I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

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I've taken to putting my film in the fridge, though very little of it is particularly "special", mostly just cheap stuff. I got a big plastic tub with clip lid to store it in to minimise the chance of mishap, though! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaellambert/7218261068/)

I've been using Asda for dev-only processing as it's cheap and the opening hours are convenient for me, otherwise my local option is Jessops. I have access to a darkroom for B+W through my girlfriend, will be attempting to develop my first ever roll tonight! Have previously done a couple of prints.

michaellambert, Friday, 1 June 2012 17:37 (eleven years ago) link

I pop it in the fridge, because, why not? And sometimes I've got a lot of film sitting around, and we keep the apartment mostly un-airconditioned.
good luck on the the black and white development, btw!

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 1 June 2012 17:56 (eleven years ago) link

yeah good goin, michael! i'm thinking about starting developing B&W too, would love to know what your learning curve's like. my friend - who i think possibly used to print colour phots, so this is a whole other thing - was talking about how much money she'd spend on equipment so that she could keep playing with an image, keep printing variations. but i still wanna do it.

will maybe put all of my slide &c film in the fridge. thanks ILP.

blossom smulch (schlump), Friday, 1 June 2012 18:00 (eleven years ago) link

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7245/7331389542_28b769ae53_z.jpg

A fairly nondescript image from the roll I developed, pleased it actually worked - was quite exciting taking the film out and seeing the images on the negative. Happy that the process is pretty straightforward, I think sometimes that reading about a practical process instead of trying it makes things seem more complicated.

On a tangent, Poundland in the UK are now selling Agfa Vista Plus 200, apparently re-branded Fuji. Picked up half a dozen rolls today, will see how I get on. Off to put them in the fridge...

michaellambert, Sunday, 3 June 2012 23:49 (eleven years ago) link

On a tangent, Poundland in the UK are now selling Agfa Vista Plus 200, apparently re-branded Fuji. Picked up half a dozen rolls today, will see how I get on. Off to put them in the fridge...

ty so much for this!
& your phot's nice. geometric. photographic negatives are so beautiful. i don't routinely handle them - like they're always in a sheet or whatever, & sometimes i take them out and it's a real moment.

blossom smulch (schlump), Monday, 4 June 2012 00:11 (eleven years ago) link

Hopefully on topic, I created a group on Flickr for live music/gigs shot using film:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/livemusiconfilm/

michaellambert, Monday, 4 June 2012 16:02 (eleven years ago) link

Ok, Jessops, you don't get any more of my Ektachrome 100...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7077/7163023109_da1f77db1a_z.jpg

Had to crush the blacks on the JPG to get any kind of contrast but it just looks like a bad processing job to me. Yeah, it's well past expiry, but I've not seen such results with expired fine-grain slide film before. It looks like ISO 1600. The colour shifts may well be down to the chemicals going off.

Michael Jones, Thursday, 7 June 2012 13:45 (eleven years ago) link

Ok, the light is completely different here (and Lulu is two years younger!) but this is Ekta 100, decently processed, I think:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3645/3599652131_9350eb0e15_z.jpg%3Fzz%3D1

Michael Jones, Thursday, 7 June 2012 13:50 (eleven years ago) link

Hmm, is that not showing up?

Trying again:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3645/3599652131_9350eb0e15_z.jpg%3Fzz%3D1

Michael Jones, Thursday, 7 June 2012 13:51 (eleven years ago) link

Oh, forget it.

Michael Jones, Thursday, 7 June 2012 13:51 (eleven years ago) link

getting decent development of chromes is a huge pain. maybe it was once easier, but hardly anyone does it anymore, with most places mailing out to one of a few local labs. I messed around with some ektachrome and provia recently, and it turned out not to be worth it for the added cost, and the lousy looking results. I think the slides themselves actually looked pretty ok, but the scans were horrible. like absolutely bonkers atrocious, with bizarre cropping, completely out of focus, blown out everywhere. never seen anything worse. and the scans I got from duane's weren't great either. aaaand the scans that I can make at home aren't great either (scanning positives is a whole 'nother matter from scanning negatives). there's probably some place in nyc that will do a good job, but I don't care to spend the time/money trying to find it.
so I opt out.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, 7 June 2012 17:02 (eleven years ago) link

plus developing/scanning costs a total of $20! crazy. a roll of negatives, from purchasing the film to taking home the developed roll costs me under $6.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, 7 June 2012 17:04 (eleven years ago) link

Wal-mart is the best option for E-6 (as noted by Dayo above), everything is run through Fuji or Dwayne's lab and comes back for $5-6. They have a scanning service too, I think.

