There’s a wide selection of black and white films
currently available. I recommend
sticking with films from the two major manufacturers, mostly for availability
reasons. Kodak and Ilford films are
available worldwide, so you can pretty much count on being able to get them
anywhere. It’s a good idea to
standardize on one (or at most, two) films at first, until you fully understand
the differences between films and can make informed decisions.
In an ideal world, black and white film would have no
grain, and have such wide exposure latitude that you could expose it at
virtually any film speed and get good results.
In the real world, film is a compromise between speed and grain – that
is, slower films have finer grain and faster films have larger grain.
For this reason, it’s wise to standardize on a film that’s as fast as
you need but no faster. For general purpose use with 35mm cameras (and when making
prints no larger than 8x10) a 400 speed film is a good choice.
Tonal
distribution
Different films render a scene differently.
Some films emphasize mid-tone and highlight separation at the expense of
shadow separation (e.g. Kodak’s Plus-X).
Others offer very ‘realistic’ rendition (e.g. Kodak’s Tmax 100).
Note that ‘realistic’ is not always the same as ‘beautiful’.
Plus-X – a ‘long-toe’ film that offers good
separation of mid-tones and highlights at the expense of
shadow separation. Often
used for portraiture.
Tri-X -
long a standard in the photojournalism world, Tri-X is the film to which all
other films are compared. Tri-X
is a medium speed film which is very tolerant of adverse storage and
handling, processing variation, and exposure.
Tmax-100 (aka TMX) – a very fine grained film with a
very short toe, giving a very realistic rendition of tones.
Poor tolerance for underexposure.
Tmax-400 (aka TMY) – a fine grained, medium speed
film which some consider to be a replacement for Tri-X.
Somewhat finer grain than Tri-X.
Less tolerant of processing variations than Tri-X.
Tmax 3200P (aka TMZ) – a very high speed film for use
in poor lighting conditions. (e.g. theater photography, indoors under poor
lighting, etc.)
Tmax 400CN Chromogenic – a black and white film which
can be processed by mini-labs as if it were color film. Very tolerant of exposure errors. Kodak’s competitor to Ilford’s XP2.
Ilford
FP-4 Plus – Ilford’s answer to Plus-X
(or else Plus-X is Kodak’s answer to FP-4).
Fine grain, 100 speed.
HP-5 Plus – Ilford’s Tri-X competitor.
Somewhat more realistic rendering than Tri-X.
Tolerant of processing variations, etc.
Delta 100 & Delta 400 – Ilford’s response to
Kodak’s Tmax-100 and Tmax-400 films.
Finer grain, shorter toe (more realistic) than fp-4 and hp-5).
Delta 3200 -
Ilford’s response to TMZ, just recently introduced.
Slightly finer grain than TMZ.
XP2 Chromogenic – a black and white film which can be
processed in c-41 chemistry (color processing) in minilabs.
Very tolerant of exposure variations.
Adjusting the amount of light that strikes the film
controls exposure. If you have too
little light hitting the film, you’ll get no image.
If you have too much light striking the film, you have a very poor image
(or, in extreme cases, no image at all). You
have three ways of adjusting how much light hits the film: adjusting the shutter
speed, adjusting the aperture, and changing the lighting.
Shutter
speed
The shutter controls how long the exposure lasts.
Making the exposure shorter reduces the amount of light that strikes the
film, making it longer increases it. Slow
shutter speeds allow for motion blur. Short
shutter speeds stop motion. Note
that a faster film allows for shorter exposures.
Aperture
The aperture is like a valve that controls how much light
goes through the lens. Wider
apertures (smaller f numbers) allow more light in (and allow for shorter
exposures). Wider apertures also
produce more narrow depth of field (focus) and smaller apertures make for wide
depth of field.