Hello everyone! I just got some stuff back, and I'm so stunned that all the shots on Kodak film are so annoyingly grainy, unsharp and too bloody dark! I've completely had it with anything that's got something to do with Kodak. T-max sucks....the T-max 100 is too unsharp, anything faster seems to be too grainy. The 400 TCN sucks ever more. Monochrome film doesn't seem to be as impressive as real b&w film. And I never really liked C41 anyway. I don't shoot b&w that often, but for fast film I like Neopan 1600 much better and for slow film Ilford is just superior. Like I said before the ektachrome is mighty sharp, but it just never seems to be able to give a bit of natural colors. It can be awesome, but for such expensive film like 20% of my shots are always underexposed. Very irregular film, as far as I've been able to test it. The Ekta 100 is just about the worst e6 film I've ever tried. It's just bloody aweful, it's the least impressive I've seen sofar and the 400 is even worse....it's the grainiest film I've ever seen, it doesn't offer any, any, any sharpness at all. Sofar I've only got one (1, uno, een, ein, one!) roll of satisfying results back. All the time for some reason from 36 shots about 10 are underexposed (I mean close to complete black slide), another 10 and unsharp, and of the remaining just between 10 or 5 hardly ever give me enough sharpness, or natural colors, or the exact exposure. Terrible stuff, if I can edit these shots I got back today I'll have to go back and shoot again.... I have to admit that kodak does have one of the best photography sites on the net. No idea why, lol. No, I'm just ranting here...don't take me too seriously. I also shot some stuff on Sensia II, which is really cheap, but it still amazes me how good this film is...for a consumer e6 film. Now why can't Kodak keep up with the other's ? Fuji is just my favorite with E6, and Ilford with B&W. I also like Agfa Scala, but it's not easy to get. Shame....

There seem to be a lot of threads tangled up in this. It seems worthwhile to sort them out. Kodak is struggling on several fronts. (IMO) Ilford took over the B&W "art" market long ago, [with Kodak's finance folks blessing]. Less real competition and decreasing market size is one of the things that have driven B&W prices up so high. [It used to be MUCH cheaper than color, if you can believe that!] Unfortunately, from a lot of the reviews I've read lately, Fuji seems to have taken over the color market. I'm sure they spend a lot of time at Kodak trying to figure out where to go next. I've never seen lab printing of B&W that was worth the effort. Here I'm talking about "off-the-shelf" labs, not the $100 a print gallery houses. (IMO) B&W printing is best done by the artist, either using conventional optical enlargement or digital processing of the scanned negatives. That being said, it should be fairly rare that the labs would screw up developing the negatives. It just should not happen with the chromatogenic stuff, as it is run along with their normal color negatives. [It would not be a surprise at all if the prints ended up ugly.] It could be that conventional silver grain B&W is just such a speciality job now that all the quality control has turned to turds? That would be a sad state. Also, it would be really rare to get a bad batch of film, with the exposure sensitivity varying so much. I'd expect equipment malfunction, had you not been getting good results with other suppliers. Grain and sharpness have been debated and measured endlessly. There are too many variables to allow blanket statements. A major factor in the dance between grain and sharpness is the film developing process; something one has very little control over when sending to a lab. It is very possible the labs you are using are more optimized for Ilford. Very generally (remember what I said about blanket statements), conventional silver negatives are granier than chromatogenic negatives. The silver grains can make the result look "sharper" than with the chromatogenic dye clouds, even though actual laboratory measurements may indicate the chromatogenics have better lines/mm. Some folks describe chromatogenics as "mushy." I also remember T-grains being called mushy when they first came out. Also, very generally, the chromatogenics have a wider exposure tollerance than conventional silver. This is good and bad, as the results can sometime look "flat." [Where with silver, there may be no results at all...] I really hope to see a lot of posting in this thread. The question of, "What is the best film?" fortunately never seems to go away. Unfortunately, most consumers out there really just don't give a damn. It'd be interesting to mail this thread to Kodak and see what happens.

