Digital BW, The Print

randyrancier writes:

> Anthony, Thanks for your advice on scanners.  Looks like I will 
> probably have to invest in a scanner and do it myself to get the 
> quality I expect!

There are really two reasons to invest in a scanner: (1) as you say,
it's the only way to get the quality you expect; and (2) it's the only
way to avoid going bankrupt paying for scans.  Labs will provide you
with scans greatly inferior to the ones you can do yourself, and they'll
charge you a king's ransom for them.  And they'll probably scan the
images on a scanner no better than one you can buy yourself.

> I was really intrigued by your night shots using Portra 400BW.  
> Being out of conventional photography for quite a while I'm not 
> familiar with this film.  Is it a BW film you develope yourself, or 
> one of the color processed BW films.

Kodak Portra 400BW is one of the Portra family of films (which continues
to grow, despite rumors of Kodak pulling away from film).  It's
chromogenic black-and-white film, meaning that you process it as C-41
color negative film, but the images are monochrome (the film still has
the orange mask of color negatives, but the images on the film are in
shades of gray).

Because this is a B&W film processed as color, when you scan it, you
scan it as color film, then convert to grayscale (the newer versions of
NikonScan, incidentally, can do this automatically).  You have to do it
this way to drop the orange mask and to get the contrast right.  The
film scans extremely well, like all Portra films.

> The control of your hightlights is extraordinary, with shadow
> detail a plenty.

Portra 400BW is nice in a couple of respects:

1. It's easy to process, since any one-hour place can develop it (the
labs around my neighborhood will process it in 15 minutes flat, for
three dollars).

2. It has astonishingly fine grain, comparable to ISO 100 B&W films.

3. It is a low-contrast film, which is a drawback in low-contrast
scenes, but a great advantage in contrasty scenes, such as bright
sunlight and shadow, or nighttime shots.  You can see the soft contrast
in the salute.jpg shot, but you can also see how handy it is for the
other two night shots.  In night shots, Portra holds an amazing amount
of detail in shadows and highlights, which you can extract with a
scanner.

4. The resolution is extraordinarily high for such a fast film.

5. The film is ISO 400, so you have the advantage of fast film with the
fine grain and resolution of a much slower film.

6. The film has a lot of latitude, similar to what you'd get with other
color negative films.

Portra 400BW can't replace other films, of course, but the
characteristics above make it extremely handy.  Some other chromogenic
films are similar, although 400BW is the only chromogenic film I shoot
with any frequency.

> Loving
> night photography, I used to couldn't get that much shadow detail 
> and highlight control using 4x5 Tri-X with a pyro developer.

Remember this was medium-format, not 35mm ... but you're right in that
Portra 400BW seems to capture a tremendous amount of shadow and
highlight detail.  I've been amazed at what I could pull from the
negatives.

The scans you see were dodged and burned a lot.  On the raw scan, the
shadows were deeper and the highlights _looked_ blown.  However, the
scanner caught a lot of invisible detail, and by adjusting curves and
selectively burning and dodging in Photoshop, I was able to pull out
details far beyond anything I had expected or hoped for.

> I guess film technology has come a long way in 25 years!

The latest films are great.  If you want a nice color negative film, try
out the new Portra 400UC--it's amazing.  Lots of nice slide films
available, too.  And of course, for black and white, many of the
traditional favorites are still alive and kicking (I still shoot Tri-X
and Tech pan, for example).