I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

scanning is hard?

esp when g-d cvs cuts your negatives MID FRAME

srsly these things have been butchered, prob lost 30% of each roll

aw :/
i have never tried piecing together two distinct anythings in photoshop, but i don't suppose that's an option? at least so you have something.

i am gonna play w/a negative scanner this week, i've never tried before.

also how do I shot sharpness and noise reduction? these things are as grainy (digital) as all get out

I don't apply any sharpening at all when scanning. and then I do just a little color noise reduction.
before downsizing and uploading, if anything, I do a little *unsharpening*

is b/w scanning easier?

it's easier because you don't have to worry about color balance issues, but I think the plustek handles color negs better maybe?
are you using silverfast?

sorta: the version the scanner shipped with isn't compatible with 10.8, so i'm using a demo of the latest version (with its stupid watermarking...good for learning, though)

if it's the full version (demo or not), I find it very helpful to use it in "expert mode," which gives you greater freedom to scan beyond the light and dark values that the automatic mode would suggest.
it's a little hard to explain, but expert mode brings up a series of levels (red, blue, and green channels) with sliders to set the range that is scanned. I bring up a film profile (negafix) suitable to whichever film I'm scanning, set those slider values for the whole roll and generally leave them alone, and then can scan an entire roll without doing any cropping (if you try to scan uncropped negatives when you aren't in expert mode, the auto adjustments are fooled by the unexposed space around the picture).
even still I end up with scans that are tinted kinda off a lot of the time, but this process gets me close.

I also find that a lot of the included "negafixes" (those profiles for different films) are sorta off. some have a magenta tint, etc. so I've ended up making duplications of them and adjusting them bit by bit until I finally end up with some profiles that *generally* work pretty well for me.
silverfast is honestly sort of a total pain, but as far as I can figure it's still pretty much the best option. I have vuescan too, but can't get it to give me anything other than garbage. it does really weird stuff with clipping highlights and producing a greenish cast on everything.

too-grey black & white photography is maybe my least favourite thing to look at in the whole world

what's too gray?

kinda "washed out"? I'm reluctant to posit that hardcore-technical standard, about pictures needing to contain absolute blacks & whites. but there are spectrums of grey that almost depress me. a bleariness, a quality of being unlit, my exposure skills having failed to make a dark area dark. it's the thing i remember about when i started taking b&w photos when i was young.

i got a roll of acros back recently, which i'd asked the developer to push a stop, & the outside stuff is okay. but the indoor stuff has this greyness. ex. just comparing it to other b&w stuff (ex) that's comparatively 'spectral', the sort of flatter, muted, lighter i-guess-failed b&w stuff i get occasionally bums me out. i really like thinking about the abstraction involved in shooting in B&W, & its like this grey stuff is evidence of some purgatory between representational colour & abstract B&W, somehow carrying this sad unatmospheric realness of colour across into monochrome.

I gotcha. Kind of a squeezed dynamic range, which in this case looks like it's the result of underexposure.
As I mention over and over I love grays and mids, but that example is pretty unsatisfying to me too. I think too-gray can look good sometimes though, like in this Robert Adams: http://artgallery.yale.edu/adams/slide.php?id=9069&s=105281 which is very gray and has no true black or white point, but still holds a lot of detail.
I think it's an exposure issue. That room was probably darker than you thought!

ha. yeah sure. that adams shot is a really persuasive illustration, also for uniform, undifferentiated grey space serving a function (i just got some slides scanned, too, & the blank skies are a lil frustrating). the other example i included above was from eating dinner at some friends' place, which wasn't so light, using hp5, pushed a stop, & everything came out really nicely, so i think i maybe just got a little comfortable with my recipe for atmospheric indoor b&w shots. i am definitely pro-midtones but more in a context where they're like visibly the middle of a spectrum.

does anyone here have strong feelings either way about portra (i guess outside of "it's expensive")? i think because the box has a lilac streak on it i want to like it, but i can't remember getting anything good out of the roll i tried, & flickring around none of the tones are v exciting to me. i am going through a nice, gratifying stage of using super-cheap agfa vista film at the moment, & getting a lot out of it, & portra was going to be the occasional thing i bought myself to maybe have loaded now it's getting darker. but it all just looks super boring, whether pushed or w/e. i've been looking at the 800, & afaik 800 speed colour film is generally not so exciting, but i'd be interested if anyone has portra smarts.

