I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

you can process kodachrome with B&W chemicals to get B&W images, but there's this nasty chemical called 'rem jet' that can't be removed without hassle from the negs

yeah, b&w seemed to be what everyone was recommending, with a smaller fringe of photo-moonshine makers preparing to frankenstein some colour prints. interesting. from elsewhere in the expired film community, i hadn't realised agfa scala 200 was (long) expired, i like that a lot, & used to be able to get it cheaply.

I saw a Facebook link recently to someone in Australia who managed to develop Kodachrome at home. Looked like a one-off, though.

that person is probably dying of cancer right now

i think there is an ilx thread in which a few filmmakers discuss the dangers of home developing, in enclosed spaces, i found it pretty alarming

no joke I wear one of these

http://i.imgur.com/MZN2F.jpg

it's like one of those foam dome hats, but instead of having beer near your head you can easily access your vaseline and your concealer as they are stuck to your face

Got back that c41 bw film from cvs yesterday

results were...interesting. horrifically over-processed, so contrasty, highlights blown everywhere, but I might be able to salvage some stuff

hmm I dunno if c41 can be overprocessed if it was ran through a machine. might be your light meter?

do the negs just look really ... thick? in comparison to the clear sprocket hole parts

I meant digitlly processed really

o so the scanning you mean

yes :-/

Highly unlikely it's a problem with your negs. That sounds like standard bad minilab scan issues.

gbx i use that kodak bw400cn. my mom mails it to me.

this is what it looks like corner store scan untouched

ex 1
ex 2

I'll put up some samples from my rolls later today.

Rumor is that Ultramax 400 (Kodak's current cheapie) is consumer-grade Portra. Should be very nice at 200, I need to visit a Wal-mart soon.

consumer-grade? what's that mean?

where's the rumor from? I use ultra max 400 from time to time and don't see much similarity.
I'm guessing consumer grade means same chemistry or something, but lower quality control/no refrigeration etc.?

in the old days it was assumed that a lot pro and consumer grade films were similar or identical formulations but pro had higher quality control and more stringent expiration dates
could all be BS, but Ultramax does seem to look more muted than Gold 400 did

I'd like to reassure you that I am manically rescanning ultramax 400 negatives with my portra setting now. will report on results.

got 8 rolls of 24-exposure Superia 400 @ Wal-mart.
I've got to find a local place that develops cheap without shitting all over the negatives, paying mail-order prices for 24-exposure rolls would eat up the savings

wal-mart! they subcontract it out to fuji, at least on the east coast.

got back a few rolls of film, not feeling any of it

Starting to think that I should sell my stores of traditional B&W and shoot all C-41. I'm not feeling gung-ho about developing myself, sounds like Wal-Mart is good processing+cheap, I'm probably never setting foot in a darkroom again and I can convert to B&W when I want to...

hating an entire 'roll' is less depressing with digital

haha I feel the opposite

I'm wired for sunk costs. Since I already own the camera, it doesn't feel like it cost me anything when a bunch of shots don't work out. Whereas (with the current system) I've got a $2.50 roll of Arista 400 Premium, plus $10 developing/shipping.
Totally irrational looking at the overall cost, I know.

kinda sad that it's going to take at least a week to get back my first rolls from the Pentax 645N. For some reason (maybe the big THWACK mirror sound and motor drive combined) it's the most fun camera I've ever owned.

moving into an apartment with a bathroom by myself, maybe I'll wait and develop my own B&W for a while and see if the extra control bucks me up

haha - I've mentioned before how I view film costs like groceries or something. it's healthier for my mind that way.

my experience with digital used to be - oh man, it looks totally great when I chimp at it - or when I chimp, I take 500 photos of a scene and chimp and think they all look great - and when I go home and put them on the computer, none of them look that great and I realized that I probably missed the angle that I really wanted or maybe there was some imperceptible motion blur that I couldn't see on the camera screen.

highly recommended to all: Polaroid Pro-Pack camera (packfilm camera that looks like a plastic version of an old press camera, complete with big flashgun) and Fuji FP-100C and FP-3000B. I paid $25 apiece for two and keep one kind of film in each.

Let my friend's daughters (~5 and 8) play with the 100C and they thought Polaroid peel-apart film was magic. I wish I had the portraits they took of each other, but they took them back to Louisiana to show their friends.

my experience with digital used to be - oh man, it looks totally great when I chimp at it - or when I chimp, I take 500 photos of a scene and chimp and think they all look great - and when I go home and put them on the computer, none of them look that great and I realized that I probably missed the angle that I really wanted or maybe there was some imperceptible motion blur that I couldn't see on the camera screen.

