I Second That Emulsion (a film thread)

what type of film do you like to use?

mm, either high or low speed, really; i've kinda given up on using black and white under 400, because it's too grey. so ilford delta 3200 or fuji neopan 1600 for b/w. for colour i tend to just get some fuji thing, though have shot a bunch of agfa and stuff? kodak ektar 100 was a real highlight and was way crisper than anything i usually end up with.

was maybe going to get a roll of portra 800.

what do you like to use, dayo? i've seen a bunch of your b/w stuff & am curious.

oh & also, expired probably should've been a suffix to all of the above, the expired box being where most of mine comes from, ordinarily.

I use neopan 400, at either box speed or pushed to 1600. do you self-develop? I find delta 3200 to be the king of being too grey! neopan 1600 has been discontinued :(

I mess around with 100 speed films but I can't think of anything to shoot when I use them, they're more of a novelty factor. I've tried APX100, acros, have got 3 rolls of rollei retro 80s that I don't know what to do with. Lucky 100 gives a really old school look.

for color negatives, since I scan I find them all to be much of a muchness - it's hard to get good scans from a color neg, so I just pick up the cheapest big name color film I can find, which is fuji xtra 400 at the moment.

neopan 1600 has been discontinued :(

no shit, that's terrible. i used to think it had the edge over the ilford, pretty much. the kinda extreme, high-contrast b/w aesthetic sometimes feels sorta passé, now, but film that pretty much separates into diffused blacks and whites is still what i want a lot of the time, and gives you some freedom to just shoot wherever. kinda can't imagine how you found it too grey!, it has no midtones afaic.

i've played with some 100s pushed up a few speeds but haven't seen the results yet - that kinda camera-math is a bit beyond me, really, i don't quite know how it all works. i just take my prints to the shop, also, btw.

HP5+ was always the king of too grey for me.
tbh, I'd probably prefer that now - with any kind of scanning I'd rather have a low-contrast negative that can be worked on.

I've only shot three rolls of HP5+ but I really liked the results, it seemed very bright and crisp - I'd shoot it if neopan 400 wasn't nearly half the price.

yeah neopan 1600 had a true film speed of about 640, so when you push it to 1600 or 3200 it gets this 'film noir' look about it. neopan 400 is basically the same thing when pushed. I've still about 12 rolls of 1600 that I'm using for a project.

delta 3200 is so low-contrast it's incredible, it scans as this one big pile of grey. I think that's how they get it to push to 3200 or 6400.

I've been playing around with agitation this week, added just one more inversion per minute and I'm getting nice contrasty negatives straight out of the scanner with HC110. I like it. I'm kind of worried, because so far the majority of my negs have been developed for low contrast (for scanning) so I don't know how they'll come out in a darkroom.

You non-grey people are nuts! I often simply use Tri-X because it's common and (for me, who never shoots faster than ISO 400) fast, but I love using FP4 to get those grey grey midtones. And if it's not grey enough then I'll grey it up a bit.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/5564033333_fe837fd679.jpg

MIDS!

For color I stick to Ektar or Portra 160NC to stay low-contrast and low-grain. If I'm cheap I'll by Fuji Superia, but the colors in my lab scans don't look so hot then. I know that I need a scanner of my own... It's next on the list.

So who here scans negatives (or positives)? What do you use and what's your workflow?
I bought a Plustek Opticfilm because my lab scans often featured blown out highlights or clipped blacks and poor color balance. I can now control that a bit better, but my workflow is terrible and slow and I think I should be able to speed it up.
What resolution are you satisfied with, etc?

CURIOUS!

I haven't scanned in ages - my last was a Nikon Coolscan IV, IIRC, circa 2002. Back then it was just too much work keeping the negatives spot free.

Resolution wise, the Epson flatbeds get ~2400dpi and the Plustek dedicated 35mm scanners get ~3600dpi (real world, rather than the state resolutions) - you can (roughly) divide that by 300dpi to get the native enlargement (ie a medium format 2.25x2.25 negative could be printed 18x18inches from an Epson v750, under perfect scanning conditions, a 35mm negative could be enlarged 12x via the Plustek, etc.).

You can probably fudge that and go a bit larger as long as you're not doing something with a lot of fine detail.

I'd like to get back into shooting film and scanning it (and being able to scan all my old negatives and slides), but I'm about to be moving into a new place that's going to cost $300-400 more a month, so I doubt I'll be able to shoot film at all, much less buy a scanner.

I'm pretty committed to film at this point, so the scanner is my attempt to make the process cheaper (lab scans cost too much). Now my struggle is to develop a quick-ish method of working that gets whole rolls scanned in acceptable resolution. Most of the stuff only goes on the web, and I can't imagine printing larger than 12" x 8" so I suppose the resolution I get from the Plustek is fine.
I just had an opportunity to pick up the scanner for not-so-much and had visions of cheap development. After having some rolls mauled at Walgreens and a couple 1-hour spots though I've sworn off non-pro labs.

which Plustek did you get?

