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Modern negative B/W film is very easy to work with. It can handle a stop of over/underexposure, or a stop of over/underdevelopment just fine. Your results may not be the pinnacle of perfection, but your negatives will be scannable/printable. As long as you stick with one type of film and one type of developer and first get good at using that combination, it's very fool proof. I started with AgfaPhoto APX400 (identical to Rollei RPX400, almost identical to Kentmere 400) and Rodinal, which is not the best combination grain wise, but very very easy to work with. Expose at 320 and develop at box speed because Rodinal slows down your film a bit. Printing your own pictures is the most fun part, and seeing the image slowly appear on the sheet of paper under the dim safelight is very special. At first you'll waste a few sheets of paper cut up into test strips to get the hang of things, especially if your negatives vary in density a lot. But once you got the hang of producing negatives that are all mostly identical exposure wise, you can start skipping the full test strips and just try out one small square of paper just to make sure it's just right. You expose and develop your negative from your roll of film exactly once (for normal photography). You take the pictures on the roll, develop it in your dev tank, then that's that. You can change nothing on that base material anymore. Once you have the developed negatives, you can scan or print them. While scanning and printing you can do all the basic operations you can do in Gimp/Lightroom/whatever. Increase/decrease contrast, crop, zoom, selectively make parts of the picture brighter/darker etc. When printing, you can push through amazing amounts of overexposure of your negative, but 'fixing' underexposed negatives is harder. If in doubt, overexpose your negatives.
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Nov 10, 2023 17:39
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 02:58 |
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Yeah, scanning is a slow, boring process. Though DSLR scanning is a lot faster than waiting for 2 minutes to get a high res scan of a dedicated film scanner. Darkroom stuff is fun! And it can be pretty affordable. A 125ml bottle of Rodinal (enough for like 15 rolls of film) is about 5 euro, and it doesn't expire (many other developers do and have to be used fairly soon, this includes paper developer). Fix and stop are about 15 euro each, though you can easily make stop yourself from citric acid and demineralized water. Neither fix nor stop expire, though fix working solution might grow fungus if left for a year. Ask me how i know. It still worked. You can use the same stop bath and fixer concentrate for prints as you do for film, as long as you make separate working solutions. A bottle of stop and fix will last for several hundreds of prints. I've gotten 2 full darkroom outfits completely for free. Ask around and someone will sling some old enlarger at you as long as you haul everything down from an attic yourself. There are different quality levels of course, but my experiences with some cheap eastern bloc Meopta stuff are good. I made my own darkroom tent for use in my bedroom. I screwed a strong hook into the ceiling from which i can suspend a collapsible wooden frame. Over that frame i drape a large cloth tent. I wanted to have the ilford tent, but for some reason that's closer to 300 euro here which is excessive, and i didn't think of the weed grow tent until the thing was finished. But if you have a bathroom or whatever that you can get light proofed, that's much better than the tent. In my case, there's no room that's easy to light proof. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Nov 10, 2023 18:04
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I'm not sure yet, but i might sell my Osram Duka 10 low pressure sodium safelight. Sodium is the one you need for color paper. *If* i am gonna sell it, the price will be 50 euro, willing to ship worldwide. Works perfectly fine, and it is complete in its original box with user manual and stamped warranty form from 1985. If anyone might be interested, let me know. Whether i actually will sell it, depends on some other stuff i'm trying to get rid of. My tech room is too full of interesting old electronics. Even with the dedicated sodium safe light, you need to turn it all the way down for working with modern color paper, because the modern stuff is more sensitive than what they used when the safelight was new. I would like to have fully analog color prints just for the sake of doing it without a computer, but i feel like i don't have the energy to get into yet another workflow. If i were to do it, i'd do it in a communal dark room so i can use the RA-4 processing machines. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Nov 11, 2023 |
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Nov 11, 2023 23:26
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On the bottom of a paterson tank there's written how much liquid you need to use. 290 milliliter per 135, 500ml per 120 in my case. I always add a tiny bit extra just to be sure...
