Your favourite B&W portrait film

[tony lockerbie]

May be sacriligious but do not discount the chromagenic films ( XP2 and T400CN ) for portrait work. I use T400CN for wedding work as it holds the blacks and whites really well with no hassles.

If you are printing in the darkroom XP2 has more guts and the printing times are less due to the lack of masking that is present on the Kodak film.

For my own stuff I tend to use Tri-X and D76 diluted 1:1, nice and smooth.

[TheFlyingCamera]

May be sacriligious but do not discount the chromagenic films ( XP2 and T400CN ) for portrait work. I use T400CN for wedding work as it holds the blacks and whites really well with no hassles.

If you are printing in the darkroom XP2 has more guts and the printing times are less due to the lack of masking that is present on the Kodak film.

For my own stuff I tend to use Tri-X and D76 diluted 1:1, nice and smooth.

I'm quite fond of the T400CN as a travel film - rate it at 100, and live with the very long printing times. You can get 35mm negs this way that will hold up qualitywise printed at 12x18 full-frame, or even cropped at 16x20.

For potraits these days, I'm doing FP4+ in Pyrocat HD, rated at 64, in 8x10, in my studio (AKA the dining room). I do the same thing for outdoors, but in 4x5 most often.

[c6h6o3]

Big Camera: 400Tmax
Little Camera: Efke R50

I develop everything in the Pooka's Triple Seven Sauce.

[jd callow]

Thanks to some posts and discussions from D F Cardwell I have found TXP to be an excellent choice.

[fschifano]

For rollfilm cameras it's Plus-X in D-76 1+1. I've found nothing better and simpler. FP4+ treated the same way is good too, but Plus-X just prints nicer to me. Large format gets TXP again in D-76.

[blansky]

FP4 with studio strobes.

FP4 outdoors.



MIchael

[gnashings]

35mm - mainly FP4+, some PanF in Rodinal 1+50, TriX @1000 in Acufine
120 - FP4+, TriX in Rodinal 1+50

I shoot available light almost 99% of the time.

Having said that, I recently tried a roll of Efke 100 (in 120) for the first time, and I think I may have a contender for that "sweet spot" in my heart.

[Roger Hicks]

Varies with the camera:

35mm -- XP2
120 -- Delta 100 or HP5
LF -- FP4

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

[MMfoto]

Good light and nice people get TX/XTOL/P.Cat HD, mean cats on dark warehouse rafters get TMZ/Rodinal.

[Chazzy]

May be sacriligious but do not discount the chromagenic films ( XP2 and T400CN ) for portrait work. I use T400CN for wedding work as it holds the blacks and whites really well with no hassles.

Is T400CN still available? I thought it had been replaced by BW400 something, with the obnoxious orange mask.