Kodak BW400CN

This film is extremely forgiving in exposure. I took a series of night shots, with some outstanding results. The law of reciprocity does not come into effect until exposures are longer than 120 seconds, which is way and above that of traditional B&W film of 1/2 a second.

Very easy to work with.

When developed at the local lab, it comes back with a slight colour cast, so you need to desaturate it again.

Ilford HP5 Plus

I love Black and White photography, so I was very excited about using this film. It's my first experience with it. I took some outdoor photos on a sunny day and some indoor portraits and the photos turned out really well.

- C-41 is great because you can take it to the local lab and get it developed in an hour.
- Very clear and sharp photos, really made my portraits look lovely.
- Even though I might not have had a lot of light for some photos, it still managed to turn out well (not too dark).

none that I can think of, however this is just my first try with this film.

Ilford XP2 Super

the people at the counter were very friendly.

Freakin' awesome for I use it for. At the advice of a local chap, I rated this 400 ISO film at 1000 ISO and got it developed at 1600 (i.e. pushed 2 stops) for extra grain (the nice kind) and contrast. This is one **sweet** combination. Photos taken in non-contrasty / diffuse natural lighting without flash are wonderful. I have taken some wonderful portraits and landscapes with this film. AS with many films, shots taken in high contrast lighting are just ok. As can be expected, shots of skin taken in extremely low light with flash can be unflattering at this setting because of the increased contrast. This is a very forgiving film. I rated a series of shots at 400, 800, 1000, 1250, then 1600 and got it developed at 1600. The prints from the shots taken at 400, 800 and 1000 were amazing. When scanning the negs, I could see that the shots taken at 400 were obviously over-exposed somewhat, but the prints were amazing. Heaps of latitude in this film! Shots taken at 1250 and 1600 were underexposed and there was noticable grain (the crap kind) at 1600. The sweet spot when developing at 1600 seems to be rating it at 800 to 1000. The 1600/1600 combo is not recommended. I once tried Ilford SP2 and Kodak consumer C41 B&W at the recommended 400 ISO settings and the results were utterly boring, much like a colour photo set reduced to basic grayscale in PhotoShop. So I never bothered to try this film either at the recommended 400 ISO settings.

Extremely forgiving. You can over and under expose this film quite alot and prints come out great. You can get nice grain by pushing this film.

I have never rated and developed it at the 400 ISO rating, so I cannot say what weaknesses I see in this film. For what I have used it for, it does the trick very well.

Ilford SP2 and Kodak consumer C41 B&W film both at 400ISO - both uninspiring at that setting. Neopan 1600, rated/dev's at 800/800. Pretty good, but grain was like salt and pepper (could be the choice of developing solution though).

I have just received from the processors,(Jessops) my first prints using this newish B/W film. The results were all in all not bad considering the awful lighting conditions(cloudy, damp and misty) at the Bluebell Railway on the day of my visit. The camera used was the Leica CM. (The lens of which has proved to perform exceptionaly well with HD200 and Reala colour film) The sharpness of the prints is what I consider to be average to good. The overall contrast in cloudy conditions was rather good as well. I am going to try a roll of Ilford XP2 to compare the two films.

Good exposures in poor to average lighting.

Not the sharpness that I expected.

XP2 to be used

N/A

Good film but I think there are better, It has no clear base so I would'nt know how to print from this in the darkroom, also I find XP2 to be slightly sharper. However I think the brown base may be used as a tool to give the prints a very slight sepia affect so you get good looking prints with out an odd colour cast whitch you may get with normal Cromagenic films when printed at a local lab.

No wierd colour cast on Colour film. Fine grain, but not very notivcable over the much older XP2

No clear base, Sharper is availible

XP2, Neopan CN

Jessops was expensive £4 (not $4)