Kiarostami bag (milo z), Thursday, 7 June 2012 18:22 (eleven years ago) link

have a couple of rolls of ektar 100 to run through... is it usually p.good?

༼◍ྀ ౪ ◍ི ༽ (cozen), Thursday, 7 June 2012 18:37 (eleven years ago) link

ektar is real nice. take pictures of some red stuff.

blossom smulch (schlump), Thursday, 7 June 2012 19:34 (eleven years ago) link

dumb q that i could google but you guys know better: what is the best way to buy film in bulk? the BW stuff i've been getting has been from my local CVS, but lately they haven't had it reliably, and the substantially-closer of the last two camera/film stores in mpls closed up shop a while ago.

also my one and only photog buddy (and an actual ~pro~, who has the most insanely charmed existence of anyone i know) is planning on setting up one of his rooms in his new apartment as a developing (but not printing) space, and said I could use it anytime. he also has a nice flatbed scanner, but given the time-consuming nature of scanning (right?) i'd rather do it at home.

plus all yr talk about shitty scans is making me wonder how different all my film pics would look with better scanning (they're all low-rez, for starters, none larger than 1900px in any dimension i think, which is basically half what my gf1 (languishing in the glove box of my car) gets. like what's the point of lugging around m lenses if you can't pull the detail, amirite

catbus otm (gbx), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:52 (eleven years ago) link

*haven't had it reliably AND never have more than two in stock

catbus otm (gbx), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:53 (eleven years ago) link

-BHPhoto or freestylephoto.biz, I have started using Kentmere 400, which apparently is Ilford's low-cost version of HP5. you can also trawl craigslist, or eBay for expired film. if you're really ~serious~, you can buy film in 100 foot reels and load it yourself with a bulkloader. you save about 25-30 cents a roll with this method iirc. some guy near me is selling a bunch of bulk film, I am thinking about biting...probably more of a hassle than anything tbh.

-your negs may very well look much better with better scans

chris paul george hill (dayo), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:56 (eleven years ago) link

unfortunately they only have the 24 exposure version, but adorama carries fuji superia 400 at $1.79 a roll. that's pretty much as cheap as it ever gets: http://www.adorama.com/FJCHSP24.html
B&H has the 36 exposure version for $3.19.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:49 (eleven years ago) link

Kodak gold 400 is under 3 a roll iirc at bhphoto

chris paul george hill (dayo), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:58 (eleven years ago) link

awesome dudes, thanks

catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 8 June 2012 13:56 (eleven years ago) link

q: can superia be developed at any old place? walmart, cvs, etc?

catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:00 (eleven years ago) link

totally. completely normal stuff.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:01 (eleven years ago) link

I think I've mentioned before too, for a cheapo consumer film, it's surprisingly fine grained. best if over-exposed by a stop.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:01 (eleven years ago) link

soooo shoot it at 200, then?

catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:30 (eleven years ago) link

yeah, I always set it at least a stop over, so for an auto-exposing camera, I'd rate it at 200. when walking around, I'll shoot in daylight at 1/250 at f11, so even two stops then. but one stop over and you can't go wrong.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:40 (eleven years ago) link

you really can't 'blow out' highlights in negatives the same as in slides or digital. the lab you use might blow out highlights in the scan, but if you were to rescan yourself you'd probably find they were still there all along.
I had an example from a while back when I first got my scanner of a lab scan where the sky and many highlights were pure white, but when I rescanned at home, I found plenty of blue with clouds and all still there.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:43 (eleven years ago) link

maybe a dumb q, but: if u set the film speed to 200, and shoot in daylight at f11 + 1/250, isn't that three stops over?

