Hi Artur, There are so many B&W films and developers that it would be hard to make a suggestion as to the brand of film to start with. Kodak's Tri-X is a very forgiving film, is readily available almost anywhere, has good keeping properties and requires little in the way of special handling or storage. Some people consider its granularity to be too great, but that depends on the developer used, the technique used to develop the film, the type of enlarger and paper used to make the print, and, of course, the exposure. This is true for all B&W emulsions, BTW, not just TX.
You'll find similar qualities for many other B&W films. Having tried and used many, I keep coming back to TX as the "standard", but I like Agfa APX 100 quite a bit, as well as Ilford 100 Delta, Fuji's new Across 100, and have been experimenting with Bergger 200. In general, I like the older style emulsions. Others swear by the newer T-grained films - Ilford's Delta series, Kodak's T-Max, and so forth. The truth is, it almost doesn't matter where you start. You just need a point of beginning to learn technique and what your preferences are. Until you've established your own exposure index and developing time for a given film, and learned how to make some decent prints, you won't even have a reference point to determine your preferences. Once you've learned what you need to know about a given film/developer combination you can then, intelligently, say that you prefer more or less of certain qualities, and then find either another film or developer that will halp you achieve the desired results. Anyone that tells you a certain film is "best" is, quite frankly, full of it. There is no "best" film, just films with different characteristics that may or may not be ideal for a given subject. Further, unless you're going to be printing your own negatives, you'll never learn the craft of B&W. I hope you're planning on getting an enlarger and setting up a small darkroom. That's the only way you'll have the control needed to determine with any accuracy which films and chemicals you prefer. And speaking of chemicals, both Kodak's D-76 and Ilford's ID-11 are good places to start. Defferent results can be had by using different dilutions, which will allow you some room for experimentation without having to buy many different developers, and both are generally available, inexpensive, and easy to use. Once you know the properties of the developer you can decide if you'd like something else, just like with the film. So, go down to the photo shop, grab a few rolls of one type of film, a couple of packages of developer, and go to it. But remember - first things first: establish the correct EI for the film using your gear, technique, and conditions. Otherwise you may as well shoot color neg film or C-41 B&W. HTH Artur Led�chowski wrote: > So it finally got me:) I decided to enter the black&white world... I've alre > ady bought a developing tank but I don't know what film and chemicals I shou > ld get at the beginning - Ilford, Agfa, Kodak (no, you won't talk me into us > ing the Kodak Academy:)) What are their pros and cons? > What do you think? -- Shel Belinkoff mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/ - 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 .