portra can look nice but it's not worth the money imo. I stick with the cheap stuff, and especially swear by fuji superia 400 (most of my color photos)

I feel like people who buy a lot of portra (and other nice pricey films) have their priorities out of whack

or they're wedding photographers

i have probably changed my mind about this twice, & argued w/you about it once, but yeah i am off superia at the moment. i think you're right about it having the potential to be really nice if well used (& yr examples always corroborate this; i actually just checked & was knocked out by yr recent IHKH shit) but i - as a lazy or to be more generous 'quick' photographer - don't usually expose well enough to get the best out of it, & it has a kind of drab flat muted quality when i do stuff wrong. also i am feeling the critique of its skin tones. for cheap colour film i go for agfa 200, which is grainy and/but nice (also nice pushed); & for nice colour film i'd go for ektar, which is so nice i think it's worth the extra couple of bucks. like it's so nice.

portra idk i think it's just 'yellow and lilac box' sending signals to my brain about how nice it's going to turn out. it looks like it works p well in low light, &c, but it is not grabbing me.

xp ha. yeah. also people who take lots of soft focus shots of individual shot glasses at bars. guys this is a shitty photograph stop doing it.

well I couldn't say anything about agfa anything since it's not really common here. at least not that I've seen.
and I think I know what you're talking about with the drab look. I had a lot of disappointing superia shots in the past, but I found it really depended on the lab I used to do the scans. once I went on home scanning it was all cool. now I've got my technique down and am pretty good with that film! and it really can be pretty low grain too, if that's your thing.

and ektar is nice, but kind of haaard for me to scan. for some reason. plus I'm really used to having 400 speed film in my camera, and can't get the shutter speed/aperture combos I like with slower films.

i think i like the way portra can look super saturated and juicy!

the first time i bought it was because it didn't have a price on it and when the cashier rang up the total, i decided it must be worth it.

the second time i bought it, the roll of portra in the pearl river on the other thread, it was to impress a girl while shopping at leo's on granville in vancouver. and it did hurt to fuck it up (overexposed and somehow wildly underexposed for two of the 12 shots), considering the cost.

I do think portra has a bit more tolerance for over/underexposure, so that's a plus. I've just found that the advantage it gives doesn't seem proportional to the increased cost.

fuji superia, at under $3 a roll:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8177/8045008886_e09a90b2c7_z.jpg

i heard really good things in the past about agfa, generally, that their film was really good to cross-process (idk which stock exactly, though i know the vista 200 isn't only processable in c-41), but could never really find any, & then a while ago it was for sale in pound-shops in the UK, so i had a bunch. their (discontinued) B&W scala film is the bomb, also, if you ever see any expired kicking around.

kinda comforted to know you had some difficulties w/superia also; i think i'm maybe thinking about when i've used it quickly, or in motion? i think the stuff it worked best on for me was for the well-lit, outdoor, taking-photos-of-stuff-on-the-ground shots i take. it's interesting you mentioning it enabling the aperture/shutter speed combos you prefer - i don't really think that way but it's v true, & having 400 speed b&w film (especially pushed to 800) feels very freeing to me, like i'm pretty casual about shooting anything without too much fussing. low grain isn't super exciting to me, but, since we are arguing, if it is a plus it is super-pronounced w/ektar (check the threads, here). i am scanning a roll of ektar while typing this & it really knocks me out, the colours are just so pretty and measured & - & i guess this is a grain thing - pure & bold.

re: portra idk i just haven't seen it looking saturated & juicy. someone on a forum mentioned a street photographer who shoots the 400 @ 1600, which was kinda zingy. actually this guy has it pretty nice. but i feel like it's way more subdued whenever i see it, like its tonal detail comes at the expense of richness or something. gonna wait til i need to impress someone before i pick some up.

oh without a doubt ektar is super low-grain. the king of smoothness. and I kinda like it and it's not even really that expensive.
I just always have to remind myself that I will be taking pictures in a different way than I normally do.

switching up is really fun for me. i am going to adorama at the end of the month, to load up on stock, & i am just gonna get a little of everything. using the bunch of agfa i had i was pretty much varying something every time - pushing it one or two stops or shooting at night/shooting in the day, &c.

were you getting the agfa at adorama?

a nice sounding question

isn't it. but nuh-uh. i was getting it at poundland. they were selling colorplus & vista. i am going to try routinely hitting dollar stores here to see if any of them do that kinda thing.

