Making B&W photos out of color films

Egomonster · Aug 15, 2004

what would be the best film for this purpose? do I remember right, that some color didn't show at all in this way (red maybe?)?

oriecat · Aug 15, 2004

I am not understanding. If you know you want B&W why not use B&W film?

mentos_007 · Aug 15, 2004

it's better to buy b&w film because you will get really better contrast. If you want to have only a few shots in black and white why not buy a 16 still film... ( I don't know if that's a correct word so... a film with 16 photos on it)

photoman · Aug 15, 2004

I know kodak makes b&w paper specifically designed for color negatives (i dont know what it is called though)

Walt · Aug 15, 2004

Try Kodak 400CN. It's developed with C41 and has very good results. I've tried it a few times and if I wasn't messing around in the darkroom I would use it fairly regularly.

Walt · Aug 15, 2004

Here are some examples of 400CN. Remember these are just quick scans and cropped to varying degrees.

havoc · Aug 15, 2004

So if you buy the Kodak C41 B&W film, can you still make prints yourself using normal B&W paper. or do the negs look different then say a D76 processed roll?

And if anyone knows the name of paper for B&W from color film, please let me know. I would love to try it.

Walt · Aug 15, 2004

I'm fairly new to developing and have just been using Agfa developer. The prints seem to be fine from these negatives, again, with my limited experience. I have seen some people say that the results aren't quite as good. If you don't do your own darkroom work I would imagine an enlargement from a lab with the usual color equipment qould yied decent results as that's what the 4X6 prints were.

Walt · Aug 15, 2004

I'm fairly new to developing and have just been using Agfa developer. The prints seem to be fine from these negatives, again, with my limited experience. I have seen some people say that the results aren't quite as good. If you don't do your own darkroom work I would imagine an enlargement from a lab with the usual color equipment qould yied decent results as that's what the 4X6 prints were.

Egomonster · Aug 16, 2004

...this time I want BOTH color and B&W pictures. I mean, I want to take normal travel photos in color, and then make B&W enlargements out of the best ones... (They need to be colorphotos because I'm going to offer them for a newspaper as well - this newspaper prefers color photos). I only have one good camera so can't use one for each film...

Karalee · Aug 16, 2004

Could you just have the shots scanned in and convert them in a photo editing suite?

Egomonster · Aug 16, 2004

Hmm... I c ould do that but I need big prints, so I'd prefer developing them myself. What a dilemma I have here!

ksmattfish · Aug 16, 2004

Havoc said:
And if anyone knows the name of paper for B&W from color film, please let me know. I would love to try it.

Kodak Panalure

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/g27/g27.jhtml

So if you buy the Kodak C41 B&W film, can you still make prints yourself using normal B&W paper. or do the negs look different then say a D76 processed roll?

It depends. Some C41 BW is for traditional printing (Ilford XP2 for instance) and has a clear (or mostly clear) base, and some is for printing on color paper in 1 hour labs. The 1-hour stuff has an orange base like color print film. The orange base (from color or BW neg) can make it difficult to get the proper contrast when using regular BW paper, particularly multi-graded paper.

My experience with printing on gelatin silver paper with color negs is that they tend to be low contrast, and the grain is more pronounced in BW than color.