|
Sure man its your work knock yourself out. I'm not a fan of pushing for pushing sake. In my opinion its a technique of last resort because it damages your negative. Underexposing on purpose will leave empty shadows on your negative and no amount of time in developer will add information that was never there to begin with. My negatives are my raw files and I want as much useful information as possible so I can create the end result I really want after scanning or in my darkroom. Pushing and pulling are useful techniques when you're determined to print on Grade 2 no matter what (a certain well known photographer would have called it expansion and contraction) but its pretty pointless outside of extreme circumstances (the sun exploded and my tripod is at home, oh no!) with scanning, photoshop and variable contrast paper. If want black shadows that's as easy as a contrast curve or a Grade 5 filter for a few seconds but if I find the image works better with lighter shadows my negative still has detail there to give me. Same with stand development. Its nice to just toss in the chems and go watch Youtube for an hour but it really more of a specialized tool for reigning in wacked out highlights by forcing your developer to act as a compensating developer. Rodinal just happens to be really good at that (HC-110 does it well as well). You can use it to develop a roll that's been shot at all sorts of different IEs but underexposed frames will still be under exposed, just with an extreme contrast curve now baked in. That's probably why you're getting some  . Pushing and stand dev for the hell of it are like trendy Youtuber (smash that button bro!) things to do when they're really tools used to save a badly exposed negative so you can at least get something out of it. Not saying you shouldn't experiment, just understand the reason for those techniques and go in with your eyes open.
Sauer fucked around with this message at 14:36 on May 27, 2019 |
#
?
May 27, 2019 14:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 21:35 |
|
|
I really appreciate your explanation. That all makes sense.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2019 14:39
|
|
|
Cool. Again don't be afraid to do your own thing, we're just a bunch of faceless jerks on the internet with opinions. At the end of the day its your work and your hobby.
Sauer fucked around with this message at 16:56 on May 27, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 27, 2019 16:54
|
|
|
Basic newbie questions: I shot a roll of Ultramax 400 and the sky is white in every picture, and even pictures without sky in them look overexposed. My question is how to avoid that next time? I shot using aperture priority and I thought that having a lot of light was a good thing (lol). They were mostly taken with a small aperture, f/11 to f/16. The best pictures ended up being the ones shot at night because of this  Second: Bit of a story here. I rode a bicycle down a hill with my camera in the front basket (stupid, I know) and I stopped very quickly after realising that this was very likely to damage my camera. When I stopped and checked it the light meter no longer worked. A few days later I checked it and the light meter worked again, but a few days after that it again didn't work and still doesn't. It's possible it just needs a new battery, but if not - I've got a roll of Tri-X that I am interested in shooting at 1600. If the light meter is gone, what are some tips for shooting it manually? I basically understand the exposure triangle theoretically but I don't have a lot of practice Paperhouse fucked around with this message at 23:09 on May 27, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 27, 2019 23:02
|
|
|
Paperhouse posted:Basic newbie questions: Are you use the ISO setting on your camera was correct? If you had it set to something like 100iso you'll be perpetually overexposing your shots. Its also possible your light meter or shutter speeds are out of calibration on your camera (this can be cause by a weak battery as well so maybe the battery is hosed). If your light meter 100% quits you can use a light meter app on your smartphone. Ive used apps a few times and found them to always be right on.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2019 23:26
|
|
|
did you scan them yourself?