400 --> 200
f16 --> f11
1/500 --> 1/250

? this stuff is confusing :-?

catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:45 (eleven years ago) link

right, here it is.
lab scan:
http://www.altairnouveau.com/labscan.jpg

home scan:
http://www.altairnouveau.com/homescan.jpg

and even still, I'd get more detail from the home scan today, since I know what I'm doing a little better (you can still see blown highlights on the house in the background, which I would know how to avoid now).

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:47 (eleven years ago) link

you only need to either open up the aperture or slow the shutter speed, not both, to move one stop from 400 to 200

f11 at 250 would be the 100 ISO setting since you opened up two stops

un® (dayo), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:48 (eleven years ago) link

xpost: if you're setting the speed and f-stop manually, then it doesn't matter how you've rated the film. so for sunlight the rule usually is (for 400 speed film) 1/500 at f/16. slow down a stop to 1/250 and open up a stop to f/11 and that's two stops total.
so in your equation the 400 --> 200 step only makes a difference if the camera is calculating exposure. but if you switch over to manual it doesn't affect anything.

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:49 (eleven years ago) link

my head hurts

per sunny 16, metering 400 film in daylight would give f16 + 1/500. setting the film speed to 200 would make that same meter give f16 + 1/250. one stop. f11, two stops.

ok i get it now, duh

catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:53 (eleven years ago) link

I just
think about everything in stops. increase a stop = double the light. decrease a stop = half the light.

un® (dayo), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:55 (eleven years ago) link

the good news is that film is forgiving. err on the side of overexposure and everything will be cool. just not with slides!!!

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Friday, 8 June 2012 14:57 (eleven years ago) link

I started shooting my B&W film at 200, then developing at -20% time from 400. oh my god! amazing.

un® (dayo), Wednesday, 13 June 2012 23:43 (eleven years ago) link

negative scans or it didn't happen

blossom smulch (schlump), Wednesday, 13 June 2012 23:55 (eleven years ago) link

& what was the box speed of the film?

blossom smulch (schlump), Wednesday, 13 June 2012 23:55 (eleven years ago) link

negative scans or it didn't happen

haha board motto

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, 14 June 2012 00:18 (eleven years ago) link

I have a similar bag I just purchased! adorama is the best

lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, 14 June 2012 01:02 (eleven years ago) link

& what was the box speed of the film?

― blossom smulch (schlump), Wednesday, June 13, 2012 7:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

400!

un® (dayo), Friday, 15 June 2012 00:31 (eleven years ago) link

remember talking about blowing highlights on neg film earlier, the latest 'series' on bremser explores that

http://bremser.tumblr.com/

looks nice to me, idk

un® (dayo), Sunday, 17 June 2012 16:34 (eleven years ago) link

I bought a 10 pack of Fomapan 400 off eBay recently (35mm B+W), was wondering if anyone else had any experience of it? I'd read some mixed/negative things about it online, and I feel I'm struggling to get the best out of it. Unfortunately there's a lot of variables in the chain - my inexperience of shooting b+w, the fact that I've developed both rolls I've shot myself (still a novice at this) and then whether or not I could have done better at the scanning stage. It's grainy, but so far also lifeless, like a photocopy. I'd be delighted to see significantly better efforts with it from any of you guys!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7109/7443680256_46cc7c782e_c.jpg

michaellambert, Monday, 25 June 2012 22:41 (eleven years ago) link

never shot it - eastern european film, right?

I shot some efke, once - iirc, for those soft eastern european films, don't use a stopbath, use an old school developer like rodinal or d-76, be very careful in handling

Faith in Humanity: Restored (dayo), Tuesday, 26 June 2012 01:37 (eleven years ago) link

Hi, thanks. It is indeed Eastern European. I'm using Ilfosol 3 at the moment, might get some D-76 and give that a go.

michaellambert, Tuesday, 26 June 2012 06:44 (eleven years ago) link

two weeks pass...

i just want like a thousand rolls of extra color, & some kind of terrible bumbag/holster allowing me to never be without some

blossom smulch (schlump), Thursday, 12 July 2012 00:12 (eleven years ago) link

one month passes...

just arrived: plustek 7400

we'll see about this

catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 31 August 2012 21:53 (eleven years ago) link

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

catbus otm (gbx), Sunday, 2 September 2012 19:17 (eleven years ago) link


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