Just two small examples...first is this macro of a little flower (no editing, no levels, no sharp, etc) Don't get me wrong, I do like Kodak film when I want to use it's features, but I don't often need those....and I don't really get the feeling that it produces very regular results either. Like I said before, when it all works out, Kodak can give you awesome results. (but not enough for me :) Okay, I'd love some comments on this shot. Grain is ENORMOUS, although it does fit the subject this time.

I'm a complete idiot when it comes to the techie stuff, so I really don't know much about other b/w films. I've only used Kodak T-Max for b/w (because it's the most popular brand here; others are hard to come by) and it works fine for me. Alpha is right, I guess, because I only process it with Kodak chemicals (which are premixed for me by the lab tech hehehe-- but I do all the rolling and the agit and the timing and shyte). And in rare cases when I have b/w processed by someone else, I take it to Kodak processing centers. The really sucky Kodak film I've used is Panchromatic (good thing I don't see them anymore) which gives you grain, specially with large format printing.

But this is much too unsharp for me.... Well, comments and suggestions are more than welcome :)

I thought the last picture was alright. Regarding Alpha-s statement. and one I've mentioned myself as well as the WHOLE world. FUJI-Tends to have more color. Period. end of story. It shows up as a slight green tint which makes people look jaundiced according to David Letterman. and yes he said that "on the air". The next question is weather that is the true color. Which I think is probably not. I was happy with the B/W film I used. Problems with the developing happends all the time. if I used the one hour place. ( Which I rarely do because I can't afford it. ) the film comes back with all kinds of problems massivly underexposed, poor color, scratches, ect. I believe Kodak has some real good film out there. As does Fuji and Agfa ( I think. ) High speed film. In my opinion all of that stuff is grainy!!! Sensia and Ectachrome to me are equivalent. But maybe I'm not blowing it up enough. Perhaps that is a solution. You could use slide film and develop it at home. There is a development kit for slide film now. It's not expensive and pretty easy to perform. I've used it twice and was happy with the results. Bsteph

Well, Ekta can be incredibly sharp with hardly any visible grain at 2000xsomething. I mostly use Provia, just cause it's such high quality. For e6 film (color slide) it's just the most impressive I can find. But the disadvantage is that even the 400 is very dark, but sofar it's always been incredibly consistent....the results I mean.

It's not always the film. Sometimes it is actually the Photographer ; ) The most important piece of equipment is the Lens. If that sucks, then 90% of the time you will be very unhappy with your results. T-Max 100 and 400 are SOME of the best black and white films out there. IMO BUT, one does need to run some ASA/ISO rating tests with these films to fine tune them to your exposure meter.(because they are ALL slighty different) Development/Developer is KEY. (HC-110 rules......for tmax...no need to buy that special "t-max" developer.....HC-110 can be made into dilutions for what ever your needs may be.....IMO the best all around film developer out there)

I was just reading a darkroom book sponsered by Kodak, and the propoganda spilled everywhere abouthow t-max 125 (or something) yeilds about as much grain as that of a medium format neg kinda surprised me. Good to see it was all a lie. Back to having no faith in humanity...

One other thing..... the "proper" use of black and white films IMO, is meant to be customised to each particular photographers style, and exposure techniques, allowing the most control possible out of any film. color included. When you take a roll of black and white to be processed at your local one hour photo hut, or even a well respected custom lab, you are giving up a CRUCIAL part of that control. I mentioned earlier that development plays a key role in things such as contrast, grain, and even sharpness. You know what your intentions were when you took the shot. Your friendly lab attendant has NO idea of what your final vision is intended to be, so they merely do a generic development. It's tiny little differences in temperature, time, agitation,etc. that can make or break a roll of b&w. A difference of just one or two degrees, or a couple of seconds here and there can DRAMATICLY change the final look of the negs. improper agitation during development is a sure fire way to ruin a roll. hope i made some sense. I encourage EVERYONE to try to develop some b&w on there own some time before it has gone the way of the daguerreotype?

