Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
hybr1d
Sep 24, 2002

If you don't get the film seated perfectly in the rolls, it will bow out and touch the adjacent film in the row/spool thingy next to it and get that result. I'd suggest at least a couple more rolls of film using test subjects. If I remember right, my college photog class had us shoot nearly ten rolls of film over a week's time to get us into loading it in the dark. Also consider a 'sacrifcial roll' that you'll not make any prints from and just practice loading, loading, loading. After you load it, take it out and examine it and see if you got it all loaded right.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

brad industry
May 22, 2004

Krispy Kareem posted:

Steel tank and steel reel.

That's for sure what it is then... steel reels are a lot trickier to load than the plastic ones.

gib
Jul 14, 2004
I am probably Lowtax
I just shot a roll of Portra 400 NC at a wedding. Where should I get it developed and printed, and does the chemistry used (Kodak vs. Fuji) matter?

Should I avoid the local drugstore (which uses Kodak)? Is there much of a difference between optical prints and digital ones for smaller prints? I'm mostly concerned with the colors.

8th-snype
Aug 28, 2005

My office is in the front room of a run-down 12 megapixel sensor but the rent suits me and the landlord doesn't ask many questions.

Dorkroom Short Fiction Champion 2012


Young Orc

gib posted:

I just shot a roll of Portra 400 NC at a wedding. Where should I get it developed and printed, and does the chemistry used (Kodak vs. Fuji) matter?

Should I avoid the local drugstore (which uses Kodak)? Is there much of a difference between optical prints and digital ones for smaller prints? I'm mostly concerned with the colors.

Avoid any place that will one hour your film. The Kodak portra line is a pro film stock and can be damaged by the one process. find a decent pro lab or send it out. Trust me on this one I used to shoot alot of Portra UC before they discontinued it and I had a few mishaps when I was in a hurry to get my negs.

8th-snype fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jun 9, 2008

gib
Jul 14, 2004
I am probably Lowtax
How is the one hour process different? I don't think it takes more than an hour to develop the film at a pro lab. A&I will charge $8 just to develop and they still feed it through an automated machine (with Fuji chemistry, I believe).

Do you mean the prints will be bad, or the negatives themselves?

8th-snype
Aug 28, 2005

My office is in the front room of a run-down 12 megapixel sensor but the rent suits me and the landlord doesn't ask many questions.

Dorkroom Short Fiction Champion 2012


Young Orc
I can't find any documentation to back me up. Maybe things have changed since the last time I shot Portra. Kodak used to recommend not going to a one hour photofinisher in the tech pubs for their pro films. I have never had good luck with drugstore prints or developing. I have had scratched negatives and prints with crooked borders (not to mention bad color correction).

TsarAleksi
Nov 24, 2004

What?
The scratches and crud and general mishandling are the bigger issue-- a drug store machine isn't going to be watched in the same way or treated with the same care as a pro lab would their equipment-- you pay more for the peace of mind. I have always had a pretty mixed experience with Oscos / Walgreens etc.

blambert
Jul 2, 2007
you spin me right round baby right round.
I've seen cheapo places cut negs and slice a few millimeters off the top of a neg. The local pro place hand develops according the the film you supply. The difference between prices isn't that much either.... they just have different interests. Also, pro places will generally have much less traffic, so instead of 10 films per hour, they'll be doing 4 or 5 properly.

blambert fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jun 10, 2008

Doc Block
Apr 15, 2003
Fun Shoe
As someone who works in a drugstore photo lab, I can verify that 99% of the photo employees know absolutely nothing about photography. They get told, "put this here, then push this button, then that button" and viola! prints come out.

Machines get poorly maintained, negatives get mishandled, etc.

I've been in situations where the film processor will fail its morning calibration tests, we'll call the number we're told to call when it fails, only to have the guy on the phone say (after telling him the numbers from the densitometer), "Go ahead and run film, it's not that out of calibration." I also noticed that the range of acceptable densitometer values kept getting expanded, so that older machines or older chemicals or whatever didn't need to be repaired or replaced.

I've seen the head of our photo department roll up a roll of 35mm film by wrapping it around his bare hand.

