B&W film 100 ISO. Which is the best?

[santino]

ahh thanks a lot

 

[ksmattfish]

What is comes down to is that while every photog is likely to have a favorite BW film, there is no single best BW film for all photograpers and situations.

If Ilford Delta 100 were cheaper than Ilford FP4 125, I would still use the FP4, because that's the film I've spent the last 5 years studying. That doesn't mean that FP4 is better than Delta, it's just my preference. I think that price is an important consideration because photography is expensive, but how much a certain BW film costs doesn't have much to do with how well the photographs will turn out.

 

[Dave_D]

Axel,
For a more direct answer to your question, here is a link to the fujifilm website. In reading it for myself, the only thing I see that is of interest is when the describe Neopan 100 it is only associated with the Acros name. The case may be that the acros name is a more up to date version of the film with finer grain.
http://www.fujifilm.com/JSP/fuji/epartners/proPhotoProductsNeopan.jsp
Dave

 

[Smith2688]

Hmm...very interesting, thank you Matt.

 

[Patrick]

I'm going to be an oddball but goto Freestyle's site and look for their Arista line of films. I tried it on a whem and found that hey...I like it... and it's cheap enough. The EDU stuff is like 1.69 a roll. For me, just really getting back into B&W again, it allows for alot of experimenting at a fraction of the cost.

 

[DocFrankenstein]

Huhhh?

Matt has explained it better than I ever could.

 

[montresor]

There are many professional photographers using C41 BW film. It has it's own pros and cons, and in some situations may be a better choice than traditional process BW film. I have used it quite successfully.

Sometimes I like to take out the crappiest camera I can find -- like the pink and yellow Barbie Queen of the Prom 35mm camera I got at a thrift store for a dollar and load it with C-41 B&W. That way I can drop it off at Walgreen's and not spend an arm and a leg processing what was exposed just for the fun of it anyway. Scary thing is, I've gotten some rather good shots with that plastic toy!

 

[Don Simon]

With regard to C41, doesn't the result also depend on whether colour or black & white paper is used? I would imagine a lot of shops would use colour by default unless you ask them for b&w.

 

[ksmattfish]

With regard to C41, doesn't the result also depend on whether colour or black & white paper is used? I would imagine a lot of shops would use colour by default unless you ask them for b&w.

Well, it's very rare for any regular lab to be using actual gelatin silver BW paper these days. Color paper creates the image using dyes with very little silver. There are BW papers available that only have monochrome dyes, and only produce neutral tones; not all labs use this stuff though..

Some of the C41 BW is designed for printing on color paper; that film will have the orange base that color film has, and should be easy to get neutral tones if the person at the machine knows what they are doing. C41 BW that has a clear base is designed for printing on regular gelatin silver BW papers.

If anyone is having problems getting color neutral BW from C41 BW film one of two things is going on: 1) They are using the wrong C41 BW film, or 2) Their lab doesn't really know what they are doing.

I don't use a lot of C41 BW film, but over the years I have used at least a few dozen rolls. None of the four pro labs I use have any problem printing it without a color cast (or they can print it with a color cast if I request it).