Flavio, Kodak's T400CN has become one of my favorite films, especially for portraits. The tonality can be beautifully smooth, even creamy. Very flattering. It also has superb latitude. It's rated at 400, but I always shoot at 800 and have it processed normally. The negs are beautiful--nice shadow detail, no increase in contrast--and print easily. At 800 it gives better results than pushing Tri-X, T-Max 400, or Delta 400. But the film has its quirks. Being chromogenic, lacks the grain structure that we're used to seeing in B&W photos. Some people dislike it for that reason. C-41 B&W films also lack contrast, which means that they have less apparent sharpness than conventional B&W films of similar ISOs. When I print T400CN, I begin with a 3 1/2 contrast filter--with a normal negative, 3 1/2 is neutral, like 2 with a Tri-X neg. Most importantly, don't take the film to a one-hour lab, unless all you want are reference prints. One-hour labs will print on color paper, and that will almost always give unpleasant results. (Although I once ended up with nice sepia prints.) I take my C-41 film to a local pro lab that prints on B&W paper. The results are very nice and not much more expensive than a one-hour lab. One last point. T400CN picks up scratches much, much more easily than conventional B&W films. Be careful. It also holds on to dust much more tenaciously. Cheers, John >Flavio writes: >Well, the question: I tried Kodak 400 CN, Ilford XP2 >and Konica VX. All ISO 400 C-41 B&W film with various >results, the most annoying thing >being the fact that 1-hour lab prints always come up >in every shade of tones but neutral. >Flavio also writes: >The question is: if I print B&W from this films how >will the mask >interfere with filtering? I suppose the general >contrast should be lower but if I use a magenta filter >for a high contrast it will blend with >the film mask, won't it? >Will it be the same if I tried real colour film? ===== John Edwin Mason Charlottesville, Virginia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alt Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org.