Hell, one time a young girl came in to get some additional 8x10s made of what she said was her first paid portrait shoot. The store manager was over in the photo department with me for some reason. The customer held up the negative sleeves and began to point out which ones she wanted, but couldn't read the frame numbers while they were in the sleeves. So, the store manager, eager to help, ripped them out of the customer's hand, took the film out with her bare hands (putting her fingers all over the frames), placed it on the counter, and slid it over to the customer, saying "Now just read off the frame numbers you want." And then she didn't understand why the customer threw a fit after seeing the negatives get scratched to hell :suicide:

So, yeah, get your film developed at a pro lab.

Edit: we've also had photography students drop off B&W film, not realizing that you can't process "real" B&W film in C-41 chemistry. Unfortunately, despite being repeatedly told otherwise, many of our photo employees don't seem to realize this either, so they throw it in the minilab and then wonder why the film comes out blank. The situation is made worse by the fact that there are some B&W films made so they can be developed in C-41 chemistry (but not in ordinary B&W chemistry).

Doc Block fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jun 10, 2008

killabyte
Feb 11, 2004
Blue Horeshoe Loves Anacot Steel
I'm thinking about Buying a Bessa R3M w/ 50/2 lens. Any thoughts? I am interested in trying a rangefinder out. My requirements are that the camera have a light meter and be reasonably affordable.

Weatherproof
Nov 21, 2007

Well, like an understocked herb salesman, we've run out of oregano.. sorry, time!
This is a total shot in the dark, but does anyone know of somewhere in Australia that sells Diafine? I'd buy some from Freestyle, but their international shipping costs are a bit too high for me.

Failing that, any recommendations for b&w chemical retailers in Australia would be awesome. My local carries only a very small selection at pretty high prices and either online retailers are very well hidden away or my googling skills suck.

Thanks!

Clayton Bigsby
Apr 17, 2005

dahkren posted:

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll keep searching for an OM-1 since that seems to be the most suggested. Could anyone suggest some starting lenses if I can only get a body off ebay?

50/1.8 and 28/3.5 (Zuiko) should be inexpensive and are great lenses. Try to get the hood if you get the 28, it does make a difference.

hybr1d
Sep 24, 2002

dahkren posted:

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll keep searching for an OM-1 since that seems to be the most suggested. Could anyone suggest some starting lenses if I can only get a body off ebay?

Clayton Bigsby has offered some great advice- but don't go without if you can't find an OM1. I learned on a K1000 and bought one 3 years back to reminisce and I love my Pentax with the 50mm lens.

I have a question for the group- what do you guys keep your cameras in? I have a pelican case that holds my Yashica 124G and Pentax K1000, but I'd like to display them without letting them get all dusty, which my house gets quite quickly.

tron-
Jun 8, 2007
I'm looking into picking up a large format field camera, perhaps something folding. I was curious about medium format, but since the photos I plan on taking will be primarily of the architectural nature, I'd like to have all those delicious adjustments of tilt, rise, fall, etc. Can anyone make any recommendations? Ken Rockwell likes the Tachihara, I'm a bit curious about finding a used Linhof because I loves me some fine German technology.

365 Nog Hogger
Jan 19, 2008

by Shine
Well, first you're going to have to decide on a format (4x5, 8x11, etc.), then worry about what camera.

Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007
Just curious, why an OM-1 over an OM-4? I'm thinking about buying one myself, I picked up a Oly 21mm f/2.0 on the (relatively) cheap to use with my 5D, and wanted to get an Olympus film body to play around with since they seem so well-liked. Was also thinking about the Oly 50mm f/1.2 to go with it a bit later on.

kewlpc posted:

As someone who works in a drugstore photo lab, I can verify that 99% of the photo employees know absolutely nothing about photography.

Jesus, this. I generally only use them for cross-processing, even then I generally can't get them to understand what I want (somewhere in their training is a "NO WE DONT DO SLIDE FILM HERE", just to take my word for it. Then there's the time a lab "lost" 8 rolls of negatives I gave them to scan and couldn't understand why I was upset, since I at least got the lovely, 600kb jpegs out of it.