I own a Epson V700, that I'm gonna sell when I leave this place. it's been good to me but it's been in the shop once for service and will likely go again before I go, so I don't end up stiffing the buyer. other people on the web have mentioned quality control issues.

I really like it and all the shots on the web I have were done using it. sharpness isn't *great* but acceptable - not as good as the minolta dual scan IV which I owned a few years ago, but more than good enough for making webshots.

process wise, it's nice - it does 24 35mm frames in about ~40 minutes, so you can do a roll in about an hour, an hour and a half. 120's much quicker, the scanner only has to make 12 passes.

I find that it's great with b&w negative, kinda lousy with color negatives and slides. although from what I gather, scanning color negatives is hard no matter what you do - need to figure out the correct color balance, probably need to use Vuescan or some other professional software (I use epsonscan because it's convenient). slides just come out looking soft, it seems, though I haven't really tried fiddling with the settings for that either.

Gonna head out the door in a sec, but I'm using the Opticfilm 7600i, the one that is bundled with the full version of Silverfast. I've been getting decent color scans with it, but not *great*. I think I'm figuring out more as I go along though. It definitely takes some time spent fiddling!

yeah I had a pro lab scan some slides/negatives and then compared them with my own V700 scans - difference between night and day! OTOH they know what they're doing.

color slides/negatives, that is.

probably the best digital film workflow would be v700/750 to make a rough digital 'contact sheet', then using a plustek or other dedicated 35mm scanner to make higher quality scans. I still think the old discontinued ones like the minolta dual scan IV offer amazing performance.

here's what I'm talking about re: the difference between my epson and the pro lab. I could probably get the V700 pretty close if I wanted to fiddle, but I'm not really that invested in my color shots. *shrug*

http://i.imgur.com/0JBRA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/L71tG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZNvjA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/IEDNE.jpg

also if you want cheap development, and you don't mind supporting the eventual corporate takeover of the world, you could try wal-mart. they outsource all of the film developing to fuji by this point, takes about a week but if you request "develop only" it can be cheap, like $1 a roll - I was never able to get them to only develop though :/

you can also try one of the C-41 DIY kits from freestyle, I've heard that C-41 isn't nearly as fiddly as it seems.

Whenever I can afford to go back to film, I'll probably stick to medium format w/ a V700/V750, farm out drum scanning in the event that I ever want to make an enormous print.

that's assuming color MF film exists at the point in time :(

I just bought two rolls of 120 fuji t64 - tungsten film from an urban outfitters type store here. lol, but I'm curious to see how it responds in daylight. might cross process a roll as well.

I certainly do not get quite the same sharpness as my lab scans anymore, and I now have problems with color noise that I am trying to solve, but I now don't lose my highs and lows at the same rate as I used to:

lab scan:
http://www.altairnouveau.com/labscan.jpg

home scan:
http://www.altairnouveau.com/homescan.jpg

Your lab scans are probably oversharpened, really - that was my experience with the Noritsu/Frontier automated scans, even at highest quality.

Oversharpened sounds right. Also too much contrast dialed in. I started asking for low contrast scans which were a little better but still sometimes featured clipped highlights. I am also stuck with a lens (Voigtlander 35mm) that is very contrasty and works better *without* adding on even more contrast on top. Thus the adventures in self-scanning.

which voigtlander 35mm do you have?

I have the Color Skopar 35mm f2.5. Mostly because it was the cheapest 35 I could buy once I picked up the Leica. It works well and all, but I'd prefer a lower contrast lens. I'm thinking of selling it and applying the $$ towards a Summaron 35mm. I think lower contrast will just be a bit more forgiving for retaining shadow detail and I like the look more. The color skopar drops off to pure black *soo* fast. I don't have the same problem with my other cameras (mostly fixed lens rangefinders with (probably) single coated lenses), or the lenses that I use on my Pentax.

look into the canon rangefinder 35mm's. the 2.5 was based on the canon design. I have a 35mm 1.8 and it's nice and low-contrast. the summaron is nice too. I picked up a canon 35mm/2 which is supposed to be more modern and high contrast, haven't run a roll through it yet.

but yeah I shot with a rollei 40mm/2.8 for a while, sooooo high contrast. sold it.

Voigtlander makes single-coating versions of some of their lenses that will be more pleasing with film (particularly B&W). They're marked SC vs MC.

yeah but they're still pretty high contrast, modern designs

I think the 35mm/40mm 1.4s come in sc and mc versions

Well, doing periodical B&H browsing yesterday I saw a 35mm f3.5 Summaron for $299 and without thinking bought it. It arrived today and is beautiful (on the outside at least!). I'll have to report back on how it looks! I know the f2.8 is the preferred version but I could not resist the immediacy of getting the thing the next day or the low price.
It is the version made for the M3 bayonet mount without goggles by the way. Meaning it focuses accurately but brings up 50mm framelines. I will have to decide whether I'd prefer to have a tech trim the lug to bring up 35mm framelines or just live with it (35mm framelines on an M2 are pretty much just the whole viewfinder anyway).

