camera film

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What are the differences between black and white, and color camera film?

-- Steve Smith (ssmith21@cinci.rr.com), February 05, 2001

Answers

Nothing. It just depends on what you photograph. Finding things that are just B@W, however, is becoming harder every day!

-- Alec (alecj@bellsouth.net), February 06, 2001.

Depending on the brand involved, there can be variations in saturation.

-- Ed Hurst (BullMoo@hotmail.com), February 06, 2001.

Well it depends what you're shooting for. There are negatives and there are slides. Then there is black and white and color for both. The biggest difference is the way they are developed.

Color negatives - the most common consumer form of film. Most of it is processed C-41, which is the 1 hour stuff. Great for snapshots of Aunt Edna.

Color slides - Same as color print film but no prints. Usually they are put into a projector and you get a slide show. Aunt Edna and Uncle Barney's summer vacations of '58 and '59. Most of these are processed E-6 except Kodachrome, which is processed K-14. Some photo development places can develop E-6 slides for you in a short amount of time. For the Kodachromes, they need to go to one or two labs in the country that can process Kodachromes. Mind you, you can get prints from slides. Usually done in two formats: Cibachrome and internegative. Cibachrome is where they use the slide to expose color paper. Internegative is where they take a full scale picture of your slide.

Black and white negatives - two camps here. Traditional B&W which needs special development. You can take it to some photo finishers to have them develop it for you but be prepared to shell out some bucks. (I paid $20 to have a roll of traditional B&W developed and printed on 4x6 paper - that was when I decided that I would learn more about developing my own) Most people on this list use traditional B&W film and develop their own. The second camp is chromogenic film. B&W film that is processed like a one hour color print (C-41). Not any B&W film can do this. Three films come to mind: Ilford's XP-2, Kodak's T400CN and Kodak's Black and White+. These three films are great if you want to break into B&W without doing all of the lab work yourself (that will come later when you get hooked).

Black and white slides - Only one player in town: Agfa SCALA 200.

-- Johnny Motown (johnny.motown@att.net), February 06, 2001.


Simplistically, B&W films have one emulsion that is just sensitive to the amoung of light.

Color films have three emulsions, each sensitive to one color of light. Other colors are created by blending those 3 colors.

-- Charlie Strack (charlie_strack@sti.com), February 06, 2001.


Just to add to Mr. Motown's answer.

There are many more options nowadays for printing from color slides. In fact much of the professional still imaging industry is built around it. Analog Ilfocolor has been supplemented (and often supplanted) by a variety of digital scan and print processes, which allow printing on almost any paper. Lightjet allows for higher quality than analog, as does Fuji frontier for smaller scale prints from both negative and slides. But there are a variety of other printing technolgies which allow for paper or other output from slides such as Iris Giclee prints, all of a quality equal to or surpassing old analog Ilfochrome. And Fuji Crystal Archive (amateur, professional, and direct RP) rivals Ilfochrome for color quality and permanence...

As for black & white slides, while Scala is obviously superior, but a number of suppliers and at least one lab, allow you to make B&W slides from regular slow speed B&W film using dedicated reversal chemistry...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), February 06, 2001.



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