Jahoodie
Jun 27, 2005
Wooo.... college!

brad industry posted:

That's for sure what it is then... steel reels are a lot trickier to load than the plastic ones.

My first time doing B&W 120 was also my first time loading onto a steel reel, and I had a similar result to Krispy Kareem. The night lab tech at my college dark room had no idea how to load a steel reel, and I found help in youtube of all places: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5VsdeNBm_50

Is ebay the best place to get cheap 120 film? I'm just messing around with old cameras, nothing critical.

Also, is home E6 processing amazingly toxic? I did some slides back in HS and it was kinda fun, even if a bit anal what with water baths and temperature watching. I mentioned it once in the darkroom, and I could feel the oozing snobbery lasers from the lab managers when they said that's a horrible idea.

Dad Hominem
Dec 4, 2005

Standing room only on the Disco Bus
Fun Shoe

killabyte posted:

I'm thinking about Buying a Bessa R3M w/ 50/2 lens. Any thoughts? I am interested in trying a rangefinder out. My requirements are that the camera have a light meter and be reasonably affordable.

It should be just fine, though as time passes you may find yourself needing that meter less and less.

Pompous Rhombus posted:

Just curious, why an OM-1 over an OM-4? I'm thinking about buying one myself, I picked up a Oly 21mm f/2.0 on the (relatively) cheap to use with my 5D, and wanted to get an Olympus film body to play around with since they seem so well-liked. Was also thinking about the Oly 50mm f/1.2 to go with it a bit later on.

Probably price. The 3 and 4 are much more expensive than the 1 and 2.

Molten Llama
Sep 20, 2006

Jahoodie posted:

Also, is home E6 processing amazingly toxic? I did some slides back in HS and it was kinda fun, even if a bit anal what with water baths and temperature watching. I mentioned it once in the darkroom, and I could feel the oozing snobbery lasers from the lab managers when they said that's a horrible idea.

Color processes in general are considerably more toxic than B&W, but looking at the MSDSes for Kodak's E-6 chemistry, wear gloves and work somewhere with best ventilation available. It's nowhere near as bad as the RA-4 chemistry my university lab used with a kickin' rad 5 mg/kg LD50.

Unless your local prices are absolutely crazy, it's probably much cheaper per-roll (and more consistent) to have it professionally developed, though.

Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007

breathstealer posted:

Probably price. The 3 and 4 are much more expensive than the 1 and 2.

Well, there's that :v: I was looking at the various models a few months ago and the OM-4 seemed like the best choice to me (I wasn't looking at prices but assumed it was a little more expensive): it offers some distinct advantages (Aperture Priority, higher film ISO's) and I figured I'd be in it for the long haul with the camera anyways. Obviously not the best thing for everyone though.

gib
Jul 14, 2004
I am probably Lowtax
Wow, those are some development horror stories. I guess I'll just take it to Bel-Air. I don't know what kind of machines they use, but at least they won't mess anything up. I did notice that CVS didn't cut my negatives carefully so a lot of the frames had the corners cut off.

killabyte posted:

I'm thinking about Buying a Bessa R3M w/ 50/2 lens. Any thoughts? I am interested in trying a rangefinder out. My requirements are that the camera have a light meter and be reasonably affordable.

Are you getting the package with the Heliar? I've only heard good things about the Heliar and the one I handled for a bit seemed extremely well made. The collapsing feature on it is kind of useless, so I'd just keep it extended to avoid the risk of forgetting to extend it and having ruined shots. If you don't mind a thicker lens, the 50/1.5 is also really nice.

As for the camera, I love my R3a and the R3m is very similar. If you're right-eyed you'll like the 1:1 viewfinder. I've tried to force myself to shoot right-eyed, but it doesn't work for me even though it is nice to have both eyes open. I'll probably sell the R3a in a couple weeks once I get the ZI, but it's been extremely accurate and reliable. The only problem is that the meter readout is very hard to see in bright light.

Meters in RFs are nice if for no other reason than they let you know when you've left the lens cap on.

gib fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jun 10, 2008

killabyte
Feb 11, 2004
Blue Horeshoe Loves Anacot Steel

gib posted:

Meters in RFs are nice if for no other reason than they let you know when you've left the lens cap on.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the R3M package with the Heliar. Looks like a nice well made camera.

