C41: Kodak vs Ilford BW

[giordano]

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...David, with respect, this has not been my experience when shooting XP2 or BW400CN at ISO 800 or 1600. I get (maybe) an increase in contrast/grain and/or decrease in tonality, but definitely not underexposure.

 

Are you saying that exposing at EI 800 or EI 1600 gives you no loss of shadow detailcompared with exposing at EI 400? That's what "definitely not underexposure" implies.

[Xmas]

Are you saying that exposing at EI 800 or EI 1600 gives you no loss of shadow detailcompared with exposing at EI 400? That's what "definitely not underexposure" implies.

 

Hi John

 

You can shoot at 10,000, but the quality will be zero, from shadow to highlight..

I thought you had tried 800 and 1600 from your post.

If you uprate a silver image film by developing for longer you dont increase shadow detail much the only gain is if the sceane is low contrast, when you would get most of the 'gain' without increasing the dev. You may get better results with a speed increasing dev but the practice is still rather reliant on low contrast sceanes.

The C41 mono films just have very wide exposure latitude Ilford recommend 50 ISO for high quality, 400 is already a compromise, they fail in a different way when given less exposure.

You can monkey with the dev time but this is not recommended...

 

Noel

[David_Manning]

Just to clarify my experience (and thanks, aesop, for your politeness ):

 

If you PRINTED a one or two-stop underexposed negative, you'd still get an image, but to see detail in the dark areas you'd have to print light...with dramatic loss of contrast (that washed out look). A "properly" printed underexposed image is just darker, period, with darks going to inky black.

 

So, to restate, my experience with underexposed c-41 is that it never looks as good as underexposed and overdeveloped (pushed) silver film.

 

Hope that makes sense. Of course, this is just my own experience...but I had experience at a minilab back when the Noritsu machines were optical, and we were always faced with printing underexposed c-41 images either washed out, or "properly"...ie dark and black.

[Xmas]

Just to clarify my experience (and thanks, aesop, for your politeness ):

 

If you PRINTED a one or two-stop underexposed negative, you'd still get an image, but to see detail in the dark areas you'd have to print light...with dramatic loss of contrast (that washed out look). A "properly" printed underexposed image is just darker, period, with darks going to inky black.

 

So, to restate, my experience with underexposed c-41 is that it never looks as good as underexposed and overdeveloped (pushed) silver film.

 

Hope that makes sense. Of course, this is just my own experience...but I had experience at a minilab back when the Noritsu machines were optical, and we were always faced with printing underexposed c-41 images either washed out, or "properly"...ie dark and black.

Hi

 

Correct you need to post process C41 mono if you underexpose, it is rather more difficult to wet print as well, e.g. some people only use it at 200ISO.

The difference is you can mix speeds on the same cassette, the penalty quality of the 'grain' clouds and printing difficulty.

 

Noel