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I found that 1:1 macro lens, especially on a full frame, is your best bet if you do not want to lose resolution. I have tried using decent lenses (50mm 1.8g, 85mm 1.8g from the nikon stable) with stacks of extension rings, but the results in the corners were unacceptable. Rings just magnified the flaws of these lenses to ridiculous degree, and even stopping down didn't completely resolve the issue. Corners were like butter. Also shooting with rings, required absolute parallel planarity, much more so than with a macro lens, which can be a pain in the rear end to achieve. I have tried using my D50 with the 55mm 2.8 micro AIS I believe, but the resolution just wasn’t there. What do is I shoot on a tripod with an inverted column down onto a light table. I load the film strip into a negative carrier clamped shut with clips. The carrier keeps negatives flat and its little pegs/feet keep it above the light source, so that any blemishes on the light table don't show up. I use a leveling bubble to make sure that the camera sensor plane and the light table are parallel, and shoot with a 10s shutter delay setting and in live view mode (for focusing and to prevent mirror slap). I shoot at base iso, at f8 and 1/10 sec. mostly, adjusting for thinner or thicker negatives. The “rig”  DSC_4700 by Stingray of Doom, on Flickr Negative holder:  DSC_4702 by Stingray of Doom, on Flickr  DSC_4704 by Stingray of Doom, on Flickr  DSC_4708 by Stingray of Doom, on Flickr
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Mar 3, 2014 06:37
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Mightaswell posted:That's assuming the smaller format was making use of all your resolution to begin with, which in the case of the D800 isn't likely. My first impulse was "No." but thinking again, yeah that sounds about right. For what it's worth, I'm using a state-of-the-art standalone film scanner and for 35 it gives about 30 or so megapixels worth of image at 4800dpi native, and usually unless I'm shooting Fuji Acros 100 or slow slide film I'm already hitting diminishing returns (i.e. more grain than pixels). So, I guess yeah the D800 makes an excellent 35mm film scanner. Because, speed wise it will beat the pants off my setup, while probably giving the same-- and in some edge-cases, maybe even better quality. Edit: Okay looking at it, it might not be that much faster considering I can batch a whopping six frames at once. That said, wouldn't it be possible to tether the camera to the PC using USB live view, taking away some of the re-balancing and adjustment pain in the rear end? VomitOnLino fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 08:58
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404notfound posted:Has anybody tried one of these adapters to replace the mercury PX625 in an older film camera? It sounds like a pretty good deal if you don't want to deal with short-lived zinc-air batteries or figuring out how to adjust the meter to compensate for a newer 1.55V battery (or paying somebody to do it), but the little disclaimer about 200 microamps and not working with the QL17 G-III gives me pause. I've used them and they work fine, even with the G-III. The only functionality you loose on the G-II is the battery check lamp which isn't a deal breaker for me.
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Mar 3, 2014 11:37
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You mean Tri-x@6400 doesn't out resolve 36MP? Heresy!
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Mar 3, 2014 12:34
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VomitOnLino posted:
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Mar 3, 2014 12:38
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Mr. Despair posted:Yeah, you've never taken pics of your negatives instead of using a scanner? It works pretty well with a little bit of planning. Nope I have a dedicated film scanner but I see your point. I think your suggestion of having the EXIF reflect the original camera or something to that extent is sensible.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:55
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The setup is actually surprisingly solid, and focus stays pretty accurate between shots unless I bump it. So focus re-acquisition and checking is very fast and not an issue for me. Having a monitor feed would be nice, but I dont have the appropriate mini-hdmi to dvi cable, and live feed through usb requires ridiculously overpriced Nikon software. Although I have seen some alternatives on the interweb. The biggest time killer in this whole process is moving the film strip / feeding the negatives into the carrier. Having some sort of a feeding channel would be perfect, although I would be kinda scared to scratch the negatives. Anyone knows of such a neg carrier? Currently it takes a little bit longer than a minute to do a negative. Not ideal, but it works for me pretty well.
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Mar 3, 2014 19:02
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maxmars posted:Nope I have a dedicated film scanner but I see your point. Sensible is not caring about EXIF.
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Mar 3, 2014 20:07
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~removed~
atomicthumbs fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 20:09
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Just sell your stuff in the sell thread instead of making GBS threads it up here, christ.atomicthumbs posted:I just got a job ebaying stuff on commission for an electronics recycler. have a sneak preview bellows lugosi fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 20:32
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I'm interested in the rangefinder next to the Canonet and the two in the upper left of the picture with all the cameras.