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2019 07:24
|
|
|
Paperhouse posted:Basic newbie questions: 400 speed film is pretty fast for daylight shooting. Even at f/11 or f/16 unless your shutter speed is cranked all the way up past about 1/500, you're going to be overexposed. The sky is pretty loving bright compared to the rest of pretty much any scene. Even if it's not super sunny, the difference in dynamic range between the sky and the land is going to be a lot. You don't say what kind of camera you have, but I'm going to guess that it's one with a spot meter. This means that it gives you a reading based on the specific area that you point it at. Point the camera at the sky and the needle will move one way, point it at some shadows and the needle moves the other direction. In general being slightly overexposed with negative film is ok, even desirable. It lets you pull some extra detail out of shadows in post-processing and you can usually bring down your highlights without losing any detail too. If you go the other way and underexpose, your shadows are lost to you forever and there's nothing you can do to recover them. Lightmeters are not damaged by light. Some old selenium-powered meters should be kept closed up when not in use because selenium actually does degrade in light (over about a ten to fifteen year span), but as you mentioned a battery, yours is not selenium-powered. The vibrations from rattling about in your bike basket are far more likely to damage your camera than leaving it in the sun for a short time. The most likely damage from sunlight is that your lens focuses the sunlight on your shutter curtain and burns a hole in it. This also isn't very likely unless you leave the camera facing a strong sun for quite a while. It's 100% prevented by a lenscap too. If your lightmeter is acting up I'm going to guess that a new battery will sort it out. As for shooting 400 speed film at 1600, listen to Sauer's advice above. You can do it easily enough. You'll be deliberately underexposing by two stops which will kill your shadows dead. Then you'll over develop it by about 60% to compensate for that. What you will get is a negative where the highlights and the brighter midtones are properly exposed, but as you get to darker areas, your contrast will fall off a cliff. There's no way for the developer to add detail that your camera didn't capture. If you want to shoot 400 speed film in dark conditions, long exposures, tripods and understanding reciprocity failure are the way to go, not push development.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2019 13:04
|
|
|
You can use the Sunny 16 Rule to verify the function of your camera's meter if you don't have another meter or camera to check against. Go out on a nice sunny day (light or no clouds around noon), set your shutter as close to your ISO as you can get (E.g: 100 ISO = 1/125, 400 ISO = 1/500, etc...) and the aperture to f/16. Point your camera at the horizon and read the meter. If its working properly the needle or LEDs or whatever should be pretty close to centered. Probably won't be perfect because there's no guarantee whatever scene you point the camera at will be a perfectly average but close enough. Sunny 16 is also serviceable for working without a light meter. There's also the possibly that the shutter or aperture in your camera is defective. A lagging shutter would cause over exposure. An aperture that has turned sticky with oil won't close or won't close fast enough to be at the appropriate size by the time the shutter opens. Sticky apertures are a very common problem with vintage lenses.
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2019 14:56
|
|
|
otoh, if you want to push and them compensate in developing, just do it and see if it works for you. I've shot in several situations where 400 wasn't cutting and I don't do tripods generally, and some of my best shots have been in ISO 1600 and developing in Rodinal. Yeah, you loose detail in the shadows, grain changes depending on how you compensate during developing, especific colour sensitivity changes slightly... All that might be bad if you're looking for a "perfect" negative, but it might as well end up in something that works for you, either because you like the results, because it better suits how you shoot, whatever. It's your creative process, figure what works out for you. Try it and see what you like before throwing the idea out of the window...
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2019 04:51
|
|
|
Still a little too blue but actually there was a blue haze everywhere on the day because of smoke from fireplaces and no wind, so it was always going to look blue and hazy anyway.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2019 09:00
|
|
|
Blackhawk posted:Still a little too blue but actually there was a blue haze everywhere on the day because of smoke from fireplaces and no wind, so it was always going to look blue and hazy anyway. That's incredibly cool. The composition makes it look like an old painting. The background resembles a painted canvas backdrop because of the haze. President Beep fucked around with this message at 14:09 on May 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2019 14:05
|
|
|
President Beep posted:That's incredibly cool. The composition makes it look like an old painting. The background resembles a painted canvas backdrop because of the haze. Most people don't know this but many old paintings are also out of focus.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2019 21:00
|
|
|
Cool. Count me as a goddamn renaissance master then.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2019 22:39
|
|
|
Blackhawk posted:Still a little too blue but actually there was a blue haze everywhere on the day because of smoke from fireplaces and no wind, so it was always going to look blue and hazy anyway. That's crazy. Looks like a composite.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2019 09:04
|
|
|
What's a good post-processing workflow if I'm getting my scans done by my lab? I've tried LightZone and found it to be not very good. Should I bite the bullet and start paying for Adobe CS again?
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2019 13:41
|
|
|
Safety Dance posted:What's a good post-processing workflow if I'm getting my scans done by my lab? I've tried LightZone and found it to be not very good. Should I bite the bullet and start paying for Adobe CS again? I’ve never had good scans done. Do they invert and color correct for you, or just scan?
