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Your First Film


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My first roll was Fujicolor 100, which I posted an image from in the First Camera thread. My first black and white film was Agfa APX 400, which I purchased at the same time as my first camera. Here's a shot from one of those first rolls, even though it wasn't taken with a manual camera.

 

18647366-orig.jpg

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scan0002.thumb.jpg.f3595fc2de901cb879d3811196b47372.jpg As a young kid (mid 1990s) I tinkered around with a 110 camera before not giving a rip about photography until digital came out. After finding my dad's ancient Agfa Selecta in 2016, I decided to give it a go. What was the first film to roll through it? Fuji Velvia 50. Yeah, not exactly a smart choice for a novice film shooter. I don't have any exposures from that roll available at the moment, and some of the rolls from that first 5-pack are still in the freezer. Maybe I'll shoot them at some point. Right now, I'm enjoying a Nikon FE, Pentax ME Super, and Olympus OM-2n along with Ektachrome 100. May be a long time till the Velvia sees any more use.
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Ektar 25, i found, wasn't a nice film fresh from the factory. And that wasn't due to keeping in the freezer (which may indeed have done horrible things to it as weel, i don't know).

It may have been extremely fine grained, and high resolution. But it was no way near as good a colour negative film as Kodak GPX and Portra.

Ektachrome 100, mentioned by Bryan above, was also a good film, i found. But i did not use that much slide film, and haven't 'progressed' much further beyond Ektachrome 64.

But YMMV, and all that.

Edited by q.g._de_bakker
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Here's a link to an older thread about freezing film where Ektar 25 is mentioned.

Refrigerating/Freezing Film ?

 

I think I have one roll in the freezer.

 

As I noted above, it isn't only fine grain, but small dye clouds that are needed.

Exactly what that looks like in the film I don't know, but it doesn't seem surprising

that it is affected by freezing.

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-- glen

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My first color film I shot was a roll of 127 Ektachrome-X that was expired by about a year. I really shot a lot of slide film in college (getting it at cost at family camera shop was a plus) and I used Kodak mailers for Kodachrome and our shop's send out service for Ektachrome. Got a deal around that time of Fujichrome R100 with Fuji processing included. Really liked that film. One note about Ektar 25- while marketed as a pro film, Kodak also sold a consumer version called Royal Gold 25. I didn't bother to try it as I'd already tried the Ektar 25 version. Yes, YMMV, and even though I didn't care for it, the one roll I did like netted me over $300 in profit (did group and individual packages for high school cheerleaders). Normally I would have used Portra 160 VC, but I was out and Ektar 25 was all I had. Back when I took paying photo jobs to supplement my income I kept several propaks each of Portra 160 VC in 35mm and 220.
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As I noted above, it isn't only fine grain, but small dye clouds that are needed.

Dye clouds are created by the interaction of the byproducts of the developer, used to reduce silverhalide crystals to metalic silver grains, with dye couplers. This interaction of oxidized developer with colour couplers produces dyes. Small grain equals small dye clouds.

The silver itself (both reduced metalic and remaining silver halide) is removed from the film, so the 'grain' of a colour negative film is all dye clouds. I.e.: colour film's grain is nothing more than specks of dye, so again, small 'grain' equals small dye clouds.

Of course, this oxidized developer can and will diffuse into other parts of the emulsion, and create more diffused dye clouds that are a bit bigger than the metalic silver grain it helped form (which is why a colour coupler black and white film is not as acutely sharp as a true silver black and white film). But not by much.

Edited by q.g._de_bakker
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Dye clouds are created by the interaction of the byproducts of the developer, used to reduce silverhalide crystals to metalic silver grains, with dye couplers. This interaction of oxidized developer with colour couplers produces dyes. Small grain equals small dye clouds.

The silver itself (both reduced metalic and remaining silver halide) is removed from the film, so the 'grain' of a colour negative film is all dye clouds. I.e.: colour film's grain is nothing more than specks of dye, so again, small 'grain' equals small dye clouds.

Of course, this oxidized developer can and will diffuse into other parts of the emulsion, and create more diffused dye clouds that are a bit bigger than the metalic silver grain it helped form (which is why a colour coupler black and white film is not as acutely sharp as a true silver black and white film). But not by much.

 

Yes I didn't get into all of the details.

 

The couplers are usually in hydrophobic droplets, so they don't move around.

It seems to me, then, that for finer grain film, you will want smaller droplets.

 

For large grain film, no need to make the droplets much smaller than the size of

developed grains. One of the complications of color developers is that the developing

agent needs to be water soluble, but also needs to be able to get into the oily coupler

droplets. In some, benzoic acid is used to to do that. As well as I know it, CD-4

is supposed to be better at doing this.

 

In any case, it isn't surprising to me that Ektar 25 does something special with its

coupler droplets to make small dye clouds out of small grains.

-- glen

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Since "my" first camera was the Canon FT my father "loaned" to me for a high school photography class, I would say my first film was a roll of Kodak Plus-X. I DO remember the nervousness of loading my first roll of film onto the plastic film reel for the plastic developing tank and the joy of seeing images on my first roll of negatives (one of the first lessons: "it's film before development, negatives after", LOL)...
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I don'T think anything came of my first roll. Which I had a borroed Kodak Hawkeye for a school field trip to Washigton DC. I suspect the film was never developed or came out of the cameras as the whole experience was like a toy that became uninteresting after a few days. Ten years later I shot a roll of slide film for a raod trip with my band. This came our Ok? Some lost shots...like why don'T cameras work in the dark etc. Unfortunatelz, the slides are buried in the netherworld of the cellar.
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Can't say for 100% sure, but my first film was most likely Kodak Verichrome (not Verichrome PAN, which didn't appear until 1956 from what I can ascertain). It would be logical to feed my Brownie Target Six-20, but I also shot a few frames in the late 1940s/early 50s using a late 1930s vintage "folding Kodak" of my parent's, said camera long gone and model unknown/unremembered. (My gift of the Target Six-20 was likely to keep me from endangering the "folding Kodak!")
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You got me q.g.. I don't know (if I ever did) what film was in my HIT camera but since my first "serious" camera was a Kodak Duoflex IV circa 1955, I'm guessing that it would have been Kodak Verichrome. The second or third roll was probably Verichrome Pan which I continued to use long after it was discontinued (probably have a few rolls left in the freezer.)
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