Like many of us here, I am trying to become a competent user of black and white films and I am still in the early stages of experiments and trying to find my way.
One question that I am wondering though (and I don't want this to become a 'digital vs film' debate) is : I have heard many people say that a digital image, converted to black and white from RAW using software, looks no better or worse than a black and white image from film. I have myself converted some digital shots to B&W in the past before now.
What has made me think is my cousin has recently had her baby photographed by a pro (I was a little sad she didn't ask me, but hey), digitally, and the photographer has converted all of them to B&W prints. She is chuffed to bits with them. Now, to me, the shots look nice and sharp and well lit, but they seem to lack punch - the babies eyes look quite dark but everything else very light (although I made out to her that they were amazing). That said, the baby is white, the satin sheet was white and the towel was white, so maybe that is to be expected?
I''ve scoured Google looking for a comparison - you know, one scene shot digitally in colour and converted to black and white using software techniques and the same scene shot with some Ilford FP4 or some other recommended black and white film. I've not had much success in satisfying my curiosity, so I a am hoping old-faithful APUG will answer my query.
Can I ask people to stick to the technicalities and avoid disputes commonly associated with digital - as I say, I don't want to start a riot. I want to know, specifically, what advantages black and white film has over simply converting a colour RAW file to B&W. Would the shots of the baby mentioned above look radically different if shot using B&W film. If so, how and why?
This all part of my learning process - I am eager to have answers!!
Thanks a lot people - I look forward to reading your replies
It seems that 'tonal range' seems to be the key advantage to film although several people say it but don't really explain how or why - just that digital is not as good with tonal range than film is. There's also a nice image comparison wherein the film shot does show more detail in the wooden fence and bushes than the digital.
"I''ve scoured Google looking for a comparison - you know, one scene shot digitally in colour and converted to black and white using software techniques and the same scene shot with some Ilford FP4 or some other recommended black and white film. I've not had much success in satisfying my curiosity, so I a am hoping old-faithful APUG will answer my query."
To start out, even if you did find something on the net, the film would still have to be scanned and uploaded and viewed on a 72dpi screen, so you'll never see exactly what film has to offer. And with the RAW file converted, there are so many ways to convert it that who's to say you have anything even close to what the film would be, which has it's own multiple ways of being made/processed/developed. How could you even get a "standardized" starting point for either? They are different animals and a trained person can make magic out of each. Personally film is the ideal, but I am an old dinosaur holding on to the skills and talent 35 years as a professional fine art printer and film developer has given me, even as enter the digital market place (doing printing).
As for the photographer who shot the baby, chances are he didn't do the best job he could on the printing for a variety of reasons...competency, desire, wasn't worth the $ he was getting paid, "it's just a baby shot and who's gonna know the difference", didn't care, etc... (I could go on and on). (By the way, what does "...chuffed to bits..." mean?). And both film and digital can give you either great or poor results, depending on the person producing the film/file and prints. IMO, look to the producer as something to judge/throw into the mix and don't just think it is either film or digital. A simple adjustment in contrast and dodging the eyes, with either, would have fixed what must have been a poor lighting situation (not lighting the baby knowing that their faces are rounder and therefore need different lighting) and/or poor processing of the film/file. And if you don't have a well processed film/file, the print, regular or digital, will not be as good as it could be.
A lot depends on the quality of the digicam, the quality of the printer, the inkset being used, the version of PS being used, and the skill of the person doing the conversion. Photoshop CS3, apparently, has a dedicated B&W conversion tool that is specific to each color channel. What's neat about that is that values can be changed making it possible to make a more dynamic image than one made with film alone when the value of each color is the same or similar (film can only respond to one filtration plus a polarizer to change such values whereas this PS tool can do all colors). (I have this from a friend and neighbor who will be published in B&W magazine as a merit award winner in the portfolio issue.) From what I've seen, very, very few people are using and are adept with the best iterations of each of those elements. There just isn't any such thing as an apriori superiority of digital to film on that basis alone. A photographer with well developed skills in the use of film and darkroom printing can more than hold his/her own with the best work of any digiographer, and usually does a much better job of it.
Capture, inspection, and output are so different that a sensible comparison is almost impossible. One point that I tried to make recently in another thread is that the whole language of digital is so different that merely speaking about film in clinical, digital terms is very inconvenient.
Capture: when you use b&w film, you are recording a scene or subject on a piece of film with its own intrinsic character. Thus composition is a thought process quite different from recording a RAW file and then introducing character to that. 'Character' obviously means many things in this context. N.b. there are a great many film emulators for reworking digital files... why? Because there is much more to a capture than megapixels and bits per channel and a curve you can download from the net.
Inspection: looking at a b&w neg on a lightbox or in an enlarger is, in my opinion, very different from the digital workflow. With film, I like that I can get the results I want without needing to run them through a computer or try to evaluate them on a monitor. I find traditional inspection very fast and convenient, especially with MF and LF film. There's something to be said for sitting out on a comfortable chair, sipping a cup of tea while sorting through a pile of negatives.... with no PC there to stare at.
Output: tonality per dollar is the biggest advantage I see of b&w film. If I could define a 'figure of merit' for film it would be that, tonality per dollar. This is an umbrella statement including highlight rendition, the nonlinear tone curve (toe/knee etc.), non-pixelated grain structure as it relates to continuity of tone, etc. Infrared film, in particular, has many tonal advantages, among other things, especially in the highlights. To me, digital IR is rather horrendous, I will confess. No highlight differentiation or complexity of tone whatsoever.
Of course, there is also the incredible wealth of 'traditional' output options; hybrid techniques have come a long way, but still...
Every B&W film has a characteristic response curve to varying wavelengths of light. Panchromatic B&W films have a larger dynamic range than most digicams. Digiphotos are made up of 3 color channels. Converting from digital color to B&W involves some choice of balancing the weight given to each of those three color channels. Some people do this with an automagic setting in software or the camera, which may or may not bear any correlation to the relative sensitivity of a given film to the color spectrum. In most software, you can also manually choose the balance among color channels in the conversion. Not everyone who does digital color to B&W conversions understands these issues, or is especially adept at handling B&W images.
I work in the entertainment industry as a day job and deal with all sorts of digital and film files given to me by various productions. Without romanticizing the film side, I have to say that both digital and film can provide great results in the right hands. There are many examples out there where even the most experienced film shooter would be hard pressed to recognize if something came from a digital source or film source.
The biggest differences tend to arise from the subject being photographed and not the technology itself. B&W Film can typically deal better with high luminance range, especially in the highlights and the way it rolls off into full paper white. When care is taken high contrast edges tend to transition nicer in B&W film.
The example of the fence on the photo.net website is not a very good one, i'm sure all that detail the film shows is in the digital file but the way the b&w conversion was done in photoshop has an impact on the way those colors were mapped into grays.
For my own work i prefer B&W film, and film has a side benefit of not getting more noisy in long exposures (unlike most digital systems)
B&W Film Shots Compared to B&W Digital shots 
Linear Mode
