I once more bought a cheap pack op 3 Fuji Superia 200 films about a month ago, and I got the negatives back today. Well, what do you want me to say… you won’t see any color photos here!
By the way, all pictures are taken with a crappy Canon SureShot AF7 that I sacrificed shortly afterwards to recover the wonderful, big, bright finder that’s in it. More of that later…
I scanned them and treated them to a round of Lightroom….. and I converted most to black and white!
So what’s the point of color film?
For me, it’s black and white, I see the world in black and white, the things I photograph do not need any color.
Color does not add anything to my pictures. It rather distracts from the picture.
What’s more, I don’t develop color film at home. I tried with slide film and got good results, but the process is simply too cumbersome for me. You might disagree, but for black and white, I need just one 1 liter bottle for my fixer (aaaah the smell of fixer in the morning). The rest is water, lots of water and Rodinal which is mixed at the moment.
For color development I need 4 (FOUR) bottles of pre-mixed chemicals. I gave to pay much more attention to temperature. Black and white, in contrast (pardon the pun) is much more forgiving and fun to develop.
It’s not only the cost of development that puts me off, development for one film is 5.5€ here in Luxembourg, which is… well I guess it’s OK. Development for my black and white film costs me about 20 cents per film…. notice the difference?
I guess I will keep strictly to ‘goode olde blacke and white’ film for the foreseeable future. As I am not required to take family photographs for aunts and uncles who want color (and I hate that) and I don’t do weddings, black and white will be perfect in the future!
I love the contrast, I like rendering my pictures in a harsh, purely black and white way, and I probably won’t change this.
Well, you should never say never, but for the moment it’s what I like! Basta!
All pictures converted from color film to black and white!
Well I said in the title ‘Why I’ll buy no more color films’ but I should rather add PROBABLY to this. You never know…
Once more, thanks for visiting and see you soon!
Frank Lehnen Photography 
Nearly all the 135 analog I do is on cross-processed Vista+ mainly because it’s cheaper than Fomapan. When I first started off photography in the 80s photography shops and books used to make a big mystery out of developing and tell you that you needed a darkroom. I suspect they had vested interests. Ha.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Vested Interest, yeah. I need my toilet with some light sealing around the door. All the stuff laid out on the toilet seat and that’s all. Of course unfortunately no wet printing as yet. I’ll perhaps get to that a bit later…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Deng Fotoe si super schéin a bleif ganz kloer beim Schwaarz/wäiss. Dat gëtt de Fotoen “das gewisse Etwas”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Merci!! Schaff awer elo!! 😉
LikeLike
I’ve been considering for ages shooting cheap colour film and simply converting it all to b/w digitally after. If I did this I would set out with the b/w mindset when taking the photographs, not just randomly convert colour photographs afterwards to see if they might look better in b/w.
Opposite to you, C41 processing for me is much cheaper than b/w (around £3 per film compared with £8-10+ for b/w) as I don’t develop myself. Plus we can get AgfaPhoto Vista Plus 200 for £1 a roll so for around £4 I could potentially have a roll of b/w pics, after converting.
The last half dozen b/w films I’ve used have been CN film – Ilford XP2 Super, Kodak BW400CN and Fuji Neopan 400CN. This seemed a reasonably compromise but when the film costs £4-5 a roll, and I convert to b/w from the “colour cast” b/w these films give anyway, I may as well just go with the Vista Plus and convert that to b/w, and save a few pounds!
LikeLiked by 2 people
People are under the mistaken impression that Vista is cheap and therefore inferior film. But it’s not. It’s just that it’s been bought in bulk.
LikeLike
According to the dexter site – dexter.pcode.nl – the AgfaPhoto Vista Plus 200 is rebranded Fuji C200.
This certainly bears out with my experience of the two films, both in the colours, grain and look of the images, and the detail printed on the negative edges.
In its different forms (TudorColor XLX 200 is another one common in the UK) I’ve used more of this emulsion than all others put together.
LikeLike
I like the Agfa Vista stuff, it’s basically the same as Fuji 200 film, but cheaper still though I can sometimes ‘t develop at home, sure.et a 3 pack of Fuji for less.
But for me color film is out as I prefer any results in B/W. And nothing beats the look of real b/w HP5 or Fomapan film. But cost is a factor too if you dont develop at home.
LikeLike
I need to try some Vista Plus 200 converted to b/w and see how it goes.
When the purist streak in me gets carried away and rejects even the possibility of using anything other than “proper” b/w film, I need to remember my needs and my level of photography.
I’m not a professional, needing to produce large high quality prints. Mostly I just share stuff online that’s only seen on a computer/ tablet/ phone screen…
LikeLike
No, Vista and Fuji 200 are excellent films, great color and quite fine grain!
LikeLiked by 1 person