I find it interesting that while this film was born out of a specific technical problem, nowadays it still satisfies a very specific technicality albeit a very different one.
At the time, B&W chemicals were not as readily available as the C-41 process used with colour negatives: thus the original purpose of the black and white film Fuji Neopan 400 CN was to be processed with C-41. Nowadays all film is niche – not just B&W – and C-41 is just as common as B&W: therefore the original need has expired. Yet a new one is created, since ICE cannot work with normal B&W emulsions (ICE is the dust removal system of several film scanners) due to the different reflective characteristics of the silver present in conventional B&W films. Neopan 400 CN can be easily scanned with the ICE dust-removal activated. In June 2012 I took a few pictures in Nice while I was in between trains, all with a Nikon FM2n, a Nikkor AI-S 50/1.2 and Neopan 400CN. Here are a few samples, scanned with a Nikon Coolscan 9000.