but re: adorama i just can't believe how cheap it is, like tri-x is a few bucks or whatever (maybe pre-tax, i forget). so i'm gonna buy a whole bunch.

btw the hivemind of flickr discussion boards mentions, re: agfa 200, "It's Fuji C200 by another name", which who knows but there we go

also (sorry i am just in a film rabbit hole online, now) apparently all of kodak's extra color slide film has been discontinued. it is maybe my fav. so sad.

so p3200 is gone, I have a few rolls in the freezer, have never really had an occasion to shoot it tho

also kentmere 400 has been out of stock for months

kentmere's the cheap kinda-ilford thing, right?
3200 speed b&w is a slightly less harrowing discontinuation to me, because there are a couple of other really nice alternatives. though i've never used any & if it's as singular as tri-x then it sucks bad.

end times.

am going to continue to use this thread as a liveblog of my inner monologue; i feel like this wouldn't have real authentic Photography Internet Forum credentials if a guy wasn't dryly, methodically chronicling his process with supporting examples demonstrating grain textures:

i was looking around some more, re: portra, & the few things i've found that i really like the look of seem to all be things that were shot w/portra 400, rated at 800 or higher but not pushed (a bunch of examples). quite often when i shoot slide film i feel like it's best at the very limit of its latitude, the edge of its range or w/e, like shooting it with just enough light for it to work yields the best stuff. i'm kinda nervous about basically underexposing & not treating a whole roll of film, though, so. maybe even nicer still is the guy who's shooting 800 at 400, which i can't even do the math for. i guess it's a flexible film but i feel like i am gonna overexposed and somehow wildly underexposed for two of the 12 shots. gonna go experiment.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/10/how-to-shoot-ilford-xp2-super.html

probably applies to bw400cn as well

thanks for that, looking forward to reading
i almost kinda like the leeway cn-41 BW film gives you, in getting the film back & being able to blame it for not being as perfect as it could be were it the real thing

i was looking around some more, re: portra, & the few things i've found that i really like the look of seem to all be things that were shot w/portra 400, rated at 800 or higher but not pushed (a bunch of examples). quite often when i shoot slide film i feel like it's best at the very limit of its latitude, the edge of its range or w/e, like shooting it with just enough light for it to work yields the best stuff. i'm kinda nervous about basically underexposing & not treating a whole roll of film, though, so. maybe even nicer still is the guy who's shooting 800 at 400, which i can't even do the math for. i guess it's a flexible film but i feel like i am gonna overexposed and somehow wildly underexposed for two of the 12 shots. gonna go experiment.

i thought about all of this stuff as soon as i loaded the film i bought & felt so goofy; it's like whenever i am shooting black & white when it's bright out: i feel like i would have to do a lot wrong to screw it up. over- or under-exposing 800 speed film a stop in either direction doesn't seem so dramatic, but, fwiw, & w/the confusing caveat that obv some of this is indoors & some outdoors:

800 rated at 400: 1, 2
800 rated at 1600: 1, 2

the science in the c-41 B&W article is really illuminating, btw: knowing about how grain sorta 'accumulates' at the other end of the spectrum from trad B&W is really interesting.

http://i.imgur.com/FqsKp.png

uh oh

i know that bluish cast is fucked

I got super bummed out because I thought I had lost a roll of film because I only had 9 rolls of arista shot instead of 10, and I always shoot in multiples of 5 rolls, but then I ralized I traded a roll for agfa! so all is well

got my agfa back from the "lost batch" last weekend, and just uploaded a photo from it:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8197/8227682489_268c9bd9b7_c.jpg

I'm going to shoot more film in 2013, particular medium format. I had such a reaction to this shot on Facebook recently, especially from my film-toting friends, that I should dust the Bronica off and start working through the rolls of 120...

(This is from April 2011; Bronica SQ-A, Zenzanon-S 150mm f/3.5, Fuji Provia 400F)

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6135/6012022920_396ca3a884_z.jpg

(Weirdly-framed light leak and all).

(It's just occurred to me that the Provia 400F was depicted in my original post on this thread! Part of my free haul of expired film).

I'm getting frustrated with my terrible film developing technique, but still tempted to get a proper medium format camera (i have a Holga).

i am still thinking about a membership to the mpls photo center, but i kinda just want these 20+ rolls developed and developed NOW

are they color or B+W