Another new workflow today. I shot two rolls with the Leica M6ttl onIlford XP2, an ISO 400 C-41 process black and white film. The Ilford isdeveloped like color print film, but yields a black and white dye basedimage. These are the first two rolls I tried in quite a while. I shot afew rolls of the Kodak equivalent, BW400CN, but wasn’t really taken bythe image quality. The Kodak scans were very creamy, not at all suitedto my usual style. XP2 was said to be closer to Tri-x and I think thisimage supports that idea.A local minilab told me they would do develop only for a good price-$4.50 for a 36 exposure roll. They also said they’d cut the film instrips of 6 which would make my scanning faster. When I got there, I sawthat I could have Noritsu scans made for $9.99 a roll. The result are3090 x 2048 scans saved as jpegs compressed about 6 to 1. Given the ISO400 and grain quality, this 6 megapixel equivalent is actually fine. Ifit were Velvia, I’d want some higher resolution. Having the scanningdone does run the price up from $8-9 dollars for film plus processing tonear $20. But they are adequate scans and they preserve the film feelquite well.For convenience, price and quality, the D80 with my trusty 24mm is farsuperior in quality. Given that I can handhold the Nikon down to 1/30thand ISO 800 has way less noise than XP2 has grain, there’s no low lightadvantage to the leica. The Leica just has that modeling that I feel islost somewhat with the D80 which is flatter in it’s rendering.
