For much of the history of photography, black and white film was photography. I offer here nothing more than my inexperienced opinion on the subject, and a bunch of photos I've made. My only hope is to inspire others to take the plunge and have a bash at developing and printing their own photographs. It's an immensely satisfying process, though I've probably reached no more than the level of having 'just enough education to perform'. I'm happy with the results, even if my techniques wouldn't stand up to close inspection by an expert.
Frankly, I'm still amazed every time the film comes out of the final wash and there's something there at all!
I'm firmly of the belief that subject, composition and light are far more important to a photograph than the minutiae of lens sharpness, resolution, etc. which people love to obsess over at great length and in great depth. Feel free to interpret this as an excuse for the grainy, scuzzy photos, often taken with cheap old cameras and lenses, which I present here...
I'm talking about monochrome negative film, and developing it myself here. Unlike colour negative (C41) or slide (E6) film, there is no standard process for developing black and white film. Every combination of film, exposure index (ISO/ASA number), developer and process temperature has it's own particular processing time.
Lara, at work in the darkroom. Vivitar 35ES, Fuji Neopan 400 @ 400
At first this might seem daunting, but it's really no big deal. The actual process of developing a film is the same in all cases, all that differs is the amount of time the film spends in the developer solution. The Massive Dev Chart is your friend here. The process is simple enough to be easily done with a minimum of equipment -colour film can be done with similar kit, but requires much better control of processing temperature for good results.
To summarise, developing a black and white film yourself involves the following steps:
Loading - the only bit you have to do in complete darkness. In many ways the trickiest part of the process. Can be done in either a darkroom or a light-tight changing bag. Once the film is loaded into the development tank, the rest of the process takes place in normal room light, and is mostly just a case of pouring the chemicals in and out at the right time.
Development - chemical magic which makes the latent image hidden within the exposed film dense enough to be visible. Typically takes 5-10 minutes, up to 20 minutes or more for serious push processing (e.g. ISO 400 film exposed at ISO 3200).
Fixing (preceded by a 'stop bath' to end the development process) - makes the image permanent and the film insensitive to light. 'Rapid fix' takes 2-5 minutes.
Washing and Drying - an art in itself it seems. I've tried a few approaches and I'm finally getting satisfactory results with Ilfotol 'wetting agent' as a final rinse. I had some luck with a squeegee, but it's a very good way to scratch your film up badly, as I also found.
After this, what you do with the negatives is up to you - scan, print, file away, whatever...I've made some prints (a truly magical experience) but mostly I just scan them at modest resolution.
Black and white film photography is most satisfying if you develop the film yourself. I've been processing my film in Ilford DD-X, which is an expensive (£16/litre) liquid concentrate developer. It has the advantages of being available locally, being capable of developing a wide range of films at a wide range of exposure settinngs and being convenient to mix up in small quantities.
The only real downside is the price (a litre of concentrate will do 16 35mm films, so it's about £1 a film), but it is possible to re-use developer solution to process multiple films and cut costs a little. There are many other developers available, but I've only used DD-X so can't offer any further insight. It seems to be a good all-rounder and less hassle than developers which come as powder, especially if you're developing the odd film now and again.
Alex, Ricoh KR-10, Ilford Delta 3200 @ 3200
My experience to date suggests that readily-available black and white films can generally be classified into three groups:
Fine-grained, slow films (ISO 50-125).
Medium-speed (ISO 400) films which can be pushed 2-3 stops with good results.
Grainy high-speed films (ISO 1000, designed to be pushed to EI 3200 or faster).
I'm not going to get much more specific than that. Everything I've tried so far has worked pretty well and by and large they've all 'done what it says on the tin'. The rest of this post will be mainly examples...
To date I've used a couple of slow B+W films - Ilford PanF Plus and FP4 Plus. PanF Plus is an ISO 50 film, whilst FP4 is nominally rated at ISO 125. I can't fault the smoothness of PanF, and FP4 seems to work very nicely too.
Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Ilford PanF Plus
Gribbin Head, Pentax ME Super, 50/1.7, Ilford PanF Plus, red filter.
Limpets, Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Ilford FP4+
St Michael's Hill, Pentax ME Super, 50/1.7, Ilford FP4 Plus
400-speed black and white films are extremely useful to have around. Most can be exposed at an EI of 200 to 3200 with decent results, so heading out with a bag of 400-speed film should have you covered for most things. I've used Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP5 Plus and Fuji Neopan 400 so far - Ilford Delta 400 and Kodak T-Max 400 haven't yet found their way into my camera. I've most experience with Neopan, for no better reason than it being the cheapest black and white film available from 7dayshop. A group of us were doing a week-long darkroom workshop, so we bought 25 rolls:
(Yeah, there's some other stuff in there too...)
It looks good at 'box speed' and even better pushed to EI 1600-3200. As I understand, Neopan 400, Ilford Delta 400 and Kodak T-Max 400 are 'modern' films, whereas HP5 Plus and Tri-X are older films. The newer films are supposed to have finer grain and higher sharpness, whilst some people prefer the look of the older films. Matt Benton is a sworn HP5 devotee, whilst Stephen Dowling does some awesome work with crazy-pushed Neopan.
Celidh, Pentax LX, 50/1.7, HP5+ @ 800
Sea Holly, Vivitar 35ES, Neopan 400 @ 400, red filter.
Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Fuji Neopan 400 @ 3200
Jenny, Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Fuji Neopan 400 @ 1600
Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Kodak Tri-X @ 400
Pentax ME Super, 50/1.7, Fuji Neopan 400 @ 1600
There are three of these films available, but I've only used one, Ilford's Delta 3200. Kodak's T-Max 3200 and Fuji's Neopan 1600 are only available in 35mm, whilst Delta 3200 usefully also comes in 120 size. Delta 3200 has a 'true' ISO speed rating of around 1000, but is designed to be shot and processed anywhere between EI 400 and 6400, with Ilford giving developing times for speeds up to EI 12500 in DD-X. I've run this film between EI 1600 and 6400 with generally good results. I'm still getting to grips with the relatively simple (and easily confused) metering of my older film cameras in the sorts of low-light situations that call for such a fast film.
Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Ilford Delta 3200 - EI6400
Both Delta 3200 and push-processed slower films work particularly well in medium format - the much larger negative makes the grain relatively smaller and less obtrusive. There's no getting away from the fact that fast film is grainy, if you want super-smooth shots in virtually no light, digital is the way forwards (or buy a flash...). Embrace the graininess, and fast B+W is great.
Pentax 645, 45/2.8 (I think), Ilford Delta 3200 @ 3200
Pentax 645, 75/2.8, Ilford Delta 3200 @ 3200. Polariser, red filter.
Pentax 645, Ilford Delta 3200 @ 6400
Matt, Ricoh KR-10, 28/2, Ilford Delta 3200 @ 3200
Will, Matt and Jay. Ricoh KR-10, 28/2, Ilford Delta 3200 @ 3200
A not-entirely-comprehensive set of my self-developed B+W photos can be found here.