― dayo, Thursday, 19 April 2012 02:26 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think when i first read that eggleston thing about just taking one shot of something, because it's easier/prevents confusion, it seemed like some sort of zen master challenge, but it's way more practical than that, & makes a lot of sense. getting a bad roll back makes me want to hang up my camera or go digital or stop goofing around with newly invented theories about what will make photos good, but that's fortunately a different impulse from the feeling-compelled-to-take-a-camera-out-&-photograph-stuff, so.

also i found a new (old) camera store in my town. i squinted through the window & saw that they sold extra colour film, which I like, & so maybe also sell a bunch of other stuff (like portra) that I can't get here. excited. some inevitable new old musky camera guy to tolerate my questions.

got film back from Wal-Mart:
e-6 120 - $5/roll, came back in plastic rolled inside of a tube
c-41 120 - $1/roll!!!!!, came back cut inside of plastic
c-41 35mm - guess they couldn't do dev only, $10 for developing and 4x6 prints, negs are loose in the paper envelope

makes me want to shoot a lot more medium format color neg

yeah I've tried to write DEVELOP ONLY on 35mm rolls I get developed at wal-mart, they just ignore it (on one, they put the price sticker over my instructions)

http://news.doddleme.com/news-room/and-so-it-begins-20th-century-fox-to-end-film-distribution/

you gotta think that this was a big source of revenue for film copmanies. yuk

hey so look at this:

http://varial-artworks.com/projects/view/?page=12

finding it v useful - like i am making mental notes to buy some Ilford PAN 400 to push to 800 - but pretty beguiling at the same time

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad215/jiaoqu/scannnnnn1.jpg
http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad215/jiaoqu/scannnnnn2.jpg

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad215/jiaoqu/scannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnner333.jpg

sorry. i just thought it looked cool.

looks cool

I really like those.

Stuck some Ekta 100 in to be developed last week - first film in ages. I'd been shooting for a few days with my EOS 10 because my 40D was in for repair (actually, I baulked at the cost of getting the whole shutter release replaced and just got them to clean it; in the process they put the superimpose screen back in wrong, and I needed to make another trip to Sendean to get it tweaked... and the free tweak mostly fixed my shutter problem...). On the way from Sendean to Jessops I took a photo of an apple core in a bus shelter (just autofocus testing really) and got verbally abused for five minutes by two meatheads! They threw the apple at me! I don't even do street photography FFS!

Anyway, midway through a roll of Neopan 400 B&W now, though I somehow failed to shoot any film with my hired 85L over the weekend (wedding shoot, borrowed 5D2 and 40D). Did take some EOS 10 shots with a borrowed 17-40L though. Wiiiiiide.

what in god's name was the reason the two guys gave for being upset?? I can't even begin to comprehend.

by the way, after a Miami trip, I dropped off 19 (!) rolls of film this morning. and the black and white rolls are still in my fridge.

"Ain't half some stupid c***s in the world, eh? Who takes a picture of a fackin' apple? Fackin' c***." Etc etc, a few feet behind me as I walked down New Oxford Street. I didn't react, but waited until they passed me at Bloomsbury St and glared witheringly at them as they turned back to me. The more stupid looking of the two actually looked confused. Like, "why didn't you try to fight me?" Marvellous, eh? And this is why I try not to just flagrantly wave an SLR around in central London. I rather hoped it was some extended Derek'n'Clive tribute but, nah, they were for real.

I'm so glad I hardly ever get any reactions at all. That's the kind of thing that would really shake me up. I could count the number of people who've ever acted even remotely upset with me on one hand.

A work colleague has just put 3 x 120 E6 rolls in for processing / hi-res scanning at Snappy Snaps. Total? £72. SEVENTY-TWO QUID. £14 for processing each roll, £10 each for the 15MB scans. He used to work at Jessops and refuses to use them for film processing as a result (they wouldn't be much cheaper).

I sent him a link to the place in Birmingham I used to use (unless they failed to do a scan I'd paid for and didn't respond to emails). Through them the same job would've been £31.70.

by the way, after a Miami trip, I dropped off 19 (!) rolls of film this morning. and the black and white rolls are still in my fridge.

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 13:50 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

going places is just too much, i went to paris for a few days a while ago & was shooting a couple of rolls a day. this time of year is photo-happy anyway. i can't imagine going to pick up nineteen rolls of film though! what a great subsequent evening.

what was the place in birmingham, out of curiosity, Michael? i miss living somewhere that doesn't have a good lab (there was a great place in manchester called something like colorprint i used to go to, where they really knew their shit). jessopps lost a roll of my film, once, so i can't go there, but if not i'd probably not be so picky about dropping off somewhere.

man I got a lil overwhelmed with a mere four rolls from montana, I still haven't gone into them for any work aside from a minor crop or two

http://www.metrocolourlab.com/

Really not a very good website - you basically have to load some of the printable order forms to found out what some of the prices are and even then they're slightly contradictory.

Oh, the Jessops horror stories my work pal tells me. The retired couple who came back from a month in Hawaii with 25 rolls of E6 and 19 of them were then basically destroyed by the off-site processing (they can only do C41 in-store) - that was a good conversation for him to have.

oh man. yeah. i think i hesitated before ever mailing any film; to shoot some & then wrap it up and just leave it to the chance of royal mail just felt insane. & to take your film to somewhere that might not cherish it & treat it under the photographic oath of neurotic hypervigilant care unnerves me. dropping stuff off at a lab i try to check the negatives to see that they were all even printed, which doesn't always happen on account of scanners, &c. but going somewhere nice is reassuring.