Hello Steffen, You may want to try out Kodak Tri-X developped in Rodinal. Both products haven't changed since decades (Rodinal is more than a century old now) so this is the "traditionnal B&W" combo, but it gives very pleasing results for my tastes, especially out of focus portions of the image render very nicely.
Tri-X is kodak's marvellous B&W film with an awesome grain. If you develop it in a fine grain developper (most of the developpers sold today) the emulsion grain will be mixed and finally won't be so nice and visible. On the counterpart, Agfa's Rodinal is a chemical that doesn't change the grain appearance, leaving it as it is on the film. While Pan F in Rodinal gives extremly fine grain, TMZ gives enormous grain. It is also know for its extreme acutance, which is visual sharpness (and not resolution). It also provide awesome mid-tones when diluted 1:75 and more. My recipe for contrasty scenes is 1:100 dilution for 20-25 minutes at 20�C, with little agitation. When contrast needs a little boost I go for 1:75 at about 14-16 minutes. I expose the film around ISO 250/320 when I can. You may also want to push process tri-x which gives some good results quite easily. Emofin is a 2 bath developper by Tetenal, very simple and easy to use (no dilution, you can use the stock for 6 months). I use to expose my tri-x rolls at 800 (dev about 7 mins), 1600 (dev about 10-12 mins), and even 3200 (dev about 18-20 mins) and get nice results. Don't forget that dev times mostly depends on the contrast you had when shooting (if contrast was really high, you will loose midtones with a long development). Actually I mostly shot B&W, in fact tri-x is what I shoot 95% of the time. After about a hundred tri-x rolls in emofin, i'am now experimenting with Rodinal, and it's nice ! In my darkroom I use mostly agfa chemicals too...especially Neutol NE & WA as paper dev. And Bergger warmtone fiber papers. I'am sick of Ilford for now... Good luck for the wedding ! Thibault Grouas ��Stephen Hoffman�� <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote�: > I need help in trying out B & W film. I haven't shot any in years and I > have been asked to shoot some in a wedding soon. Because of the time factor > I can't experiment with too many so I'm looking for advice and hopefully I > can narrow it down to a few. Thanks. > > Stephen Hoffman >