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Mar 3, 2014 21:24
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ShotgunWillie posted:I'm interested in the rangefinder next to the Canonet and the two in the upper left of the picture with all the cameras. That's a Pen EE-S, not a rangefinder, and I think the selenium meter is dead, unfortunately. I do have a Pen EE-3 that works (I think), if you're interested. The two in the upper left are some sort of Argus viewfinder thing and a Honeywell Electric Eye 35 (aka Mamiya EE Merit); someone might already have dibs on the Honeywell (I will have to check). ansel autisms posted:Just sell your stuff in the sell thread instead of making GBS threads it up here, christ. sorry I made you read a post  edit: at soundmonkey's request i will keep this out of the film thread, pm me or post in not this thread if you're interested atomicthumbs fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 22:10
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Returned to developing after a year of being lazy. I like rocks and trees and poo poo. Eroding esker, Sandy Point by bdstickney, on Flickr  Reservoir No. 2, Belfast by bdstickney, on Flickr  Little River rock, Belfast by bdstickney, on Flickr  White Mountains, west of Milton by bdstickney, on Flickr I had to fight with low contrast in post, but I think that was my failure scanning first and foremost.
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Mar 3, 2014 22:12
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Eugh... I want a Pentax 110 system so badly but the only place that still makes the film is Lomography and it's twice as expensive as 35mm for a quarter the negative size. Someone with a 110 camera tell me how much you hate it and never use it. (it's me, one day soon maybe)
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Mar 4, 2014 02:27
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ansel autisms posted:Sensible is not caring about EXIF. Why would you do that? EXIF is very handy, even for film originated pictures.
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Mar 4, 2014 10:49
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big scary monsters posted:Eugh... I want a Pentax 110 system so badly but the only place that still makes the film is Lomography and it's twice as expensive as 35mm for a quarter the negative size. Someone with a 110 camera tell me how much you hate it and never use it. I've played around with a friends Pentax 110, its pretty neat, but the negatives are WAY small and a pain the rear end to develop/scan, unless you get them done at a lab that specialises in 110. And the Pentax SLR's are not cheap either. I'd suggest just get a compact 35mm. And here is where you should get your 110 film, they love banging on about it on the podcast (plus you can get fuji stuff too): http://filmphotographyproject.com/store/film/110-film
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Mar 4, 2014 11:27
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Spedman posted:I've played around with a friends Pentax 110, its pretty neat, but the negatives are WAY small and a pain the rear end to develop/scan, unless you get them done at a lab that specialises in 110. And the Pentax SLR's are not cheap either.
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Mar 4, 2014 14:47
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 I've had this 110 camera for a few years, never bothered to get film for it. It reminds me of a James Bond spy-camera for some reason.
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Mar 4, 2014 14:57
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You could probably just shoot wide on 35mm and crop down to 110 after the fact. It probably end up cheaper all around.
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Mar 4, 2014 15:16
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Well, I finally have access to a pretty good scanner. I'm using a Nikon Coolscan5000 that my schools Art History Librarian loaned from the history dept. Shows how sloppy I've been getting with developing my rolls. This is just a test between really old rolls of TMAX and a strobe light setup I used all wrong.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:07
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Well I found a Epson 4870 on kijiji for only $40. From what I understand it was the precursor to the 4990. Checking out scans on Flickr, it looks fairly nice. From what I can tell, the only major difference between the 4870 and 4990 are slightly faster scan times, and the ability to do 8x10 scans on the 4990. And here's a direct comparison of some 35mm scans. Pretty hard to really tell the difference, so I think I'll be happy. And it looks like betterscanning.com makes adapters for it, which is nice if I ever want to upgrade.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:09
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Yeah this scanner is night and day compared to my old one, even with the factory film holders.  I'm extremely impressed with how it turned out and I am happy I didn't botch my first development.
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Mar 5, 2014 06:43
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Very nice. I can't wait until I get another rolls shot and developed since I can run mine through without cutting it, saving me a lot of time. Took me an hour to get through a roll yesterday, and I didn't have it set for the resolution I wanted in the end 
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Mar 6, 2014 02:09
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An elderly friend asked me if I would scan her late husbands old slides for her so the family could look at them. She doesn't remember ever actually being shown them. She gave me two metal boxes of slides along with multiple cardboard slide mailers and a smaller box that has a slide viewing lamp and 4 old Kodak 35mm tins. The slides are almost entirely Kodachrome and mostly from 1945-47. There are a few shots from later on but, I guess he moved away from slide film if he continued photography. She warned me that he was not a very good photographer and I am indeed seeing a lot of missed focus and motion blur. I never shot with this really slow E6, so I can't say if the blame is with him or whatever camera he used. It's pretty cool to see the 40's in color tho. One small box of slides has a shipping label from Kodak dated 1940. The pics are of some kind of streetcar christening and parade in San Francisco. Almost all are not well focused unfortunately.  The Kodak tins contain 3 uncut rolls rolls of black & white film and a reloadable cartridge that looks like it's made of silver. They appear to be pics from occupied Japan following WWII but I have to let them flatten out before I can scan them. 68 years in a roll is not relaxing easily. One roll labeled "Kodak Safety" has some unusual sprockets and wide frames. Does anybody recognize this type of film?  These boxes contain slides from Africa in the late 70's or early 80's... and a lot of mold.  
