Photographers Are Terrible at Identifying Most B&W Films

What guides your choice of black-and-white film? Is it the contrast, the grain, or something else?

Last year, I built a game, “What The Film ?!” with Daren and Yvonne. It randomized black-and-white photos and asked players to guess what film the photos were shot on. The images were sourced from the community, so before I go any further, I’d like to thank everyone who uploaded their scans: Thank you!

The game was featured on 35mmc and PetaPixel and has been played by 573 people thus far. On the game page, everyone’s scores are tabulated in the Top 100 column.

This weekend, I brushed through the entries and found a few interesting statistics about our understanding of black-and-white films.

I hope you don’t get offended by the title of this article. I’m sure you can do better than the average (feel free to play the game and see for yourself), but also, our seeming inability to tell black-and-white films apart is nuanced, understandable, and fascinating.

In this article, I’ll examine the most interesting statistics our gameplay revealed, such as the most and least recognized films, and discuss a few reasons behind those numbers. In this article About the data. Isn’t 37% worse than chance? The LEAST recognizable black-and-white films. The MOST recognizable black-and-white films. Up next: colour films! Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!Of course, the appearance of the final result isn’t the only reason to choose a particular film stock. This article covers many other reasons to consider a specific emulsion (like the speed/sensitivity, developer choice, dynamic range, and physical properties).

About the data.

Community uploads for the “What The Film?!” game (I’ll abbreviate it as WTF?! from hereon) were limited to 38 current film stocks. The community submissions that came through and were included in the game (and in the statistics) were Agfa Copex Rapid, Film Ferrania P30, Fomapan 100 Classic, Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros, Ilford Delta 100 Professional, Ilford Delta 3200 Professional, Ilford Delta 400 Professional, Ilford FP4+, Ilford HP5+, Ilford Ortho+, Kentmere 100, Kentmere 400, Kodak T-Max 100, Kodak Tri-X 400, Lomography Berlin Kino, Lomography Earl Grey, Rollei Infrared 400, and Rollei RPX 100.

The game is organized into levels that vary in difficulty. The easy levels have fewer multiple-choice options, and I’ve also picked films that are easier to recognize in these levels. Note that this choice almost certainly affects the statistical significance of my findings regarding individual films — but there’s enough data to demonstrate that it’s exceedingly difficult to tell what film a photo was shot on just by looking at a computer screen.

The Top 100 Rankings table in the game shows scores that combine level difficulty and the time it took the player to guess. The faster and more correct you are, the higher the rankings!

Isn’t 37% worse than chance?

Well, no. The fact that we have collectively guessed 37% of films correctly doesn’t mean we’re worse than chance at telling what’s on the screen. The multiple-choice questions had 2-10 options to choose from. Napkin math would suggest that we are significantly better than chance here.

That said, some films were more difficult to guess than others.

The LEAST recognizable black-and-white films.

Lomography Earl Grey, Kentmere 100, Lomography Berlin Kino, and Ilford Ortho Plus had the worst guess correctness rates of 4%, 8.6%, 10.3%, and 13% respectively.

Part of the reason for that could be the lack of sufficient branding familiarity, but there could be other reasons, too. I am, however, somewhat surprised about Ilford Ortho Plus, an orthochromatic emulsion that can not “see” red (and thus renders it black). You’d think a unique property like that would make a film easy to tell from others — apparently not!

Of course, subject/scene choice in the game photos and the game’s structure (i.e., the random choices presented alongside the correct one) can significantly affect how guessable those emulsions are. Make of that what you wish.

The MOST recognizable black-and-white films.

Rollei Infrared 400, Film Ferrania P30, Ilford HP5+, and Fujifilm Neopan Acros were the best-recognized films with correctness rates of 87.99%, 54.2%, 45.2%, and 41.4% respectively.

Unsurprisingly, almost everyone could tell an infrared film apart from the rest. The high contrast and the white leaves are distinctive marks of IR emulsions. Other films are well-known options we may pick out of the bunch because we recognize the names, yet it’s hard to deny the distinctive contrast of P30 and the smooth tones of Acros.

Up next: colour films!

Given how challenging it was for us to recognize black-and-white films, how well do you think we’ll do with colour?

Does colour film have properties that make it more distinguishable? Would various scanning techniques and software affect the film’s appearance to the point of no recognition, or will the grain, saturation and colour sensitivity shine through the noise?

Submit your photos here to help us build the all-new colour film levels for the WTF?! game.

Your images may appear in the game and get featured in the new videos Daren and Yvonne are filming this month!