I want to try developing my own B&W film, but all stores listed in the OP seem to be in the states. Can anyone recommend a store within Europe so I won't have to bother with customs etc? I've found one, Ag Photographic, does anyone have experiences with them?
|
|
# ¿ Jan 4, 2011 00:21 |
|
|
# ¿ May 16, 2024 11:55 |
So stupid newbie question. I have some uncut, developed slide film (135) I want to scan. The lab delivered it in transparent sleeves that run the entire length of the film. I should probably cut the film before scanning, right? Should I just cut through the sleeve, leaving it on and keeping it as protection? Should I remove the sleeve while scanning? I don't have any equipment specifically for film scanning.
|
|
# ¿ Jan 8, 2011 04:11 |
I developed my first two rolls of film today. (The result was not too bad even.) But I have a question about waste I hope someone can answer. One was a Kodak Plus-X, the other a T-Max 100. Neither the water used stop bath nor that used for wash took colour from the Plus-X, but the T-Max gave both the stop and wash water a reddish colour. I have about 6 litres of reddish waste water now. How hazardous is this? (In other words, how many fish will die if I flush it down the drain.) The T-Max also seems to have a reddish acetate base, is that normal? nielsm fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jan 22, 2011 |
|
# ¿ Jan 22, 2011 15:12 |
Thanks, so I won't need to visit the recycling station twice a week Dr. Cogwerks posted:Developer down the drain is okay. Fixer down the drain is bad news bears. Odd, the Tetenal developer has an environment warning but the fixer doesn't. I'll just turn the used solutions of both in for recycling.
|
|
# ¿ Jan 22, 2011 18:19 |
Some of the less unsuccessful photogs/scans I have managed so far: Things I need to try: Repairing the camera's focus (or get another camera), using non-expired film, finding a less lovely scanner.
|
|
# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 18:26 |
I accidentally metered and shot a Plus-X 125 as ISO 1600, which is about 3.7 stops too fast, right? (log2(1600/125) = 3.7) Does a factor 6 sound reasonable for pushing it? I know it probably won't turn out well.
|
|
# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 12:23 |
Question about spooling (120 film) onto Paterson autoloader: I just spent 30 minutes or more constantly failing to load my film. I got it perfectly aligned into the spiral several times and began loading just fine, but after filling maybe 1-2 full rotations of the spiral, the inner end of the film jumps off and loading simply stops. This is not my first time, I have developed several films successfully already. It seems this particular roll curves too much, somehow. I ended up spooling the film back onto the original roll, inside the backing paper, but reversed so it's bending the opposite way, hoping to make it easier to load later on. Is there any simpler fix for this? Bonus question: Will leaving the tape sticking the film to the backing on the film affect development? (I'm guessing yes, just want it confirmed.) I've always removed it so far, it's just a chore to do. (And I just loaded a different roll in first try. Sigh, bad luck I guess.) Okay so I got the stubborn film loaded after having it rolled in reverse for a while. nielsm fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 12, 2011 |
|
# ¿ Feb 12, 2011 22:28 |
Sevn posted:What I was wondering though, is if I am shooting ISO 400 film, what should I set the ISO as on the camera? Unless you plan on pushing or pulling the film speed, set the camera or light meter to the film's rated speed. The ISO/ASA speed setting might be marked as 4'' instead of 400, at least it is on an older Agfa I have.
|
|
# ¿ Feb 16, 2011 22:33 |
Dr. Cogwerks posted:Arrrgh. I don't know if that risks damaging the pictures, but it works. Dr. Cogwerks posted:e: huh, it looks like there are tiny spots all over everything... Like "holes" in the pictures? Seems that happens if you don't properly wipe the water off during drying. Or is it just the grain?