Someone will have to explain to me these rangefinder metering comments I see around? I'd never buy an SLR without a meter so I don't quite understand why I would want a rangefinder without one.

Clayton Bigsby
Apr 17, 2005

gib posted:

Meters in RFs are nice if for no other reason than they let you know when you've left the lens cap on.

That's assuming it's TTL metering, which ain't always the case.

killabyte posted:

Someone will have to explain to me these rangefinder metering comments I see around? I'd never buy an SLR without a meter so I don't quite understand why I would want a rangefinder without one.

Rangefinders have been around for quite a while, and thus there are many models out there that are still perfectly usable but lack modern amenities like metering. I don't see a good reason why you wouldn't use a meter if it's there and working, though!

Clayton Bigsby fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jun 11, 2008

Dad Hominem
Dec 4, 2005

Standing room only on the Disco Bus
Fun Shoe

killabyte posted:

Someone will have to explain to me these rangefinder metering comments I see around? I'd never buy an SLR without a meter so I don't quite understand why I would want a rangefinder without one.

Some of us psychos would buy SLRs without meters, you see. Meters are always great to have, but I tend to think of one as more of a convenience and less of a necessity as I use classic cameras more and more.

what is this
Sep 11, 2001

it is a lemur

breathstealer posted:

Some of us psychos would buy SLRs without meters, you see. Meters are always great to have, but I tend to think of one as more of a convenience and less of a necessity as I use classic cameras more and more.

also, you really only need one thing with a meter.

It could be a nice lightmeter, or a small digital slr, but it's definitely not necessary on every camera.

Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007

friendship waffle posted:

also, you really only need one thing with a meter.

It could be a nice lightmeter, or a small digital slr, but it's definitely not necessary on every camera.

Yeah, I just used my XT (and later, 5D) to meter for my Seagull TLR. Worked fine.

Luxmore
Jun 5, 2001

killabyte posted:

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the R3M package with the Heliar. Looks like a nice well made camera.

Someone will have to explain to me these rangefinder metering comments I see around? I'd never buy an SLR without a meter so I don't quite understand why I would want a rangefinder without one.
The R3M is pretty much my primary camera, and it's great. I haven't played with the Heliar, but I do recall some glowing test reports when they first came out.

As for the rangefinders without meters, there are some pretty amazing cameras out there (like the older Leicas) that are just as usable today as they ever were without a meter. You get kind of used to adjusting your exposure half a stop this way and that way when you're using a built-in meter, and it's useful to remember that unless you're shooting in massively variable lighting conditions, you can get away with a single meter reading to give you a baseline and then tweak by eye. Print film is a lot more forgiving than you'd expect.

That said, slide film goes in my R3M, because that stuff needs to be dead on.

gib
Jul 14, 2004
I am probably Lowtax
Speaking of slide film, I just got that roll of Kodachrome back. I haven't looked at it too carefully yet, but the colors and detail are insane. I need to start metering a bit more carefully with that stuff.

johnasavoia
Jan 9, 2006

To be honest, if you shoot black and white negative film and develop yourself, you can be off as much as 2 or 3 stops and still get a decently usable negative, something like tri-x or similar is very forgiving, I consider myself decent at metering without a meter, but I wouldn't really try it with anything but black and white.

Luxmore
Jun 5, 2001
So I'm gonna be hangin' with Tom Abrahamsson on Friday, anybody need some softreleases or anything?

johnasavoia
Jan 9, 2006

Luxmore posted:

So I'm gonna be hangin' with Tom Abrahamsson on Friday, anybody need some softreleases or anything?

Yeah, and throw in a m3 or something too please? I'll pay full price for the soft release, hell even a rapidwinder too.

Clayton Bigsby
Apr 17, 2005

Luxmore posted:

So I'm gonna be hangin' with Tom Abrahamsson on Friday, anybody need some softreleases or anything?