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Mar 7, 2014 06:03
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That's awesome. I'd love to see some of your results.
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Mar 7, 2014 06:20
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RustedChrome posted:
That is probably 828 film. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/828_film
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Mar 7, 2014 06:50
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Got back my first roll of medium format from the photo lab, and they just left it as a long strip of film. How do people go about storing medium format negatives? I'm sure I'll cut this up, since I need to do so anyway to fit on my scanner, but I dunno if there's a "best" way or anything.
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Mar 7, 2014 21:44
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404notfound posted:Got back my first roll of medium format from the photo lab, and they just left it as a long strip of film. How do people go about storing medium format negatives? I'm sure I'll cut this up, since I need to do so anyway to fit on my scanner, but I dunno if there's a "best" way or anything. Get negative sleeve pages for 120 format. 8x10 vertical strip (below) are the most common, and can be contact printed onto standard B+W paper if you ever want to do that, but they don't fit some formats very evenly (eg 6x7 requires 1 and 1/3 page per roll of film). These are what I normally get. My scanner will do 2 6x6 negatives at a time, so I cut strips of four for ease of scanning and filing.
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Mar 7, 2014 21:52
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I also use PrintFile sleeves, but my 120 holders are set up for 4 horizontal rows. The only 120 film I've developed yet came through my 6x9 folder, so those sleeve pages hold a single roll nicely, with 2 frames per row. I'm guessing that means you could fit 3 6x6 frames per row, but 6x7 might be awkward.
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Mar 7, 2014 23:45
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ExecuDork posted:I also use PrintFile sleeves, but my 120 holders are set up for 4 horizontal rows. The only 120 film I've developed yet came through my 6x9 folder, so those sleeve pages hold a single roll nicely, with 2 frames per row. I shoot 6x7 and don't contact print, so I use these.
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Mar 7, 2014 23:58
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Yesterday I bought a Minolta-16 MG because it looked really cool. It's basically this, case and all, so it includes a little detachable flash, two filters, and an interesting metal wrist strap: I'm not a photographer and I'm happy enough having this as a pretty thing to display in the house. But I have been interested in trying film, because I'm a big sperglord who likes to do complicated poo poo. So, is 16mm film worth messing with, or is it just too poo poo/uncommon compared to 35mm? Apparently it's really easy to reload the Minolta 16mm cartridges, and since it doesn't need perforated film you can even cut down 35mm to size.
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Mar 10, 2014 19:22
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Your best option would be to buy a bulk roll of 16mm cine film and then roll your own in a dark bag. Here's an eBay link to what you should be looking for: http://bit.ly/1kbLzCx From what I understand, most of the fresh kodak 16mm should be a lot like Portra or Ektachrome (or pretty much the same). You should also be able to find spools that could fit in a daylight tank for processing, or if you're in the US, send the film to Dwayne's and they'll do it: http://dwaynesphoto.com/newsite2006/movies-ektachrome.html
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Mar 10, 2014 21:14
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Spedman posted:Your best option would be to buy a bulk roll of 16mm cine film and then roll your own in a dark bag. Here's an eBay link to what you should be looking for: $75 for 4,000 photos worth of film... that sounds pretty good  Do you think learning this kind of stuff on 16mm would be making life harder than it needs to be? I'd be interested in developing my own pictures and, eventually at least, making prints (presumably with an enlarger, I've done a bit of googling). Am I just loving myself over if I try to do this with 16mm instead of starting out on the more common 35mm? For example, you'd need a different enlarger for 16mm vs 35mm, right? What about chemicals for development? I'd like to learn about film photography, but if using the Minolta-16 is a poor choice, I'd just try to find a basic 35mm SLR and experiment with that.
