I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

Took a long walk yesterday from the West Village up 5th Ave. and some side streets to the Queensboro Bridge. Finished a roll in the Leica, then loaded and shot a roll in the Pentax. Lots of candid pictures, places that were new to me, people in what I thought was interesting light. Felt like I was getting close/bold etc.
Today I realized I misloaded the roll and didn't expose any film!

We've all done this right? It's crushing when it happens.

Ordered 25 rolls of Arista-branded Tri-X ($2.69/roll!) plus 5 rolls apiece of medium-format Provia 100 and 400X from Freestyle. I hadn't realized how crazy color film prices had gotten - time to start hunting for out of date film.

tri-x is for kids

:o

MIDS!

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 8:56 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

btw this post explains so much about yr aesthetic dude, i love it

tri-x is for kids

was really agitating for this as ILP board slogan but i know it is facing down an establishment pick

TRI-X IS THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME AND YOU WILL SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTHS

y'all

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tZLFn1V1zn4/TbQ263OGAqI/AAAAAAAAAdk/dvvpA89aGEU/s1600/Trix.jpg

was just kidding, co-sign one trillion percent on tri-x (i have only tried 400?, should i try others?, there are others right), i love it. i bought a roll today. it is so 'luminous'.

They used to make a Tri-X Professional in 120 and 4x5, but I think that's been completely discontinued. TX400 is the only Tri-X game in town (until Kodak goes bankrupt)
Plus-X is the old-school slow speed Kodak film.

plus-x is hard to find!

they used to make a tri-x PAN. not sure what that was about.

Tri-X Pan is the old name for Tri-X - pan just stands for panchromatic. They dropped that with one of the later formulations.

Tri-X Pro was 320 ISO instead of 400, I don't know what the other differences were, I never used it.

oh okay. i was looking at expired film on ebay (i had not done this before it is interesting) & felt like i'd seen tri-x 1000 or something, i guess it was a diff kodak film. TY. long live 400 anyway, it's everything i want.

TMZ3200, which is kind of sucky. If you need 1600 ISO, pushing Tri-X or HP5 works better IMO.

Going to buy some HP5, actually, to push to 1600 for the wedding I'm officiating Sunday. Keeps me from having to dance at the reception.

would you not use ilford delta, or neopan 1600, in that case? i think they're both nice films if you use them right, the biggest factor is that SUPER HI CONTRAST SHADOWY BW PHOTOGRAPHY is sorta played out atm. or is this if you're trying to get something comparable, midtones &c

HP5 pushed has finer grain and nicer tonality (IMO) than the Delta/TMax3200 films. I used to enjoy using that with a Holga & direct flash in the middle of mosh pits. (negatives all disappeared now, sadly)

We all knew this was coming, right?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/eastman-kodak-files-for-bankruptcy/

Whenever there is news like this, discussion on a lot of photo forums starts getting all "ha, nothing to worry about! their film division as actually profitable! they recently unveiled new film types! I don't see film dying off anytime soon! there will be a huge market for whichever company is left! they just need to cut the fat and focus on their film division! etc. etc. etc."

I think these folks are deceiving themselves. These reassuring discussions occur so often (every time another film product is discontinued, which is very frequent!) that it's absurd.

I'm definitely a film pessimist.

I swear if the news tomorrow was that 99% of all film types were discontinued, discussion board dudes would be all "actually, this is great news! I see a robust future for film! great consolidation strategy!" Totally delusional.

i guess what i hope happens with this is what i assume - & i haven't totally been paying attention bc it's not my field - happened w/polaroid; has happened to some degree with film (partic its ~weirder~ variants) in general; has been pronounced w/vinyl; & which you sometimes see when a chocolate bar which people had fond childhood memories of is eventually retired: that there will be some kinda of resurgence in reaction to a decline. people ironically make petitions demanding production of the twist bar be resumed and redoubled, it forming such a critical part of the fabric of the nation. so i hope that in response to an increased divide between film and digital, people's investment in film will be matched by attempts to provide for people on that scale. but what's probably worrying is that film is like hi-tec shit, right? & so with stuff like kodachrome it's retired for whatever practical reason, & isn't the kinda thing that can just be knocked up by enthusiasts in basements.

i just hope you can get one of the basic, staple types of film in fifteen years, whether it's from a weird thing like the polaroid project or whatever. not to fetishise the variety and 'unknown' of film photography but i do feel like, now at least, part of shooting film is going to mean working with what's there and trying to explore & extend the possibilities of that, which maybe is different from having been able to rely on working sensibly with your preferred tools. but maybe it will be that or nothing.

appreciating the mustard-enthusiast-style window into what it's like in internet film rabbit holes, btw, i've never really checked those places

the other prob with people's nostalgia prompting a resurgence of a product from childhood thing is that a ton of people *already* think film is dead! like I can't count how many times people will say to me on the street, "wow you can still buy film?? that's crazy!"
prob just gonna have kinda expensive hobbyist black and white eventually right?

the inevitable switch to digital is actually kind of exciting for me, but it's going to be expensive (I rarely have much money for electronics).

