often related to the scanning workflow ...

Thanks for the feedback. @ann, I agree there is nothing like black and white silver film for longevity, but it's not my primary concern, since I doubt I will return to scan the film again after many years. @pschwart, on closer examination of my black and white negative scans, I think the problem is not dynamic range, but perhaps the negatives were very curved and were touching the flatbed scanner platen. The main problem is newton's rings visible in the deep shadows; i.e. areas where the negative was very thin. However, the problem for me with black and white film remains that I don't develop it myself, so I'm at the mercy of whatever developer the one lab in town that still processes it uses, which may not be a good match for the film. Anyway, I've purchased a roll of Kodak BW400CN today to try. I can get it developed at the 1 hour place near my home, and the chemistry for C41 is all standardized and shouldn't influence the results. I'll compare it to converting C41 colour film scans to black and white.

I can see no point in shooting any type of black & white film if the only end product is a digital print made either by inkjet or on RA4 paper. Although many folk on APUG would disagree, it is entirely possible to produce excellent black & white prints from converted colour images, whether scanned or camera originated and nearly every wedding photographer on earth does it routinely - some better than others, the best actually visualising the scene in mono when they take the photo. However, you will not achieve excellence using a cheap "photo" inkjet with only a single black ink but surprisingly RA4 paper that uses only CMY dye layers can produce great monochrome if exposed, filtered and processed precisely.

I still use some black & white film but only when I want to print on real silver-based paper. I think there is a "look" using traditional film and paper that cannot be replicated digitally but it is a two-way street because good digital black & white has its own "look" that film cannot replicate. To my mind both have inherent beauty and one is not better than the other - just different. OzJohn

B&W film does have its use in making digital prints. The old large format film equipment I've used for decades can produce scanned B&W images that certainly compete with my soon to be obsolete DSLR. Replacing the film equipment would cost less than many new DSLRs. The cameras have some capabilities that are rare in DSLRs. I often prefer digital capture for convenience and for color photography, but film has some distinct advantages. Photo equipment, whether film or digital, is just a tool. The most appropriate tool should be chosen for the occasion.

OzJohn said:

I can see no point in shooting any type of black & white film if the only end product is a digital print made either by inkjet or on RA4 paper.

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Regular black and white film is far cheaper than color, at least in sheet film sizes. It's also easier and cheaper to develop. Filters are easy enough to use. That, and the look, are why I still use it.

hsandler said:

2. Can the "look" of black and white film be replicated using colour negative film and post-scanning black and white conversion?

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No.

There have been others that say they can get the same results with color film or chromogenic. That depends on how you print. One of them mentioned wedding photographers. This is a particular type of fairly contrasty print, as most commercial prints are. If you want your prints to look like that, go ahead and shoot digital, no need to use film at all. I'm not being disparaging here, its just the reality.

However, if you want a full range of tones, as many b&w artists do, then you can not get this with color. Nor with chromogenic. B&W film still rules. My prints have the range and tonality of platinum prints. You can't do it with color film. Or with digital, for that matter. You need well processed film, good inks, proper balance of the inks with color mgmt techniques, good paper and sensitive eyes.

Lenny

Two points here: first, getting this out of the way: if you want good results, a flatbed is not the way to do it. I've been copying negs with my Nikon D300, and it's working better than any flatbed I've had access to, specifically referring to mushiness and lost detail. If I upgrade my camera some day, it will be specifically for this job, but for now D300 quality is certainly adequate for me. If you have a dedicated setup you can snap the camera into, the camera is a lot faster, too, scans taking on the order of 1/200sec rather than minutes, and you can bracket, too, if you want to, worrying about the details later.

Second, developing B&W film is really not difficult. I use D23, using a recipe made with kitchen measuring spoons (1t metol, 4T sodium sulfite, 32oz water). All you need is a tank and reels, thermometer, some bottles to hold your chemicals, a bottle of distilled water from the grocery store, and fix. My whole kit fits in a dishpan. Once you learn it, it takes MUCH less time than a trip to the mini-lab, is a lot cheaper, and will give you better negs than you're paying someone else for now.