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Mar 10, 2014 22:22
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Can you actually use 16mm cine film for a stills camera though? The teeth take-up run a different way on cine film and 16mm cine film only has one line of sprocket holes for teeth (you say the camera doesn't need perforated film so you'd have to cut some off then I guess?) A 16mm neg is also TINY and really you should only use it for motion picture. Get a cheap 35mm and learn that way would be my advice. If you CAN actually use it, get Kodak Vision3, it's THE best film ever made. Portra 400 was based on its emulsion. Quantum of Phallus fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 22:30
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Pham Nuwen posted:$75 for 4,000 photos worth of film... that sounds pretty good Yes, you really are loving yourself over. 35mm film developing gear is super common, in comparison I've never even seen a 16mm developing tank. You'll have more selection of film and developer combination, it will be more readily available at stores, etc. Don't even bother looking into film slitting or any process of "modifying" film. It's more trouble than it's worth unless you just want a challenge of bringing an old camera back to life. The same chemicals will work on the same film. However there's no guarantee that you can buy any given film in 16mm. Also I would think a lot of B+W cine films will be designed for projection, so they'll be positive-type films rather than negative (and will have different, more complex development processes). If you really want to get more shots per roll, look into getting a "half-frame" camera like the Olympus Pen F SLR. You will be able to use them with standard negative holders (storage and scanning), standard darkroom gear, etc. Even so I would really advise you to just shoot real 35mm, the bigger the negative the more quality you can get off it. And "special" systems like half-frame tend to have really limited system options (few lenses, etc). Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 22:52
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Paul MaudDib posted:Yes, you really are loving yourself over. 35mm film developing gear is super common, in comparison I've never even seen a 16mm developing tank. You'll have more selection of film and developer combination, it will be more readily available at stores, etc. Don't even bother looking into film slitting or any process of "modifying" film. It's more trouble than it's worth unless you just want a challenge of bringing an old camera back to life. Ok, thanks--that's kind of what I suspected, given that pretty much anyone doing film these days seems to be doing 35mm or larger. I'll keep the little camera as a neat-looking display piece (it's really very cool) and look for a cheap 35mm. I saw mention of the Pentax K1000 somewhere in this thread; Google indicates that they're pretty common and don't need those funky batteries that are no longer manufactured, so maybe I should keep my eyes open for a good deal on one of those? Edit: I'm reading through the thread from the beginning. Yeah this is definitely what I should be learning while also planning a wedding, preparing for a move, working, fixing up my old car...
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Mar 10, 2014 22:59
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The K1000 is a perfectly fine starter camera but there's nothing special or distinctive about it at all. There's tremendous demand from the hipster crowd for that specific model, so you'll pay a premium over even the better models in that series (KM, KX, K2) or any comparable camera. The model became a perpetual student favorite and so Pentax eventually moved production to China and cheapened production up with a bunch of plastic and pot-metal parts. The markings switched to "Pentax" rather than "Asahi Pentax" on the top prism when this happened. If you want to buy a Pentax, the ME or ME Super is a better user-grade camera. They have brighter viewfinders, better focus aids, they're aperture-priority, and they're cheaper than K-series bodies. Alternately the MX is full mechanical like the K1000. On the other hand there's nothing wrong with Canon, Nikon, Olympus, or any of the other big brands either. Canon in particular is cheap because they rapidly and completely abandoned their FD camera line when they switched to EOS mount. Nikon has some really stellar bodies and the advantage of full forwards-compatibility with digital bodies (Pentax made a very halfheated effort to do the same; the metering is gimped), but the lenses aren't as cheap in many cases (particularly wide lenses). There's also the earlier Pentax M42 bodies, the Spotmatic series. If you have a Super-Multi-Coated series lens and a ES/ES II/Spotmatic F body, they operate essentially the same as the K1000 or the ME (although they're older and the focus screens are dustier, etc). Some of the earlier Super Takumar lenses lack the meter lugs to offer open-aperture metering, in which case they work like earlier bodies: you press a switch to turn on the meter. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 00:38
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Buy an ME Super or an AE-1.
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Mar 11, 2014 02:09
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Thanks for the tips! I saw a recommendation for keh.com early in the thread, but that's from 6 years ago; are they still one of the better places to buy a used camera? I also see stuff on Amazon, and of course there's always (ugh) ebay L@@K VINTAGE NIKON PENTAX KODAK CAMERA K1000 AE-1 L@@K. I'm not fixated on a Pentax, I just liked that they're all-mechanical and don't need a battery except for the meter (and I guess you can get that battery in a drugstore). I'll take your recommendations and do some searching. Would it be inappropriate for me to post a batch of links to cameras I find, asking for opinions?
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Mar 11, 2014 03:00
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If any goon has a problem with helping someone choose a film camera, I don't think they belong in this thread!
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Mar 11, 2014 05:09
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