Film Review: Kodak BW400CN

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

BW400CN is Kodak's C-41-process monochrome film. Ilford makes XP2, a similar product, with one noteworthy difference: The Kodak film is backed by yellow celluloid where the Ilford is backed by clear celluloid. Kodak's film translates B&W more accurately onto color print paper where Ilford's translates more accurately onto monochrome paper. I picked up a couple rolls of BW400CN and had a chance to shoot a few subjects.

The films are both built like and function like color film -- three emulsions layers each reacting to a different light wavelength. Instead of capturing color gradations, however, the crystals simply turn on and off like regular monochromatic film.

I performed two series tests with the film using various filters and filter combinations to see if it performed the same as standard black and white with filters. In short, it does. This should come as no surprise, though to me it kind of does. For some reason I expected the filters to have no effect. The BW400CN functioned exactly like 400 ISO standard monochromatic film.

As for quality, the image quality is decent. I somewhat prefer the image quality on TMax 400, but this film provides for more than a reasonable level of detail. Here are some test shots to illustrate some of the film's qualities.

Here are two sample photos, the first with, I believe, only a yellow filter. The second using a yellow and blue filter.

The vignetting is due to the filters, but not because they are present. The lens is a 52mm diameter. The yellow filter was a 52mm filter with a 55mm blue filter. On two similar photos with a 52mm red filter instead of each of the others, no vignetting occurred.

This photo was taken using either a red and blue or red and yellow filter pairing. I need to take better notes when I shoot. Anyway, this photo exhibits suitable detail with graininess beginning at about 50% (I scan the negatives in at 11X14 or 11X17, depending on content.

This image shows the film's ability to catch contrast while also retaining detail. This was taken with no filters, evidences by the glare.

This photo shows the film's ability to capture details. note the grass and tree bark. Had I been asked, I might not have guessed this photo to be from a 400 ISO film.

BW400CN is not all roses and happy-day la-las, however.

None of the images in this post received color balancing or conversion to monochrome. So you can see one of the film's downfalls: being based on a yellow base, scanning can cause coloration flaws in the finished scan. Note the different hue in each of the above shots. The top shot is slightly yellow while the bottom is slightly magenta. This may have been a scanner artifact, but the photos had wildly inconsistent casts across the roll.

In short, if you want to shoot monochrome but don't have a nearby lab that can process it cheaply or easily, BW400CN is a very good option. The film costs $6 or $7 here in California for a 24-exposure roll, which could be worthwhile if it's your only monochrome option.

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04

Very thoughtful and helpful review David, thankyou. About the colour cast, I feel this is more likely to be affected by the scanner software settings rather than the film. We've seen many pictures on ordinary mono film here on the forum which have a slight colour cast. To avoid it, the best thing I've found is to set the scanner software to capture in grayscale mode, or to convert each picture to grayscale afterwards, but that's more labour-intensive.

I also found that BW400CN displays a lot less grain than HP5+. Admittedly, I developed the HP5 myself so that could be a factor, but the C41 film was way better. Could it be that 3 layers of emulsion smooths out the graininess?

The only negative aspect I found (pardon the pun) was that all the images were markedly underexposed. I don't know if this was down to the film, the camera or even the cheap lab processing. Next time I'm going to rate it at about 320 or so and send it to a pro lab. Here's one of my smooooth captures (still in RGB mode by the way) Smile

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Many thanks David!!

eeyore_nl · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 837 Location: Netherlands

Thanks for the review!

As Peterqd already mentions, those films work better at 320ASA or slower. BW400CN can handle massive amounts of overexposure!

In my experience, Kodak BW400CN is very smooth with a huge tonal range, more so than Ilford XP2. On the other hand, BW400CN behaves very ugly when underexposed; more than XP2.

I think that I like XP2 a bit better, but BW400CN is not bad at all. For me, there's no difference really in ease of scanning, despite the different base layer color.

BW400CN

XP2

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

Very interesting comments, I've just loaded the first roll of B&W in over 25 years in my AE1p - a roll of XP2 400.

I like the tones of this Kodak BW400CN though, especially eeyore's boat picture. The difference between the terrific detail of the boat and the background makes a great image.

eeyore_nl · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 837 Location: Netherlands

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04

David, here's an original scan from the same roll to show you the underexposure of BW400CN at box speed. Pentax ESII and SMC Tak 50/1.4

But no problem to add a little gamma

eeyore_nl · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 837 Location: Netherlands

Peter, I usually shoot XP2 or BW400CN at 320ASA.

I once saw a BW400CN test somewhere which showed that even at 10 stops overexposure there were still details in the highlights! So it's much better to overexpose a bit, even more than with regular C-41 negative film.

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04

eeyore_nl · Joined: 09 Nov 2008 Posts: 837 Location: Netherlands

IANUS · Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 276 Location: Germany

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04