|
|
# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 02:50 |
I got what seems to be some decent photos on a 10 year expired Ektachrome 160. I just need a way to scan it Edit: Here's one. I processed the camera raw to get the colours reasonably close to the actual slide. nielsm fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Feb 20, 2011 |
|
# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 05:48 |
I found a toy camera (Bilora Bella 66) on a flea market yesterday, and it had a roll of film in it. I plan on trying to get it developed but I'm wondering how long it has been sitting there. It's Kodacolor Gold 200, 120 format, code GB. Does anyone have a suggestion for when it was discontinued?
|
|
# ¿ Feb 28, 2011 05:26 |
I just did a quick comparison of prices on Freestylephoto and where I usually buy film (physical store in Copenhagen) and prices are just about the same, especially if you take the Danish 25% VAT into account. Prices for commercial development also seem to be about the same, as do chemistry and other darkroom equipment. ExecuDork posted:Are there any big advantages to scanning negatives rather than 4x6 prints? I've got several hundred prints going back about 15 years (I have the negs for 99% of them, too), though I'm really interested in figuring out scanning now because I've just recieved my first few rolls of B&W film and I've got almost everything I need to develop negatives (but not print) at home. Scanning negatives is harder and requires a far better scanner, as well as film holders and possibly an even backlight. The advantage of scanning negatives is of course that you don't have to make a print and can save some cash that way. I've found it easier to get good results with b/w negative scanning, while I still haven't made a good colour negative scan. (Nor any good colour slide scans.) nielsm fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Mar 3, 2011 |
|
# ¿ Mar 3, 2011 06:12 |
red19fire posted:Ok, this is a semi-cross post from the MF thread. My father has a ton of developing gear in the basement. tongs, a tank, and expired fixer & developer from the early 70s. Worth pointing out, if you included all the developer your father has in that picture, you don't have anything for film either way. Notice that the cans say "for photographic paper", it's for making prints only. Also, I believe Dektol has always been sold as powder, not liquid. The powder probably keeps better so it might actually still be usable.
|
|
# ¿ Mar 12, 2011 02:02 |
Another protip: When shooting 135 film with a manually wound camera, be careful when near the last frame. Today I used a bit too much force when hitting the last frame, and I managed to snap the film inside the canister. I couldn't wind it back. (I should have been smart, played it safe, and not open the camera. Then bring it home and open it in the darkroom.) On that note, any guidelines for developing C41 with b/w chemistry? Which is what I'd have ended up doing if I hadn't ruined it instead.
|
|
# ¿ Mar 25, 2011 22:44 |
How I imagine it, the real challenge in making a "works with any camera" 35 mm digital drop-in would be knowing when an exposure begins and ends, and when the camera advances to the next frame. You'd need to make a sensor that's less than a mm thick, fit all the controlling electronics and power supply into the size of a 135 cartridge, and make something on the other end of the sensor flap that lets the camera count sprocket holes, and counts sprocket holes itself! It's really the last thing that sounds least plausible to me, if you need it to work without modifying the camera.
|
|
# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 04:53 |
Gnomad posted:You wouldn't need any way for the camera or sensor to count the sprocket holes Gnomad posted:the sensor could capture the 35mm frame, store it and move on. Essentially the sensor would be exposing constantly, and every time it sensed having been advanced, it would store whatever image was in the sensor at that point. Coupling it on the flash sync might work. Let's assume a wireless connection is used, to avoid pulling a cable into the film housing. The flash sync doesn't tell anything about how long the shutter is open, AFAIK, so this method would essentially store at the start of each new exposure. That might cause some small timing issues since the sensor would be offloading the previous image just as the shutter has opened to expose the next, possibly causing some mild double exposures, or missing some of the start of each exposure. If the sensor is capturing constantly and not discharged before each exposure, and offloaded straight after, I think there would also be issues with hot pixels in one way or another. The best solution you could make (without modifying the camera itself) might actually be combining a pre-discharge by flash sync and an image offload by film advance sensing. The flash sync transmitter could also function as a control unit, sitting in the camera's flash shoe. Gnomad posted:However, which camera company is going to spend the money to develop and market a device that allows folks to bypass buying new gear every time something new is released? (I'm not trying to argue whether it's a good or bad idea, I just think it's fun trying to discover the possible requirements for engineering this.)
