References for film brands and types?

[Frank Hymus]

I just purchased a Nikon F80 film DSLR and shot a black and white roll of 24 with a no name brand of ISO100 Black and White this weekend. So happy my best glass mounts well and works fine, even in all the Nikon auto focus modes/areas, and the A, S and P camera metering modes. Will get the roll developed and some prints this week. But I am interested in the "best" film, color and b/w, so I can learn a little more about some of the grain effects available in software like DxO and where they came from, as well as "typical" behavior of different color film. And the things that can be done in print processing. I am not yet into developing and printing myself, but the pros at my Photo Lab say they are prepared to work with me.

Thanks for any advice, and especially good reference material. Not giving up on the digital world, but now I know a lot more than when I last shot film, I want to know the classic film side of the business. But I doubt I'll go into the color filters and that however. But I do have UV mounted on all my lenses, fortunately.

[Laura]

Here is an article you might read.
http://photo.net/equipment/film

I bought an N70 a couple of years ago and tried the velvia 50 and 100 slide film. Very nice color. I used only for nature photography, no portraits. Also tried some of the Provia. Also very nice.

[Sue Wilde]

I used to use quite a bit of C41 film which is essentailly a B&W film which can be processed in a colour bath. If you can get your hands on it, it gives fabulous results and doesn't cost an arm and a leg for the processing.

[Ingrid Budge]

My favourite for colour tones is Portra, available in 160,400 and 800 asa - love the results you get. I've always had a soft spot for HP5 for b&w work, I have used Kodak BW400CN - I think this is the film Sue is referring to, I'm not keen on the colour cast that I seem to get with it though - but it can go through C41 as can XP2 by Ilford - although I haven't used it. Have fun