I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

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

bout 50/50

also i lied, it's only about 16 rolls

let me develop your films

gonna give a shoutout also to my hometown comp http://www.philadelphiaphotographics.com/

they do a really professional job and they take mail order. think returnin shipping is $9 but if it's spread out over so many rolls shouldn't make that much of a diff

color is all superia (except for some weird old agfa 200 thing that i extracted from my SL35 and must be 10+ yrs old?), BW is a mix of stuff---ilford, tri-x, kentmere

i also need to get organized, and start putting these negs in a binder or something---i've got several rolls i haven't scanned/looked at, and i think they're likely to be lost to my desk's horrible clutter if i don't act soon

trying not to think about organising negs. feel like i'll just wait til i have like a hundred swirled plastic coils of film & then just turn them into some kind of artistic commentary on media redundancy.

i just revived this grousy old thread How has getting photos developed become such a racket? but maybe it's better suited to ILP really - - - in NYC, rolling my eyes at prices and terrible service/confusion from the places I've called so far. How would YOU go about clearing the decks of around 90 rolls of color 35mm stuff? (Short of setting them on fire.) Realistically, what am I looking at $-wise to get them all develop+scanned (in non-bullshit quality) from a place (local, mail order, road trip, pony express) that I can have some confidence isn't going to feed my film to their dog?

correction, 88 rolls of film. I wonder what all of this stuff is. 47 are on Kodak Gold, 31 on Fuji, 10 on Kodacolor. Do these correspond to different trips I was on, or was I buying emergency stock-up film while traveling? I actually have a large-ish digital backlog to deal with before I even practically should be worrying about this, but the Christmas present mystery factor is just so alluring. What treasures there might be in these rolls!

gonna give a shoutout also to my hometown comp http://www.philadelphiaphotographics.com/

they do a really professional job and they take mail order. think returnin shipping is $9 but if it's spread out over so many rolls shouldn't make that much of a diff

― 乒乓, Saturday, February 16, 2013 12:40 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark

Hmmmmm, price is a little steep but I believe you that they do good work...what's the size/resolution of the scans? Some places really seem to hem and haw around this and then it boils down to 4x6 at 300dpi which is fine as far as it goes, I guess.

These people http://photoplaceonline.com/film-developing.html claim to do 8x12 300dpi for $10 a roll - and knock 20% off bulk orders which could be a huge deal. But I haven't been able to find much in the way of reviews, and obviously "8x12 300 dpi" means nothing if they're using, like, a flatbed scanner or something.

I never got anything scanned by them, but the processing is 1st rate

you should call htem and ask about their scanning equipment

I've been to the physical location and they've def got some pro equipment at least for printing

people on RFF have used this (forum sponsor) before and have reported on the results: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98700

Oh nice! Those are nice looking samples in that thread. Bookmarked! Thanks.

kentmere 400 is nice

I've been using Lucky 100, it's ok. Only developed one roll so far, survived being pushed a couple of stops in D76.

pro tip for lucky 100 is to not use an acid stop, rinse with only water between dev and fix

Ok. Any reason?

My method, rightly or wrongly, is currently dev > quick rinse in water > stop > quick rinse > fix > full rinse.

the emulsion on lucky (or was it shanghai gp3? either wya) is p fragile... acid stop mottled my emulsion and gave me bad results

if youre using stop you prob dont need to rinse w/ water first, stop is p impervious to dev iirc

i can't recall what you can replace the stop bath with, something like 30 seconds of water, or maybe 2 changes of water with a few inversions, or something

May try that. Had thrown in the quick rinses just to try and avoid cross contamination of the solutions i re-use, though it likely makes little difference.

you reuse dev?

it's okay to get a lil stop bath into your fixer iirc, i don't think fixer is too ph-sensitive

i just re-use stop and fix. Though i have re-used dev once or twice when experimenting with developing colour films in b&w chems, though the re-use was straight after initial use.

Like i say, no real reason i do the extra water washes.

not really an emulsion thing but a film-specific query i think

i was wondering
as somebody who has always outsourced printing to the lab
what are the options for really printing photographs. i have photographs i like that i have taken, & i wonder sometimes whether if, if i wanted a good quality print of one, something comparable to a lovingly framed silver gelatin- gallery print, what would i do? is that entirely in the realm of people printing their own photographs on good paper, &c, or is it outsourced? i am not exactly keen to live in an apartment cluttered with memorials to my photographic talent or anything but there are some that i would like to nicely print rather than have on matte drugstore paper, or just curled up in a box of negatives.

did you guys ever elevate your photos to this level?

Does this

http://cl.ly/image/2X303m0U3Q2K/000030.jpg

look like a foam seal issue to you guys, or something that happened at the lab? It looks like it's come from the sprockets, right? I've had three or four colour films come out fine, and the tail end of this roll of HP5 is the first I've seen it happen..

Yeah could definitely be a light leak? Is it on multiple frames? Did you leave that frame in the chamber for a long time?

Way to be sure would be to shine a flashlight around the camera on your next roll, possibly towards the end

Could maybe be due to rushed processing, poorly drying chemicals maybe? I've had some b&w processing come back w splotches. But yeah try the flashlight test.

Xpost: I've gotten pretty nice prints from adorama! I think if you go to a professional lab in your area they can provide nice and large prints that aren't too pricey... You should try!

Better than the drugstore

Yep, multiple frames with different patterns but all variations on a theme (ie bands of light coming up from the bottom) - only starts about halfway through the roll. I shot the whole lot in one afternoon, so it wasn't sitting in the camera for a long time. Will try the flashlight tip. Thanks!

people on RFF have used this (forum sponsor) before and have reported on the results: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98700

― 乒乓, Friday, March 15, 2013 1:24 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so i did in fact finally do this, after a lot of false starts and tests. it's not 100% the smoothest procedure in the world, and i imagine if you're willing to go a little more expensive with one of the super-duper professional type places (like the ones hyped by Ken Rockwell here http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/labs.htm) you might get slightly more attentive customer care. Not that anyone's been rude or anything, just that thing where you can perceive that the system isn't really set up to smoothly serve this type of customer or this type of need. In any case, though, and more to the point of the thread, it's thrilling to have the film back and developed and, most of it, looking pretty good. It's also daunting as hell, and of course I'm making it worse for myself since, while I was waiting for the dozens of rolls to come back to me, I finally got the needed adapter for my film scanner and started laying into some developed-and-never-scanned negatives and, oh, lord, I just see the future ratcheting out ahead of me, soundtracked by the whirring of the scanner and the click of the mouse as I futz with stuff in Lightroom.

I stopped shooting film at the end of 2011 - god, time flies - so it's kinda just nice to be back in this look-and-feel. Lots of fairly grainy and not that sexy consumer-grade Fuji 400 and stuff. And it turns out some of the stuff I was shooting in early 2010 wasn't that attractive or well-lit in the first place. But still, some of these are making me happy.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/659/20604950259_b0d1931b7d_z.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/780/20553796818_84c7bffc6c_z.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5777/20528647060_03c15bc135_z.jpg

Top one there also an experiment in applying Lightroom's like-magic "vertical" tool, which naturally plays wayyyy better with RAW files from cameras where it knows the lens, to film shots. Wish I could figure out how to get it correct lens profiles for the film lenses I did have. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the way those work, but just for it to know what transformation it should apply to fix barrel distortion would be pretty cool; I use those all the time for digital stuff.