|
|
# ¿ Apr 7, 2011 03:29 |
Speaking of enlargers, if I get one without contrast filters, how badly will that affect prints made on multigrade paper?
|
|
# ¿ Apr 15, 2011 06:11 |
Have anyone tried the Lucky SHD100 film? It seems to be a Chinese brand. I've seen it on Fotoimpex.de (here) and it's really cheap. I'm just worried that it seems to be sold as a gimmick film, "The ideal film for getting creative with your 35 mm Holga."
|
|
# ¿ Apr 22, 2011 12:36 |
Prathm posted:So are mine just lovely/gunked up? The bearings kept getting stuck and blocking the film. Sure you let the reels dry? At least my experience has been that loading film (mainly 120) onto damp Paterson reels is drat near impossible.
|
|
# ¿ Apr 27, 2011 21:59 |
GWBBQ posted:From what I've read, HC-110 syrup keeps for 5-10 years, next best thing to powder. Speaking of keeping powder developers... how reliable is it to mix only part of a powder developer? E.g. buying a one-gallon pack of D-76 and measuring for just 300 ml solution at a time. How precise a scale would you need for that? How well does the powder keep in an unsealed package?
|
|
# ¿ May 13, 2011 01:17 |
red19fire posted:Also, do I need photoflo for the final rinse before hanging to dry? Someone early in the thread mentioned using distilled water for the final rinse. Yes, you do need a wetting agent. It lowers the surface tension of the water, making it stick less to the film, and easier to remove. Using distilled water avoids impurities from the water dirtying the film. Using wetting agent prevents the water from ruining parts of the developed image during drying. What you risk when not using wetting agent is parts of the emulsion actually being "washed away".
|
|
# ¿ May 18, 2011 18:49 |
I'm collecting my used chemicals in large jugs, which I then turn in at a recycling station. Both the developer and fixer I'm using specifically warn against draining them, but it depends on the specific chemical. Stop bath is just a diluted acid, possibly with an indicator, and should be safe to dump in the drain, and wetting agent/photo flo is to some degree just a detergent. And I use the washing procedure outlined in the how-to post on page 1 of this thread: Fill the tank with cold water, invert 10 times, drain. Fill again, invert 20 times, drain. Fill, invert 30 times, drain. After the third round I add my diluted wetting agent, lightly agitate (to avoid excessive foam), let it sit for a while, then return it to the bottle.
|
|
# ¿ May 18, 2011 20:45 |
Captain Postal posted:Hmmm... I was thinking that each bottle makes 4gal of dilution B, which is ~30 rolls of 120, or am I horribly mistaken? Yes. Dilution B is 1+31, meaning you get 32 gallons of working solution from 1 gallon of concentrate.
|
|
# ¿ May 20, 2011 12:47 |
Captain Postal posted:The HC-110 bottle says "makes 2 gal". That should give me about 30 rolls of 120 assuming ~500ml of dilution B per roll. Correct? Yeah, you're right. What was missing was probably of dilution A. Neither you nor the store page really specified what those 2 gallons measured.
|
|
# ¿ May 20, 2011 13:22 |
Captain Postal posted:As an aside, I read the trick about "twice the leader clearing time" for fixing, how do you guys do that with 120/220 that doesn't have a film leader? There's usually a few cm of film that doesn't fit into a frame on each end of 120. I'd say, just shoot at 3 minutes for your first roll, then see how much you could safely cut off in the dark for next time. It should be perfectly safe to just cut off 1 or 2 cm on either end of a 120 film, after removing the backing.
