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Just edit?
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I haven't shot a range of films so cannot really offer advice other than to tell you what works for me, and maybe some of it will be applicable?
That would be, kentmere 400 devved in r09.
Kentmere because its cheap, £5 a roll if you shop around. I think I'd like more contrast, I think my images had this when I shot Tri-X (but equally could have been due to different cameras/lenses) but Tri-X is a fair bit more expensive. I was also doing enlargements and scanning those as opposed to the digitising via a digital camera that I do now.
R-09 because it lasts forever so it doesn't matter how much I shoot and how long the dev sits in the bottle in the cupboard.
I could post an example image but given that it'd have been digitised and then I'd have messed about with the contrast and stuff, there's probably no point.
Edit: Given that anything posted online has been digitised in some way and has probably been 'corrected', I'd recommend not getting too hung up on other people's results.
I don't like hard crops on my analogue images, I feel like that's a great way to make an image look digital (but this is probably a fairly controversial opinion). When I do enlargements I print the full frame plus a small amount of border and I like my scans/digitisations done similarly. Infact, moving forward I'll be using the same neg holder for enlargements and scans in order to have a consistant bit of the film border included.
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If you like Neopan and Tmax … those are both (relatively) high contrast, with above-average red sensitivity. So other films that fit that bill are;
Fomapan 400
Rollei Retro 400In my opinion both of these look good at EI 400. Foma can look good at EI 800 - which might (with extra dev temp/time) get you a contrast curve close to the examples you show. You might not feel you need a yellow/orange filter with these (because of their spectral sensitivity). With Kentmere or HP5 (and Tri-X/Double-X) you probably will. Both can be bought in 30.5m rolls and pretty cheap.
I would shortlist your developers based on practicalities first: how would it store and does that fit your usage. I’ve only really used off brand versions of Rodinal and Xtol in the last couple of years. I might try Pyro 510 but … I also might just keep things simple.
I’d echo @M_V ‘s point about overthinking this. Most scenes, on most films, can be quickly tweaked to look about the same. B&W film is like shoes. Most work. Not all are as comfy ☺️
{ love the 21stCenturyNorth bowlers shot }
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..looking for some feedback from the b&w connoisseurs in here!
Thanks in advance for your time! 🙂
So, after giving all my home-developement things away a couple years ago I now decided that I want to shoot black and white again (and also dev and scan it at home), at least in the winter months (because light & colours outside are shit anyway and I spend more time at home anyway).
I would like to settle on one film if possible, most likely ISO 400, but have difficulties deciding which one exactly - and also what developer to use.
This is where I'd love to hear some suggestions from you guys.
Some un-labeled images below (in case you wanna guess the film) that I like the look of, with links to the respective flickr pages etc. where it usually says what film and developer was used.
I tried to get more of an idea (by looking at flickr, also looking at film / dev combinations over at filmdev.org) what kind of film and developer gives me "the look I want", alas still having a hard time honestly, as there's so many variables / many ways to do things.
I want to settle on ISO 400, as I will likely shoot in the darker time of the year mostly, also will be shooting with an orange filter most of the time (not necessarily to bake-in more contrast but because it helps me so much to judge light intensities when looking through the finder (I shoot SLR only atm) - I'm really struggling to shoot b&w when my finder image is in full colour, frankly).
So there's a 1-stop light penalty due to the filter, also this means the film and developer shouldn't be overly contrasty by nature as the orange filter will already add contrast.
The film should also scan fairly well (still got an old but decent Quato Intelliscan a.k.a. Plustek dedicated 35mm scanner here, just need to set up a Windows 7 donkey again to be able to actually use it with Silverfast, haha), even though the end goal is to actually go to a lab and finally do some wet prints again 🥰 ..some time in the future I hope..
I'm finding it really hard to put into words what I'm after, "look-wise"..
..should be somewhat clean, but not sterile (basically: should not look "digital")
..it's ok if it looks like film, even if it looks like 35mm film, but doesn't need to be particularly "rough"
..I like smooth tones / gradients but don't like if 90% of the image is medium greys
..like "inky blacks", to a degree
..should be sharp / have some "bite", although T-Max 400 is almost a bit much in this regard
..I like the "honest, analogue look" of HP5 usually, although it's really quite "hard" on the eyes.
..as mentioned upthread I loved Neopan 400, this was "bold" and "inky" - but also "smooth".
I realize the film used is only half the battle, as choice of developer & method plays a big role as well - and this is the area where I hardly have any expertise, frankly (used some Ilford dev in my early days, and in the later years just dumped everything in Diafine) 💁♂️
Ok here's some pics -
(via packinglight on lomography)
(via Marc A on flickr)
(via John Wilson on flickr)
(via Bob Cummings on flickr)
(via xqionghex on flickr)
(via goshenhank on lomography)
(via sputnik_unlimited on lomography)
(via 21stCenturyNorth on flickr)
(via August on flickr)
..so the last one is Tri-X, for example - which I find nice oftentimes, yet a bit more "bite" would be appreciated. Also I regularly think Tri-X photos are not true b&w (but rather a bit sepia toned), yet actually they are just grey tones. The midtone-greys look brown-ish / "warm" to me. Does anybody else see this or am I crazy?
With T-Max is basically the other way around, they do appear "cool" to me, even though they're really just grey..
..maybe I have been looking at b&w images to long in the last couple of days 😵💫
The Delta 400 pics I usually find very nice (this is also quite close to what I want), but missing the inky-ness a bit, also they're often looking a bit "tidy" / "very well behaved".
So thanks again for your time,
I do appreciate any feedback / input on this ✌️