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2019 17:31
|
|
|
Unless you plan on shooting film very rarely it's much more likely that buying a scanner and learning how to do it yourself is a much better option
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2019 18:19
|
|
|
An Epson v550 or v600 is $200 (usually not this expensive). If your lab charges you $10 to scan a roll (usually not this cheap) then you break even after 20 rolls. And since you’re shooting film, your time is worthless anyways.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2019 00:45
|
|
|
President Beep posted:I’ve never had good scans done. Do they invert and color correct for you, or just scan? They invert and color correct. My sample size is really low, but I was a little happier with the scans that came back from The Darkroom. My local lab scratches that instant gratification itch, however. Wild EEPROM posted:An Epson v550 or v600 is $200 (usually not this expensive). If your lab charges you $10 to scan a roll (usually not this cheap) then you break even after 20 rolls. And since you’re shooting film, your time is worthless anyways. Gotta find room in this manhattan shoebox for a scanner.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2019 02:19
|
|
|
wait until you realize negatives take up space too
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2019 04:03
|
|
|
Is that what they mean by “negative space”?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2019 04:14
|
|
|
Those binders aren't my baseball card collection; they're my terrible photographs collection. I know the artist who made them personally.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2019 11:15
|
|
|
I like to get the cheapest scans so I know which of my photos are even worth scanning. It isn't many of them because I suck.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2019 07:12
|
|
|
I caved and paid for Lightroom. A scanner of my very own can come later. My wife and I visited Joshua Tree National Park a few weeks ago. I wanted to bring a roll of CineStill 50 for the trip, but I didn't get a chance to get one. I'm glad I showed up with the Portra 400 instead, because it was super cloudy all day.    
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2019 03:52
|
|
|
Fuji Neopan Acros II coming in Autumn 2019 in 35mm & 120 formats. Hanging out for 4x5 but still great news! I stockpiled 120 last year on a trip to Japan so it'll be interesting to compare the two stocks.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 09:19
|
|
|
Did my first home development on the weekend. TMax 400 in Ilfosol 3. Hanging up the developed negs and seeing the images was so cool and exciting. [  
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 11:28
|
|
|
I think it's an awesome feeling too. Love 2 develop at home.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 14:09
|
|
|
OH YEAH, speaking of developing, what do we know/think of these LAB-BOX things that freestyle is selling? https://www.freestylephoto.biz/search?q=lab-box I have legitimately never heard of them before so I started looking around. The concept is neat, but I'm curious if anyone has tried this firsthand.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 14:15
|
|
|
Martytoof posted:I have legitimately never heard of them before so I started looking around. The concept is neat, but I'm curious if anyone has tried this firsthand. No one will be able to answer you because they haven't even been shipped out to backers yet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 15:11
|
|
|
alkanphel posted:No one will be able to answer you because they haven't even been shipped out to backers yet. Oh that's weird, my assumption was that freestyle got stock on the 8th and shipped out, which fuuuurther led the assumption that the kickstarter had already been fulfilled. Oops :[
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 15:28
|
|
|
I actually never heard of it. Just a small search, and apparently it's existed before. There's also that JOBO tank i've seen before. A motorized version with some smart draining would be cool though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 15:29
|
|
|
I just took a look at the kickstarter video and lol they pitched one of the use cases as developing film outdoors on the fly with friends Hold that thought, just casually pulling out a bottle of developer from my massive cargo shorts
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 15:55
|
|
|
I develop on the fly like god intended--holed up in a hotel bathroom with a hastily purchased press kit and a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 16:00
|
|
|
Is the smoking a prerequisite? Because that sounds ok otherwise! Like is the developer a certain %age cigarette ash by volume
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 16:10
|
|
|
I guess you can use a toothpick instead. You better still be miserable though!
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 16:11
|
|
|
President Beep, I was BORN miserable
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 16:12
|
|
|
was vaping not an option?
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 17:27
|
|
|
The Modern Sky posted:was vaping not an option? Not if your plan is to be miserable.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 17:41
|
|
|
President Beep posted:I guess you can use a toothpick instead. You better still be miserable though! I prefer a cigar because I'm developing photos of Spiderman
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 17:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 21:35 |
|
|
If you're not poor and hungry you cannot be an artist.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2019 19:08
|
|