And Dayo, do you have shots with the Rollei? I used to use my dad's Rollei 35 when I was back in the Bay Area and compared to the Voigtlander lens it was *low* contrast. I had been keeping it in mind as a preferred look.

yeah, but I don't remember if I have any daylight film - the roll I know was took with the rollei was 400 pushed to 1600, so the contrast was exaggerated even more. it's supposedly the same lens design as the Rollei 35's but I think updated to modern performance standards.

congrats on the summaron! I hear that's a wonderful B&W lens.

hey photo bros, so my gf got me a canonet for my b-day + i got a couple of films developed + some of the pics in the second roll of film are all kind of blown-out in the white parts? and the thing is on the 2nd roll i was using a different type of film as well as a warming filter that i picked up.... so does a warming filter have that effect? or is it the film? or is it something else -
http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_jTfWBcejvU8/TcGqFbgKK3I/AAAAAAAAAyU/0Xax-mtGmSg/s720/84970024.JPG

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_jTfWBcejvU8/TcGrqeQB6rI/AAAAAAAAAy0/B6MrZEVx2Tg/s720/84970019.JPG

Could well be the scans (basic developing lab scans tend to be extremely high contrast, per above), could be overexposure in the camera (old Canonet meters are a crapshoot). It doesn't look like the scene itself should have exceeded the dynamic range of color negative film, and even overexposed negative should hold some detail - so my money's on the scans.

i got prints tho, and they looked the same... they still do prints straight from negatives right? or maybe not?

Probably not. Prints are made from the quickie machine scans - been a while since optical enlargments were common.

i did not know that!

those images don't look particularly overexposed but I'm no expert with color negs

those lab scans do look pretty bad though

I don't think the lens on the canonet should be diffused like that. Could maybe be smudginess on the filter too? I'm not really sure though. Maybe see if it continues to only come up when you use the filter. Take some shots with and some without and see what happens.
By the way, so far the Summaron looks great. It's a world of difference from the Voigtlander and I really think that lens was what was bothering me about my photos lately.

thanks guys! i'll have a play around. it might be something as simple as being overexposed, i just realised that w/ those photos i was relying on the light meter but w/ the 1st roll (that turned out ok) i had just been using the sunny 16 rule.

sunny 16 is a+. and with color negs it's usually a good idea to overexposed by a stop anyhow. you can also download light meter apps for iPhone and android and they ate surprisiglu accurate

Gifts from a friend - a 1959 Ilford Sportsman II (in lovely leather case)...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2378/5694777542_7511ba676a.jpg

And a 1986 Chinon CE-4 (with 50/1.9 and Tokina 200/3.5 lenses, both of which will go on the Pentax K-1000...)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/5694203639_9b5d3e1a03.jpg

The Ilford in particular will be a challenge...

nice - how are the shutter speeds on the ilford?

Well, as you may be able to see, there's three: 1/25, 1/50, 1/200 (plus B). A 45mm f/2.8 lens. "Made in Western Germany". I'll give it a go...

Well, doing periodical B&H browsing yesterday I saw a 35mm f3.5 Summaron for $299 and without thinking bought it. It arrived today and is beautiful (on the outside at least!). I'll have to report back on how it looks! I know the f2.8 is the preferred version but I could not resist the immediacy of getting the thing the next day or the low price.
It is the version made for the M3 bayonet mount without goggles by the way. Meaning it focuses accurately but brings up 50mm framelines. I will have to decide whether I'd prefer to have a tech trim the lug to bring up 35mm framelines or just live with it (35mm framelines on an M2 are pretty much just the whole viewfinder anyway).

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Wednesday, May 4, 2011 6:20 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

fyi I've been doing research on the 35mm summaron and uh, sorry to break this to you but it won't focus accurately at close distances without goggles...

You sure about that? This is the first m-mount version of the lens that was manufactured sans-goggles, intended for use with an auxiliary viewfinder (focusing through the built-in viewfinder with the 50mm framelines pulled up). The goggled version came later which notoriously will not focus correctly if they are removed (and which might be more common).

That's my understanding anyway. I'll have to get back to you as I get more rolls back, but so far I haven't had any focusing issues.

hmm, maybe you're right. seems there were a lot of versions of this lens made. if I were you I'd do some close focus tests and see if anything's amiss.

I think I get back a couple of tightly and closely focused wide open photos tomorow, so I'll see what I've got, but I'm feeling optimistic! I think I have a few already that meet the criteria that are fine.
The real question is whether to leave the lens as is, or shave it to bring up 35mm framelines. I guess I'd be destroying any collector value, but it's not really a collector's lens. On the other hand it isn't that much trouble to manual trigger 35mm framelines when I *really* need them. Tough call.