Color film for scanning then b&w conversion

[AlanKlein]

I've done what you're suggesting. I shot RB67 Tmax 100 BW negative film and converted Velvia 50 slide film to BW. LR gave me a lot of flexibility with changing the tones with the color film when converting. BW film is more "pure". I haven't decided what I like better. But I'm not a pro, so I don't have to make a decision.

Here is a picture taken with Velvia 50 and scanned on an EPson flatbed V600. The BW was adjusted in LR for tones.
Crooked fence
Crooked Fence in B/W

Here are two other shots The first is Tmax 100BW and the second is Velvia 50 converted to BW
Stumps 2
Stumps

My recommendation would be to try it both ways and see what you like. Only you can make that determination as these aesthetic things are so personal. Good luck.

 

[mrca]

Alan, thanks. You are absolutely right. I'm not a purist, if I was, I would be printing in the wet darkroom so like you, I do a hybrid approach, shoot film, scan, edit and print digitally. But I am interested in retaining the differences between MF film and full frame digital. When I shoot a session, I can't blow exposure on the shot of the day using a transparancy, plus I absolutely love the color palette of Portra 400. I am usually enlarging to max 16x20 or 20x20 and the grain of 400 looks wonderful on MF. However if I am looking for the sharpest, grain free scan, I would use Provia with meticulous metering and consider using it in color as well as converted to b&w. It could always be adjusted for color in post as you did. I agree, it is an artistic decision up to the photographer. You posted some gorgeous shots demonstrating the reasons many of us shoot mf film. When asked why, I like to mess with digital folks who question shooting mf film and tell them I wanted to take off the training wheels. But the quality of your images really explains why.

 

[Derrel]

Why would you "blow the exposure"? It seems to me that you are disqualifying a lot of really good high resolution medium format film with this idea that you would somehow meter incorrectly and thereby "blow the exposure". That doesn't sound like the mrca that we know.

 

[mrca]

Thanks, Darrel, but silly mistakes like changing from a 160 iso to 3200 film back but leaving my meter set at 160 iso was fortunately caught with a test digital photo. But had I by passed that precaution, would have clicked away with exposure way off. With the limited range of slide film, that could be a mess. Funny, I shot slides, ektachrome or Kodachrome for my personal work for decades and didn't use a hand held meter with no problem at least for my standards for personal work then. My meter is calibrated to my camera sensor and the rare times I shoot landscapes will place the brightest detail highlight right at the exact clipping point. Interestingly, I attended Scott Kelby's gallery show last week here in Oldsmar and his indoor shots of wonderful buildings interiors in Europe was stunning. He indicated he bracketed 2 stops either side and usually combined only the center and overexposed to open the shadows. I am particularly cautious at $2.50 a click so I first incident meter, then spot meter checking placement of shadows then do a test digital shot to check the shadows on the histogram under each new lighting setup, but in a hurry, can bypass some safeguards. Even though I can get an "accurate" meter reading, on more extreme lighting situations, I can get blocked up shadows on film. Hence, the check for placing shadows with a spot reading. I also take an incident reading of mid tones and another for shadows. With film, I still come up with a suprise occasionally even though I check and re check my my reading. Any metering suggestions?