Yeah and develop slide film. Especially the one that NOT E6 then you can mess up your film like I did! Bsteph

black and white film will NEVER dissappear dude, not until 50 mega pixel cameras come out, and inkjet printing costs come way down as well. From my personal experience, colour pics in a darkroom is REALLY time consuming, and I yielded no worthwhile result. Digital seems a good way for colour. Black and white though, working in adarkroom with black and white is WAY too much fun. Very magical. I also recommend you guys give it a try, but I wouldn't worry about it disappearing anytime soon. what the hell is that word nplus?

You're right Slynky.....I remember professional printers (I mean people who operate printing presses) were worried in the early 80's that the number of printed paper would decrease with the rise of the computer. Well, it turned out to be that these are the bussiest times ever for printers. They forgot about all the loads of manuals and books about pc's, etc ;) Same goes for digital/analog....I mean, b&w already survived color film, didn't it ?

nplus- I'd really like to try daguerreotype sometime. I've seen fantastic results. But isn't that the one using mecury vapor? I'm mad enough. Or the old platinum prints; at least some folks still make their own paper for this. BTW, I agree 100% with your post #11 above. Also tend to agree to about HC-110 for high speed emulsions, though haven't tried everything else. Acufine was always sort of mushy, D-76 OK. For low speed emulsions I went a stranger route entirely... slynky- Do-i-yourself color is like watching paint dry while wearing a blindfold. B&W rauks! [Did I spell that right?] rork- Is #6 full frame? I'd be pretty bummed out also. Grain and sharpness suck. Something has to be wrong.

I think the average lifespan of photographers back in the days of the daguerreotype was something like 25-35 years old. Heated mercury vapor is not a very cool method for developing images; ) Although I hear the grain and sharpness is amazing! (joke) Slynky...I may have spelled it wrong, but brush up on the origins of photography, and you will know what i am talking about......copper plates and heated mercury vapor mmmm, mmmmm.

Gotta agree with you about the Kodak film. Gave up on Kodak years ago after their film got more and more contrasty, not to mention expensive. Fuji has been the only way to go for me. I even use their 400 print film in my glamour studio work. I've had very nice enlargements to 20"x30" from 35mm negs with it. I've had labs tell me "You can't enlarge that size from a 35mm neg", and after I tell them that they are trying to convince the wrong person and to just do what I am paying them for, they get this surprised look on their faces at how good they turn out. As far as B&W goes, I just shoot the color film, scan a print, knock out the color in photoshop and print it on my Epson printer. Perfect photo quality and cheaper in the long run than having labs work on it.

OK. So early photographers had metal damage, nerve damage, AND mental damage!! IT's really funny. While chatting during lunch with a coworker. ( I am a chemist by profession ) this guy tells me that KODAK in utter honesty has not figured out the b/w development process. ( Please remember this is from a chemist perspective. As in this ion goes here which releases this, then that molecule bonds there, ect. Not you add these chemical togeather then you get a picture. I'm sure they understand that!!! ) Bsteph Bsteph

Like I said.........DO IT YOURSELF. LABS SUCK at black and white. Even when dealing with color it is a matter of finding the lab that sucks the least. Oh yeah, 80%of the b&w films out there probably would not exist if it weren't for good old George Eastman. and bsteph2069....Kodak has played a HUGE part in the development of Black and White as we know it. I strongly disagree with your above statement. but then again that is what makes this thread so fun.

No I think you misunderstand me. From a chemical point of view. The photographic process can be a tricky subject. Please remember there are people who have Doctorate of Chemistry where their Thesis is the complexes of water! We can determine crudely what can ocure during the photographic process. BUT how do the photons excite, how much energy is released, why use certain salts ect. I'm speaking as a chemist not as a joe normal. ( In the words of a close friend chemistry is about minutia! ) I'll try to explain myself better. Kodak's understanding of the chemical process can be similar to a physicians understanding of cancer. Sure thay can know a lot. They may have even developed processes which can detect, reduce, and cure cancer BUT they REALLY don't KNOW EXACTLY all there is to know about cancer. Bsteph

Alright, I gotcha.