|
|
# ¿ May 23, 2011 23:38 |
Captain Postal posted:Cheers. How long do you have to fix before you start over fixing? If I say 8-10min to be really sure on the first one, will that damage it? A fresh, modern fixer solution shouldn't need more than 3 minutes, AFAIK. If the time to fix starts exceeding 5 minutes you should probably replace the fixer. I don't know what films you're using, but Kodak has a handy chart for their films. It mentions 2-4 minutes fixing time in Kodak Rapid Fixer and 5-10 minutes in any other fixer. That last part is a lie, any fixer that claims to be rapid will work in the 2-5 minutes range. (I am using Tetenal Superfix Odorless myself, and it usually works in 2-3 minutes.) At any rate, you should probably find the tech publications about the chemicals and films you have and read them, cross reference them, and compare them to what you find on the Massive Devchart.
|
|
# ¿ May 24, 2011 00:07 |
red19fire posted:So the Devchart says 6 minutes for Tri-x in Tmax developer, but the quoted kodak pub says 4 3/4 minutes. What would you guys recommend? Those are at different temperatures! Kodak's 4.75 min value is also quoted on Devchart, but it's for 24 C, while the 6 min value is for 20 C.
|
|
# ¿ May 24, 2011 02:37 |
ExecuDork posted:I've never tried to push or pull film, but my understanding is you let it stay in the developer for longer to push and shorter to pull, slightly less than doubling the time to push by 1 stop - is that about right? I shot this roll of ISO 25 film as ISO 25 (slowest film I've ever met, very cool), so I don't want to push or pull it at all, if my guesstimate is off by 30 or 60 seconds should I expect much of an effect? Of course it depends on what percentage of the total development time those 30 seconds are. If your total dev time is just 5 minutes it's 10% of the total time and would have a clear impact. If your dev time was 20 minutes, it wouldn't make much of a difference. I may be wrong on this, but I assume it's safer to err on the side of over-developing, for the same reason it's safer to err on the side of over-exposing for negative films: It's easier to recover details out of a dense area of a negative than it is to recover details from a clear area.
|
|
# ¿ May 27, 2011 11:30 |
A while ago there was a discussion about getting film out of 135 canisters by grabbing the leader, or only rewinding the film enough to leave the leader out. I finally got around to finish my first roll in an F90x, turns out it actually leaves the leader out after rewinding the film! Fancy Overall, the F90x seems like a great camera, and about the only reasons to get an F5 or F6 over it might be for aperture-priority or manual mode on G lenses (i.e. most AF-S ones), better ergonomics or mirror lock-up. (The first one will probably be the main killer.)
|
|
# ¿ May 29, 2011 01:28 |
FasterThanLight posted:It's handy if you ever change film mid-roll. I'll do this once in awhile if I started exposing a roll of Tri-X at 3200 at night, but don't finish it. When you do that, where/how do you keep note of how many frames you had shot? And for that matter, what speed you were shooting at. I find it pretty hard to make any kind of writing stick to a 135 cartridge.
|
|
# ¿ May 29, 2011 04:27 |
McMadCow posted:I once had a guy I worked with hassle me for real about shooting an old film camera (Leica, at that). He had just bought a D70 with a Sigma kit lens, both new at the time, and told me it was time to stop playing with a toy camera. I didn't really say anything about it because I mean, how do you respond to that...? "I'm getting lots of enjoyment from my "toy" , thank you."
|
|
# ¿ May 31, 2011 01:52 |
Elite Taco posted:Ok. Please forgive the newb questions, but here goes: Elite Taco posted:2) If I send my film off to a place like this: Elite Taco posted:3) Buying film. I can check b&h, adorama, my local shop for good prices on color film. Is this the best way to go about buying more film? Also, can I buy large spools of B&W 35mm film somewhere and load my own canisters?
|
|
# ¿ Jun 5, 2011 02:14 |
TheLastManStanding posted:They're decent, not the best but they are really really cheap. Their dimensions are a bit misleading as the scans I got from another lab seem much sharper. I really don't like the noise reduction Dwayne's does, it creates an ugly watercolour effect in slightly unfocused areas, like the distant houses in the first picture and in the grass in the background on the second.