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Nov 13, 2023 07:57
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The exact color style you see here, is all the result of post processing. You will not get this look straight out of the scanner with any film.
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Dec 29, 2023 12:32
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Apparently certain dutch airports refuse the hand check and insist their X-ray machines are film safe. This used to be the case with the older x-ray machines, but anecdotally their newer ones do fog film. If you shoot pictures here, get the film developed locally, just to play it safe.
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Jan 12, 2024 15:58
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illcendiary posted:Does anyone have experience here developing 35mm Tri-X with Rodinal? Just looking for general feedback (ie, “don’t do it” if it looks like rear end) and thoughts on dilution, time, agitation, etc. Yes, for quite while that was my default combination until the rolls went from like 7,50 to 13 euro a piece. It works fine, it does make the grain look rougher but the good thing is that it's very foolproof. I preferred 1:25. Best results are at 320 or 250, but i've pushed it to 800 once with acceptable results (shooting at music festivals at night without flash) Definitely try it out, but don't expect any form of smoothness or speed.
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Feb 16, 2024 18:45
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I got a bunch of scanned pics taken on tri X dev'd in Rodinal, i'll look for them tomorrow.
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Feb 16, 2024 22:34
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In Amsterdam, there's a very nice store called Foto Den Boer: https://www.fotodenboer.nl/ Their website is meh at best and the prices are high, but they have so many obscure types of film and chemicals, it's awesome.
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Mar 19, 2024 10:09
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Check out the same stuff under different brand names like Adonal, R09 etc.
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Mar 20, 2024 16:05
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What's arista 400? Is that the same as Rollei RPX400/Agfa APX400/Kentmere 400? That's good stuff. In that case - in general, the Rollei stuff is usually already 50-75% the price of a roll of HP5+ . 50 bucks is not *that* much cheaper. However, if the Arista is only expired like one year, i'd still do it. 400 black and white stuff typically is fine for a couple years after expiration.
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Mar 23, 2024 15:41
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Ah. Fomapan 400 is actually not 400, it's just over 200 afaik. I'm currently shooting my first roll of it, at 200. So if you really want a 400 iso film, don't do it. How long are the bulk reels? How much do you pay for a fresh reel? A fresh tin, 17m, of Fomapan 400 costs €32 at Macodirect. 30m (approx 100ft) is 55 euro. HP5 is actually not too bad there at 9 euro for a 135 cartridge, with Foma 400 at just over 5 euro.
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Mar 23, 2024 23:09
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You can definitely do it, but if you expect HP5 performance with regards to sensitivity, you're gonna be less satisfied with Foma. In the same way i used to shoot APX/RPX400 at 400 and dev in Rodinal and be a bit unhappy about shadow detail. Because Rodinal reduces effective film speed. Ever since i shoot it at 250 when i dev in Rodinal, everything's been perfect.
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Mar 24, 2024 09:05
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To expose it at 1600, while the camera thinks it's 400, you can just set the exposure compensation to -2. It will then expose as if it were 1600 iso film. Alternatively, find the DX code for 1600 iso film, and get creative with a strip of self adhesive aluminium tape and some squares of masking tape.
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Apr 6, 2024 17:20
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Fridge if you're gonna use it within a year, freezer for longer storage.
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May 10, 2024 23:24
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 02:58 |
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Developing film is as easy as boiling an egg. You need a developing tank with a reel that fits 127 film, i think most tanks are actually compatible with it. Check out by eye if the shutter moves consistently, give it a couple dozen clicks to free up. Sometimes they bind a bit. You do benefit from something to practice putting the film onto the developing reel with. That doesn't have to be 127 film, perhaps someone can send you a roll of "waste" 120 film which works the same with the backing paper, no sprocket holes and such. You try it a couple times in the light, then in the dark, before doing it with the film that actually contains your pictures. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 08:58 on May 18, 2024 |
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May 18, 2024 08:48
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