Conclusion: if you're looking for good B&W quality, skip the funny films and the mini-lab. You'll be happier with the results. My flickr page has some recent results. Thanks to a comment on another site, I solved my last problem, alignment, so the last couple of "scans" are the best.

@mdarnton, ah crap, i was afraid someone was going to tell me i had to develop real b&w myself and get rid of the flatbed. love the portrait " jim in smoke" on your flickr page by the way.

@lenny, actually i just got back my roll of kodak bw400cn and it looks pretty good to me compared to my black and white digital. however my own flatbed scans at 2400 dpi are clearly not as sharp as the minilabs low res scans of 1840 pixels on the long side of the 35mm frame, so the technique or the scanner is clearly lacking. the film has a nice look though to my eye. i take your advice in the context of your work, which i can see is many levels above what i aspire to do with my film work at this point.

anyway, another roll of new portra 160 did not produce the crisp and wide tonal capture of the bw400cn when converted to black and white.

mdarnton said:

if you want good results, a flatbed is not the way to do it.

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I think this statement is too categorical. A flatbed may produce fine results depending on: quality of the scanner and film holders, scanning skills, size of the film and degree of enlargement. And let's not forget that not all flatbeds are low-end consumer models. If I had room I wouldn't mind owning a Creo ...

Update: This month I acquired a Bronica ETRsi for medium format 6x4.5 and 75mm lens. I shot a variety of films to try to choose one or two to standardize on. Three colour films: Fuji 400H, Portra 400 and Ektar, two black and white films commercially developed in HC110: Tmax100 and Delta 100, and one chromogenic film XP2 Super. While the colour results, particularly with Ektar and Portra are great in colour, I do find I can't seem to achieve the same tonality and sharpness when I convert them to black and white in Photoshop with the black and white adjustment layer and curves as compared to just straight scans and very simple C shaped curves applied to the black and white films. In particular, reducing the blue channel to darken the sky gives a blotchy effect like big soft grain, somewhat like noise in the blue channel of a digital camera. This really surprised me, because I thought if anything, darkening blue would work better from a film scan where the blue channel should not have more noise than any other channel. So I'm going to focus on black and white films for black and white. I have to say the XP2 Super is quite impressive; really sharp and wide dynamic range. The TMax was sort of meh compared to Delta 100, but to be fair, I shot the whole roll on an overcast day, whereas I shot the Delta on a bright sunny day with a polarizing filter and contrasty subject matter. The Delta 100 is super sharp and the grain fine, but still more grain than the XP2 Super when scanned on my cheap Epson 4180 at 2400 ppi.

I need to repeat the comparison scanned on an Epson V750, to which I now have access. I understand grain aliasing is very dependent on the match of film to scanner and scanner settings. I just want to minimize it. Also, I was able to pick up a developing tank, thermometer and reel for $2 at a flea market, so I'm going to try home developing; hopefully I can get finer grain than the commercial lab which uses HC110.

I did film tests last year. I would suggest you try Xtol 1:1 for some really tight grain (and Pyro). I can tell you that TMax is not a meh film. I happen to like Delta better, but the difference is about .05%. I was able to get excellent results from both films (and from Efke 25 and TMY2). If you are just trying home developing, you are new at this, yet you are making statements that good, careful research will not support.
You are also using an Epson 750 which is not a good scanner, its a consumer level scanner, it is not a sharp-as-a-tack drum scanner. You can't make proper comparisons with any authority with that device.
Your results are valid - for you. You didn't have luck with one film or a developer, etc. However, if you can't see a difference between what color film can do in b&w, chromogenic film and what well exposed and well developed b&w film can do, then it isn't the film or the developers, its that you and your processes that are not as well tuned as they could be.
As of this summer I've been developing film for 50 years. I spent a tremendous amount of time in the darkroom, did all the alternative processes (majored in platinum) and now have the scanning and inkjet beast well in hand, making prints with inkjet as exquisite as any of the alternative processes.
There's certainly no harm in reporting one's results, but you have to be careful when other beginners might read your posts and follow you. I've made the mistake of suggesting a film isn't good and found myself to be wrong some time later. It isn't a good feeling. I am much more careful now to say what I know and what I think I know and make a clear distinction between them.