|
|
# ¿ Jun 7, 2011 13:46 |
ExecuDork posted:What about cross-processing it, in C-41 or E-6 or some other non-horribly-rare chemistry? It's old, weird film anyways, a bit more oddity from chemicals it wasn't designed for won't hurt too much, will it? I am utterly unfamiliar with Signature Color though, so I could be completely wrong on this. As a bathroom one-shot development maybe, but I remember someone talking about movie film stock here earlier: They have some special backing layer that can make a bad mess of machine developers. You probably also don't want the backing stuff into a replenished developer.
|
|
# ¿ Jun 13, 2011 00:25 |
AIIAZNSK8ER posted:Can someone help me out with an updated chemical list, the one in the OP says they are out of stock. I want to do bw 120 film now. I have a changing bag and a developing tank. I just need a list of chemicals, and do you guys buy those air collapsible brown jugs to store it in? I'd say, when just starting out, just get any developer. You can always get some more different ones later on. I mixed my first powder developer the other day (ID-11) and it was honestly quite a hassle. It required me to get a large container and heat the water, wait for the solution to cool down afterwards, and have bottles ready to store the stock solution. It's much easier to start out with a liquid concentrate IMO. Those also keep better. I don't know if Kodak HC-110 is the same, but Ilfotec HC is certainly a syrup, and very hard to pour accurately. You really want to use a syringe to measure it. (I need to get one.) Alternatively, get a less concentrated developer
|
|
# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 19:40 |
Protip: Don't get lured into the trap of thinking you'll be fine with a tank that fits just one film. Eventually you'll be sitting with a stash of undeveloped rolls and hate doing them one at a time. I'm really regretting not having spent the extra £1.50 on a Paterson 3-reel tank instead of the "universal" 2-reel one, having shot 10 rolls of 120 film over the weekend. Also, the trick of fitting two rolls of 120 on a single reel: Theoretically it works, you can load two rolls onto a single reel without getting any overlap. Unfortunately, they love to creep during agitation. I tried it once and I'm not trying it again; I don't want any more partially underdeveloped rolls.
|
|
# ¿ Jul 7, 2011 04:13 |
I just bumped onto this chart: Kodan Film Number to Film Type cross reference table Useful for identifying already developed film, maybe not so useful for identifying stuff before developing it.
|
|
# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 04:40 |
HPL posted:I figured out how to load two rolls of 120 on one reel. Couldn't you have figured that out a little earlier? I just finished the last roll in a batch of 12, one roll at a time. In retrospect, it's obvious. I'll make sure to try it next time. Bonus question: I have some Delta 3200 expired January 2002. I have shot and developed one roll so far, and it came out extremely fogged. That's to be expected of high-speed film that old, right?
|
|
# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 05:48 |
Reichstag posted:You're going to have to do your own tests to see what works for agitation. There are a lot of opinions out there about the effects of various strategies. Personally, I pick my tank up by the up and swish it around in a circle since it likes to leak if I invert it. I'm satisfied with the results I get from "spinning rod" agitation. Originally I did inversion agitation, but stopped doing that since mine leaks through the lid too... (I still use inversion for Ilford-style washing, since that's just water.)
|
|
# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 20:39 |
|
|
# ¿ May 16, 2024 11:55 |
Ciro-Flex posted:The terminologies of "stock" solution and "working" solution confuse me. One roll of film requires 300ml of solution. This means that with HC-110 Dilution B 1:7, I mix 38ml of developer syrup straight from the bottle with 262ml of tap water. This gets mixed in a graduated cylinder then poured in the tank. In the case of HC-110, "stock" solution refers to a dilution of the syrup which is too strong to use for developing film as-is, and "working" solution is a dilution of the stock solution suitable for developing film in. If you want to make working-strength dilution B directly from syrup, the ratio is 1+31. I.e. for 320 ml solution you would use 10 ml syrup and 310 ml water. (Based on this page.)
|
|
# ¿ Jul 18, 2011 22:26 |