Colour verses Black and White.

Good luck with the film. As long as it has not been kept in a very warm place it should be more than okay. I've stiil got a couple of rolls of Fuji Velvia which I used to love. SDtill got the Nikon FE and FMs too. Noth worth a carrot but I could not bear to sell them for next to nothing. Too many happy memories as well as the thousands of negs and slides, plus boxes of prints Mrs.B would be more than happy to donate to the refuse collection officers!

Black and White does focus the mind. To aid the process with digital images, Photoshop offers a very simple conversion with the addition of colour filters much like the ones used with monochrome film, ie red, orange, green etc to draw out the tones. OnOne also do a stand alone software called "Perfect B&W" which is very good and offers to also give the look of a range of Black & White films, and grain, plus borders to add attractive frames to the image.

Thanks, Rod, for your suggestions. I recall that B&W film lasts better than Colour Neg. I got some very strange colour shifts in the past with out-of-date Colour Neg film.

Yes, use of colour filter effects on monochrome digital images is another useful trick to get better separation and contrast. I will also have a look at the 'Perfect B&W' software you mention. I hope you hang on to your negs and slides, there may be some rainy days for you to do some scanning, so keep them hidden from Mrs.B ! 

A scanned image from 35mm film can be as good or better than a digital image from a digital camera, although there is a likelihood of more specks and scratch marks on a scanned image, which may require editing out afterwards. 

Some of my images on PoE are scans from film, for example this one (scanned from a 35mm Fujichrome transparency). I gave up on scanning because it was too time-consuming.

 I have been recently scanning a few slides and certainly it is something to see the shots again but I do find they come out quite often with a bit of a cast in the colour. Certainly the worst ones are the oldest and have been in the loft for years. The boxes stored in the cupoard under the stairs do seem to be a bit better. I know I am only using a basic scanner but for what I originally needed to copy ( the burnt out planes at Predannack ) it was half the cost of what a local photo shop wanted to copy a set of only half a dozen.

             I have today had a peep at a couple of some of the better ones and definately better so I shall carry on. 

A loft is probably the worst place to store slides or negatives. The extremes of temperature and humidity are very damaging, let alone the dusty conditions.  Storage at a constant moderate room temperature avoiding high humidity is the best bet. 

Even so, how likely is it that your digital data will be accessible in 40 years or more?  But that is the topic of another thread I think.