Some time back I said that I would do an extensive comparison of Ilford XP2 and Kodak BW400CN, both C41 B&W films. That turns out to be a formidable task, so I'm going to renege, at least for now. I simply don't have the time to do an adequate job. But I can say this, after just finishing another roll of the Kodak (my usual film is XP2): They both scan well in my workflow. I scan (Nikon 4000ED) in RGB, convert to Lab, discard the a and b channels and convert to gray scale. There are more complex workflows, mostly derived from converting color negatives, but this one works quite well for me. (More below.) I seem to have more misses on exposure with the Kodak than with the Ilford. In fact, exposure errors with XP2 with my M7 are relatively rare. This leads me to believe (with insufficient evidence to be certain) that the exposure latitude of the XP2 is greater. With limited data (again) I would suggest that tonality seems to be smoother with the XP2. But this may reflect more the need for a true A-B comparison, so I'm soft on this conclusion. Net, net, however, I'm going to stick with XP2. Returning to the question of RGB-Grayscale conversion, why not start with color negatives? PS/CS3 has a neat conversion option, and there are several plugins that claim to enhance tonality control in the conversion process. I've looked at them, and I'm intrigued. I would like to pursue this option, but I have precious little experience with color film. So, I'm looking for suggestions from the group. My strong preference is for a fast film, say, ISO ~400, with good latitude and good "grain" structure. Since this is a path to B&W only, color fidelity is (I think) irrelevant. My final output is a B&W print. Thanks for any suggestions. HFL