Lenny

lenny said:

You are also using an Epson 750 which is not a good scanner, its a consumer level scanner, it is not a sharp-as-a-tack drum scanner. You can't make proper comparisons with any authority with that device.

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I am going to disagree on this point. If all his scans are done using an Epson V750, then careful comparisons using that scanner with a consistent workflow will be valid. The Epson is a good consumer flatbed; it's not a drum scanner or even a dedicated film scanner. That doesn't mean it's not a useful tool.

pschwart said:

I am going to disagree on this point. If all his scans are done using an Epson V750, then careful comparisons using that scanner with a consistent workflow will be valid. The Epson is a good consumer flatbed; it's not a drum scanner or even a dedicated film scanner. That doesn't mean it's not a useful tool.

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In general I wouldn't disagree with you.

However, when one is measuring sharpness of film, I would say that it is useless. The thing isn't sharp. There are plenty of good photographers that use these and they are usually very experienced with a variety of sharpening techniques. But the results don't come off the scanner sharp - at all.

I would also question any CCD scanner in a contest of "range" vs PMT's. I don't mean shear high or low, but the number of tones from zone 5 to 6, for example. The flatbeds don't pull all the tones out of a piece of film like PMT's. Now the Creo folks will get all upset but I just don't see it with that technology. Resolution is another matter...

I can't really speak to how one judges what constitutes "good" in a consumer category. I will leave that to you.... but I suppose if its useful to you then perhaps that settles it...

Regards,

Lenny

EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing

Just pointing out that it's not always a scanner contest. Labels like "consumer" and "pro" don't really matter. In the end, it's about what tools and workflows can be used to create compelling images.

pschwart said:

Just pointing out that it's not always a scanner contest. Labels like "consumer" and "pro" don't really matter. In the end, it's about what tools and workflows can be used to create compelling images.

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I agree... some people paint. Some people use really crappy cameras. It's all their expression and as such, valid...

My images do require a lot of print quality for me. Or, at least for me to feel like I am successful. But it isn't for everyone, certainly.

Lenny

Late entry into this thread, regarding Epson sharpness. I recently purchased Doug Fischer's mounting system that allows you to place the negative in the plane of sharpest focus on the scanner. The improvement over the OEM film holders is substantial. The amount of sharpening needed post scan for me has been reduced to almost nothing. You do have to commit an afternoon to the focusing process, but it is worth it. I still don't see any improvement in resolution from about 3200 dpi on, but I can now see slight improvements in resolution right up to 3200. So it's no Coolscan but it is much better than out of the box performance.

I suspect that if I could remove the center portion of the epson's base glass the scan quality would approach the Nikon film scanner, but that is just a guess - I'm not going to go that far with it (but would love to hear from anyone who has tried it)!

I am not affiliated with Doug's company (www.betterscanning.com) but do heartily endorse the product.

I have also tried the digital camera scanning approach. It is certainly fast, and for images targeted to the web it is fine. I like it for very quick proofs. But at least in my case, I get better resolution and tonal quality from a careful scan with the (tuned) Epson, especially in smaller formats like 35mm, with the caveat that I did not have a lens on my Nikon that allowed close enough focus of 35mm to get full sensor coverage. That's a big caveat for 35mm I know. But I wasn't going to buy a new lens just for that...

For me, if I want it really quick, I use the Nikon camera. If I want a good quality scan I'll use the Epson. for those images I intend to make high quality large prints, I'll invest in a commercially done drum scan (until I get my darkroom rebuilt).


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