The final item1 needed for the Leica Lessons project is a film, a black and white film to be exact.
I wanted to use a 400 ASA film, which I’ve found is a nice all-round speed. I also wanted to use a `real’ B&W film, as opposed to a chromogenic film. In this speed, 5 types are well available to me: Kodak T-Max, Kodak Tri-X, Ilford Delta, Ilford HP5 and Fuji Neopan.
As I have absolutely no experience with B&W film, I decided to to a comparison. My demands for the final film:
- Good detail
- Not too grainy
- Capable of being pushed to 1600 ASA2
For the comparison, I got two rolls of each, and shot a collection of scenes on each of them. One roll at 400 ASA, the other at 1600. I also bracketed each scene at +1 and -1 stop.
I’ll post the resulting pictures here in the near future, but the short of the story is: I didn’t see enough difference to base a valid choice on.
Since I didn’t have any real preference, a final deciding factor came into play: price. Thanks to the wonderful website Fujilab.co.uk, I can get all Fuji films in bulk, and at less than half the price I pay for other brands through normal retailers. As I have good experience with Fuji for my other films and didn’t dislike Neopan in the test shots I decided to just take the easy way out, and use Neopan 400 for my `one film’.
With that, the set is complete: Leica M3, 50mm Summicron collapsible and Fuji Neopan 400, my choice of photographic equipment for the upcoming year.
Volgens mij wordt het tijd dat je je sectie ‘Equipment’ weer eens bijwerkt.
Good point. I’ll get to it asap :-)