Just got an Elan II and need film recommendations

From Monday to Friday I'm usually in Irvine. Thanks for the link, I'll definitely take a look at it.

Thanks DocFrankenstein and randerson07 for all the info. Looks like I got a lot of learning to do. Should be fun

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5973065
After stopbath (vinegar) you can look at the film in daylight. Then you keep it in fixer for a couple of minutes until the film becomes clear.

I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't expose it to any light until it's been in the fixer for at least a minute. I've fogged many a good sheet of 4x5 trying that, in fact I've even fogged it with a safelight before it's gone in the fixer. The problem is that you may still have some unexposed silver on the sheet and a trace amount of developer. There's no advantage to looking before it's fixed anyway -- I mean it's going to be pretty hard to judge whether it should go back in the developer or not.

The one type of film I know of that you can develop by inspection is orthochromatic (i.e. lith) film. I'm probably going to take up contrast masking for sheet film one of these days, and since lith film is only blue-sensitive you can inspect it under a red safelight.