Dear Colleagues,
Sally Mack wrote:
For those of you who use film, what do you use and why? What are your favored shooting conditions and subjects? Have you tried a film that you especially disliked? Why?
When I shoot 35mm b&w I prefer the following:
TMAX 3200 (although recently I've used Ilford 3200) In both cases I use them at an EI of 1600. I develop them in Rodinal. I find TMAX's grain structure nicer, although the Ilford emulsion isn't too bad.
FP4+ again, developed in Rodinal (hey -- I develop *everything* in Rodinal). I like the look of this film and it's pretty forgiving.
TechPan, my all time favorite, but you have to be careful of the SBR because it's really easy to lost the shadow detail or blow out the highlights. Extreme dilutions of Rodinal have a compensating effect during development (with minimal aggitation).
I used to really like AgfaPan APX 100, actually I wnder why I don't shoot it any more. Do they still make it? Perhaps the places I buy film either don't stock it or hide it really well. I generally used EI 50 for this
My unfavorites are TMAX 100 (even in the TMAX dev)
5x4 I have used FP4+ for all sorts of stuff. It's forgiving and easy to print.
For 35mm colour work I have used a variety of Kodak emulsions. I normally use the NC 160, but recently when all the shop had was UC 160 I tried that. I was actually quite impressed by it. With the generally flat and uninteresting light you get from camera mounted bounce flash it gives a good looking result.. I tend to shoot these at EI 125. I know it's only a 1/3 stop over exposure and nobody's going to notice, but it makes me feel a little more secure about the shadow detail.
I generally pack a couple of rolls of 400 ISO just in case...
I tested my first roll of UC 160 outside with fairly contrasty natural lighting, and it performed well. I was actually pretty surprised. Actually I think the minilab in the shopping centre was quite surprised too. The poor operator was scratching his head because he'd never come across that film before and his expensive auto everything machine didn't know how to handle it. Whatever he did was quite acceptable for me. Many of the images were taken with my 200/2.8 and I'm sure from his comments that he'd never seen images with a shallow DOF before :-D
Best UnBob
