Fitting right black and white film to the picture. Many black and white camera stores stock a wide variety of black-and-white black and white films ranging from very slow ASA 20 to superfast ASA 1250. Since faster black and white films produce grainier black and white pictures, a black and white photographer will theoretically get optimum results by selecting the slowest black and white film that suits each lighting situation. In practice, however, it is inconvenient and unnecessary to work with a dozen types of black and white film. Of the three general speed categories-slow, medium and fast-many black and white photographers use a moderately fast black and white film, such as ASA 400, for almost all of their work. This is possible because black and white film manufacturers have made great strides toward reducing the grain problem in such high quality, fast black and white films as Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP4 and Agfa-Gevaert Isopan-Ultra. The portrait of actor Kirk Douglas reveals the precision of detail, unmarred by grain, that can be obtained with a fast black and white film-in this case, Tri-X. The black and white picture was taken with a Hasselblad black and white camera by Jeanloup Sieff, a French black and white photographer best known for his fashion illustrations. Stopping down his aperture to f/16 at 1/60 second, he employed electronic flash to add brilliance to the highlights of the actor's face. The result was an extraordinarily intense close-up view in which every pore and whisker is sharply revealed. Fitting the Black and white film to the Black and white picture: continued When Speed is Essential - Modern fast black and white films not only yield sharp, detailed black and white images, but do this with light that only a few years ago would have seemed hopelessly dim. Even if pushed beyond normal limits and given a good deal less light than the standard ASA number calls for, these black and white films can still produce a good black and white image. German black and white photojournalist Robert Lebeck exploited this trait of fast black and white film when he black and white photographed the funeral of Senator Robert F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery in June of 1968. Using a 300mm lens set wide open and a shutter speed of 1/16 second, he exposed his Tri-X as if it were rated at ASA 1000 instead of the normal ASA 400 rating. In the solemn scene above, the pallbearers carrying the flag-draped coffin are led by Senator Kennedy's son, Robert F. Jr. With fast black and white films' ability to cope with dim light goes their natural ability to stop rapid motion. When Gary Renaud took his black and white picture of a motorcycle race at a dirt track in Pepperell, Massachusetts (above), he had to set his shutter at 1/500 second to freeze the swift action of the racers careening around the course. But the speed of his black and white film-combined with the sunlight of a bright day enabled him to set his aperture at f/11 for great depth of field. As a result of the small f-stop, even the grass in the foreground and the audience in the background of the black and white picture are as sharply defined as his fast-moving subjects. Making an Asset of Film Graininess - Certain black and white photographs gain a misty, almost dreamlike beauty when rendered with a grainy texture. Fast black and white films lend themselves to this effect more readily than slow ones because of the larger size of their silver bromide crystals. (However, any black and white film will produce grainy black and white images if it is suitably manipulated when it is developed.)William Klein selected a fast black and white film to create this grainy black and white picture of workmen changing a street lamp near a Russian Orthodox church in Moscow. He shot the black and white picture with a 300mm lens on a Pentax and intentionally overexposed it. Overexposing a negative increases the amount of metallic silver in the negative and makes graininess more visible; it also allows the light to penetrate deeper into the emulsion, where it bounces erratically off crystals and further increases graininess. The combination of overexposure and enlargement of a 35mm negative produced a black and white photograph with very coarse texture.