alan_ginman

Details of a film on Netflix based on a New York Times article about Kodachrome. Kodachrome returns, thanks to Netflix. - The SRB Photographic Blog Alan

The standard way to develop a film when you didn't know the development time was to do a clip test. In the dark, you cut off the first five or six frames, develop them at your best guess at the dev time and see how they come out. If they were okay, you develop the rest of the film for the same time. If they were too, thin/heavy/contrasty/flat, you altered the dev time accordingly. A standard, commonly used technique. All pro labs would offer that as a service. Alan

I love the poetry of the phrase 'C41 clouds'. I've no idea what it means and I don't care, because it paints a nice picture. And I love XP2 as well. Like JDM I love the fact that it's more filmy than film. Alan

<p>The film adapters are in the '3D' section. That confused me, as I assumed '3D' referred to 3D photography, but it refers to things the gentleman makes on his 3D printer.</p> <p>Regards</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>"I've noticed that some photos are very soft on just the right side of the photo" One way to test this is to try and look at the grain in the soft areas of the scanned photos. If the grain is soft, then the scanning is the cause of the softness. If the grain is sharp, then the scanning is okay but the problem is in the camera. That will narrow down the cause for you.</p> <p>Regards</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I haven't done much B/W conversion, but I use Paintshop Pro as my base processing package. It's a lot cheaper than Photoshop, but I don't know how it compares pricewise with Lightroom. It has a lot of good built in B/W conversion tools. I don't think the various add ons do anything that the base package can't, they just make it easier. Also, most Photoshop plugins work with Paintshop Pro as well.</p> <p>Cheers</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I use autofocus a lot. For manual focus, I find rangefinder cameras easier to focus than SLRs. I have varifocal glasses. Rather than using corrective aids on your camera (e.g. dioptre adjustment on the viewfinder) I would have thought it better to correct the problem at source, with glasses or contacts.</p> <p>As other people have said, you have to change how you do things as you get older. Someone mentioned the tremors that can come with age, I find the image stabilisation in cameras very useful for that. My days of carting around SLRs have left me with back and neck problems so I largely use M43 nowadays, with occasional 35mm use, if only for the smell of the film when you open the film container.</p> <p>Cheers</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I've had my film processed by AG Photographic, who are mail order, which may or may not be any good to you. They are good. With Rollei films I find it best to underate by a couple of stops under the rated ISO value, and Have Ag pull the film's development by 1 stop.</p> <p>Cheers</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I've always carried equipment by hand. The trouble is that more and more, airport security expect you to separate equipment from bags. That's always been the case with computers, phone and e-readers. On a recent trip from Valencia in Spain I had to unpack all of my cameras from the bag as well and put them in the tray. Apart from the possibility of losing things to theft, it's easy to just misplace things. In fact I lost a camera battery charger. Fortunately I was on my way home and could get a new one, but it was still a drag.</p> <p>I do find going through airport security a bit stressful for this reason. But not as stressful as taking camera equipment plus a toddler who randomly dashes off in any direction. Fortunately, my daughter is a bit more controllable now.<br> Alan</p>

<p>I've used Ilford and AG Photo Lab. They both give excellent results and do various combinations of Dev only, Dev + prints, and Dev + scanning. I always use Dev + scanning. AG are a bit cheaper but still give excellent results. So I tend to use them now. AG will scan odd formats, such as panoramic format films, if that interests you.</p> <p>Hope this helps</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I can't talk about proper IR film, but for several years I've put films in my suitcase without any problems. And that includes D3200 and Ilford SFX partial IR film. In the UK and Spain, and presumably the rest of Europe, you will not be granted a hand inspection for hand luggage. That went out years ago.</p> <p>Hope this helps</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I appreciate that the firearm was somewhat irrelevant, but by UK standards, carrying an assault rifle DOES constitute being 'armed to the teeth' :)</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>A fascinating article. Thanks for posting this.</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>"When the kids are old enough to occupy themselves for a little while, I'll probably get back into doing more home processing and printing." My daughter is 8 and I'm only anticipating more free time when she goes to university.</p> <p>Meanwhile when the urge to use film strikes me I generally use C41 black and white or colour films. The main driver for me to use film is to use a number of old film cameras that I have acquired recently. Both colour and black and white C41 films have amazing latitude to compensate for dodgy shutters, guessed exposures etc. I've rated XP2 at everything from 50 to 3200 ISO and got usable results.</p> <p>Cheers</p> <p>Alan</p>

<p>I've got his book of pictures taken on film sets over the years. He uses the unusual angle of view of the Widelux very well. I recommend it.</p> <p>Alan</p>