Odds are, things will shake out over the next few years leaving a couple of options in B&W film - maybe just Ilford and one of the cheaper Foma/etc. types. Color will probably die (unless Fuji keeps it going as a labor of love), particularly if the movie industry stops buying film completely.

B&W film is supposedly fairly easy to make on an industrial scale, unlike color, so I think that's pretty safe for our lifetimes in one way or another.

/\/\/\ This. I am definitely interested in seeing ways in which film can be manufactured by an "amateur".

I am still a film guy and will still definitely shoot film as long as I can find it, even though I am now in DSLR-land (somewhat sceptically). Whether it is another 10, 5, 2 years, I plan to go all out and enjoy it.

Whenever there is news like this, discussion on a lot of photo forums starts getting all "ha, nothing to worry about! their film division as actually profitable! they recently unveiled new film types! I don't see film dying off anytime soon! there will be a huge market for whichever company is left! they just need to cut the fat and focus on their film division! etc. etc. etc."

I think these folks are deceiving themselves. These reassuring discussions occur so often (every time another film product is discontinued, which is very frequent!) that it's absurd.

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:18 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

I'm a film optimist - I have to be! so much money invested in equipment. but here's my understanding:

-kodak's film division is profitable. kodak's bankruptcy doesn't mean the end of kodak - perhaps after restructuring they'll have a more sustainable model.
-although film divisions can be profitable, compared to the profit gained from digital or other areas of photography, the profits are minuscule. I remember reading about a breakdown of fuji's financial report (on some photography forum) where it was said that fuji's film division accounted for like, 1% of its total profit. or maybe it was less than 1%.

what are my arguments that film will live on? idk, some sense of obligation on the part of photography companies, devotion to the tradition. sigh

I feel like ilford is an example that yes, a company can be profitable and make its primary business about photography. I just wonder if film has truly bottomed yet in 2012, or if it can bottom still further. I wonder if hipsters will buy black and white film if/when color film stops being made.

I will be very sad if, in 10 years, I'm only able to shoot lomo brand black and white film in my cameras. *_*

sense of obligation on the part of photography companies, devotion to the tradition

yikes we're all screwed.
thing is I think the *marginal* profitability of, say, kodak's film division is down to motion pictures, and that is going to disappear in an instant. I also think it can't be "spun off" very easily since it depends on kodak's (the big company for which film is a minuscule interest) chemical resources etc. not easy to spin all that off.

the thing is, really, ultimately, as much as I love film, this doesn't really even register as a human tragedy or anything. just a format/medium change. I'll still be taking pictures.

I just want to end to be delayed as much as possible.

halp

Just tried rewinding the Leica, and noticed that it stopped resisting really quickly. Searched, was informed that maybe the lead had never caught appropriately, and had maybe not shot anything. Popped the bottom off, saw film, panicked, closed it up. What happened??

sometimes if my om-1 hasn't caught, i can still see a strip of film because the first few frames are still stretched between the roll & the spirally thing - so it's all set, it just wasn't turning, somehow.

hope it's okay, it's deeply crushing to me when that happens, particularly because you realise in such an insta-depressing, mechanical way :/

in the above situ i think it's that the film has curled under the spirally thing but not got tangled enough to actually spool and keep turning, btw. assuming the architecture of leicas is vaguely the same.

basically I've lost everything right

how long did you keep it open for?

1-2 secs

oh ime briefly opening it doesn't actually mean that much?, like you'll just bleach out a bunch of the few frames that are showing/get light leaks, etc. but like if the roll didn't spool then :/. after all my unspooling drama recently i started winding back one i'd carefully & meticulously loaded, cognisant of the risks, only to feel resistance after a few seconds. i can't quite bring myself to go get it printed just to find out it never spooled properly.

there's a developing place nearby I think---could they help? obv I have no darkroom

yeah depending on the light in the room, etc. i'd get it developed somewhere cheap anyway, see what comes out. no point getting too worried. try to feel neutral about the outcome and you might get a roll of interesting scars.

good attitude imo

if the rewind is really heavy in general it might be a sign that the m6 needs a CLA :(

it's not heavy, it's my brother

this is the best way to load a leica btw

http://nemeng.com/leica/000b.shtml

that's how I did it!

hmm. well it may need a CLA? or it might be really cold in duluth and the lubes may be slow because of the cold. my m4 had a really stiff rewind, I sent it in for a CLA and the guy fixed it.

The rewind isn't stiff tho is the thing

oh sorry, I completely misread what you had typed! sounds like your M is fine. and yeah, after the first few rewinds the film starts running real smooth (at least for me). I can usually feel though when it's released from the take-up spool

uhm, the worst that has ever happened to me was that the film broke on the last shot, so when I rewound, there was no resistance, and all the film stayed on the take-up spool. lost a roll *_*

oh man I wonder if that's what happened? it's fcking freezing here---the film could've gotten super brittle maybe?

so when you opened up the cam, was the film still attached to the canister?

honestly don't remember. it all happened so fast!!!

I wld probably rewind it a lot, then go into a bathroom and turn off all the lights and open it and see if it was rewound

I opened up the back on a Leica once - you'll probably get a kind of wavy pattern where light has penetrated through the three leaves of the take-up spool, just a bit.