I could use a free Barnackwinder for those high speed shoots :v:

Would you mind asking him what Swedish paper he worked for? I saw somewhere that he worked for one a long time ago and have been curious as to which since.

hybr1d
Sep 24, 2002

I am looking into getting my 4x5 soon, and like a dumbass I waited until this point to think about developing the negatives. What gear do you recommend, and is there a solid book or site that covers the process? I am willing to burn through negatives and such, as this is more about learning and fun than immediate results... I just have no background in large format anything.

Dad Hominem
Dec 4, 2005

Standing room only on the Disco Bus
Fun Shoe

Luxmore posted:

So I'm gonna be hangin' with Tom Abrahamsson on Friday, anybody need some softreleases or anything?

Oh my God I didn't know the Barnackwinder even existed and now I want one so bad.

killabyte
Feb 11, 2004
Blue Horeshoe Loves Anacot Steel
Well, I got the Bessa R3M kit. It comes in a really nice presentation box.

It seems very nice. The camera feels very solid, even more so than my SRT-101 and about on par with my F3.

The heliar lens is nice, very compact. I'm impressed how small rangefinder lenses are. The lens is very heavy for it's size. The collapsible feature is a bit gimmicky in my opinion, though it would be cool to have a lens that collapses down very small.

I will try to run some film through it this weekend if I get a chance.

johnasavoia
Jan 9, 2006

Luxmore posted:

So I'm gonna be hangin' with Tom Abrahamsson on Friday, anybody need some softreleases or anything?

Ok why the gently caress are these winders so drat expensive, I would pay even 100 for a winder for my IIIf, but thats outrageous.

Dad Hominem
Dec 4, 2005

Standing room only on the Disco Bus
Fun Shoe

johnasavoia posted:

Ok why the gently caress are these winders so drat expensive, I would pay even 100 for a winder for my IIIf, but thats outrageous.

He's explained his high prices before on RFF - just the cost of renting the production machinery by the hour is astronomical, and the low production amounts don't help either.

Also he's the only game in town, that lucky bastard.

Luxmore
Jun 5, 2001

Clayton Bigsby posted:

I could use a free Barnackwinder for those high speed shoots :v:

Would you mind asking him what Swedish paper he worked for? I saw somewhere that he worked for one a long time ago and have been curious as to which since.
He says he worked for a bunch of forestry papers, which are no longer in existence. No names unfortunately.

As for the winders, keep in mind that they are complex hand-built machines. I think they're fairly priced when you consider that it's pretty much just Tom building them for kicks in his workshop.

Also if anyone wants some short-dated (August 08) Neopan 1600 for $5 a roll, let me know, because I just picked up a crapload of it.

Chriskory
Aug 18, 2004

Back when I was actively driving I drove Akina even in my dreams

gib posted:

I just shot a roll of Portra 400 NC at a wedding. Where should I get it developed and printed, and does the chemistry used (Kodak vs. Fuji) matter?

Should I avoid the local drugstore (which uses Kodak)? Is there much of a difference between optical prints and digital ones for smaller prints? I'm mostly concerned with the colors.


I'm a bit late to this thread ( I should venture out of PAD ) but I think the main concerns are dipping the film vs. sending it through rollers. When rollers are poorly maintained they can get dirty and scratch your negatives. On the other hand that photo chemistry gets better the more you use it so a place with more volume might get better results, at least those are my experiences.
also

Krispy Kareem posted:

Thanks for the info. It sounds like the scanner might work out for me afterall. I found a pretty comprehensive review on it and the scanned negatives looked pretty good out of the box. If they don't pass muster I'll spring for the Better Scanning holders.


The 4990 can scan at something like 12,800 dpi, it's really pretty good for what it is.

Chriskory fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jun 15, 2008

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Krispy Wafer
Jul 26, 2002

I shouted out "Free the exposed 67"
But they stood on my hair and told me I was fat

Grimey Drawer

Chriskory posted:

The 4990 can scan at something like 12,800 dpi, it's really pretty good for what it is.

Yeah, I messed up and bought the wrong scanner (4490 instead of the 4990). I thought the price seemed low. :(

Still it appears to work pretty well. I've scanned in some negatives at low DPI just to test proof of concept and they came out surprisingly well. I may still need to invest in a better negative holder though, but for right now it's working.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply