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Black & White Looks

Twenty-five monochrome emulsions, from grainless ISO 25 to infrared.

Monochrome films differ in grain structure and in spectral response — how colours become greys. Traditional cubic-grain films have texture; tabular-grain films are smooth. Orthochromatic film is blind to red so lips and skin go dark; infrared film sees past it so foliage turns white. Those differences survive conversion to grey in a way that a saturation slider set to zero never reproduces.

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9 looks in this selection

Kodak Tri-X 400

The definitive photojournalism film: gritty grain, deep blacks, enormous latitude.

6 renderings

Ilford HP5 Plus 400

Tri-X's British counterpart — flatter, softer and easier to print.

5 renderings

Kodak T-Max 100

Extremely fine-grained tabular film — close to grainless at normal enlargements.

1 rendering

Ilford Delta 100

Ilford's fine-grain tabular film — crisp, clean and slightly contrastier than T-Max 100.

1 rendering

Fuji Neopan Acros 100

Fuji's fine-grain film, famous for having essentially no reciprocity failure.

1 rendering

Ilford Pan F Plus 50

Ilford's slowest film: near-grainless, high contrast, demanding.

1 rendering

Rollei Ortho 25

Orthochromatic film — blind to red, so it renders the world the way pre-1900 photographs did.

1 rendering

Kodak HIE Infrared

True infrared film: white foliage, black skies, glowing halation around highlights.

1 rendering

Fuji X-Trans III Acros

Fujifilm's premium monochrome simulation, with optional colour filters.

4 renderings