What to do with an ME Super?

<p>So, my parents recently did some housecleaning. Instead of putting their Pentax ME Super back in the closet,

they offered it to me to put to some good use. In addition to the body, there’s a Pentax 50 f/2, a Tokina 35-105 f/3.5-4.3, and a healthy assortment of accessories (including an autowinder!). The meter is off by at least two stops, but everything else seems to be in good condition.</p>

 

<p>My regular rig is a Canon 5DII and the proverbial bag o’ primes. I’m not by any stretch of the

imagination looking to switch, but I <em>would</em> like to use the Pentax for things I can’t do with the

Canon.</p>

 

<p>I understand that black and white film has (potentially) a significantly wider dynamic range than digital, so

I’m considering shooting some very contrasty scenes — such as noontime in the Arizona desert,

sun, shadows, and all.</p>

 

<p>I’m not interested in setting up a home darkroom, so I’m thinking of handing the film to the local

pro lab to be developed and scanned, after which I’ll return to my normal workflow in Photoshop with prints

on a Canon iPF8100.</p>

 

<p>Does this sound reasonable?</p>

 

<p>If so…what film?</p>

 

<p>Other suggestions and advice would be most welcome.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

<p>Keep it, use it. Occasionally a compact, lightweight SLR like that reminds me why I should kick myself for selling my OM-1... and why I really need a comparable dSLR instead of the monstrous D2H. Grab a few rolls of Ilford XP2 Super and have a decent minilab process and print it. Besides being easy to scan well, XP2 Super negatives will also be perfect for conventional enlargements to variable contrast paper later if you ever get the insane urge to try such stuff.</p>

<p>Oh, I’ll keep it, without doubt. The gorgeous viewfinder alone is worth it….</p>

 

<p>I only have a typical flatbed scanner — an Epson 3490 — which is why I’m

interested in having the lab (<a href="http://www.tempecamera.biz/">Tempe Camera</a>) scan the negatives at the same time they develop them. Is this

reasonable? Does it affect the choice of film…?</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&<?p>

<p>As Lex suggested, Ilford XP2 Super(rated as low as ISO100) offers probably the highest quotient of IQ, availability and flexibility for printing/scanning. Fuji Reala and Kodak Portra 160NC or VC, Kodak Ektar 100, or plain old Fuji Superia 200 are workable C41 options. Experiment with your lab and see where it takes you?</p>

<p>Sorry, i'm on an anti-scan kick right now, if it's film your shooting, commit to it and have the lab process with 4x6's for your album, or have a contact sheet done and have (gasp!) some enlargements done of the best ones! It's more fun that way, and your friends will be way more impressed by your diligence. I am finding too that the scan doesn't replicate film grain well... i had been using a medium-quality lab at a camera store for my scans, and i was never happy with the grain. going back to lab prints has been a joy. I even have a lab in town that still has an optical printer for 4x6's! strange but true! I second the vote too for Kodak Ektar 100, i have really enjoyed using that for my color work. </p>

<p>Ben, The ME Super is one of the preferred film cameras for the old school Pentax crowd. It's a great camera, and you can buy one for very little (unless you want it in all-black, in which case you have to fork out the bank-breaking sum of $100). Seriously, it's a great camera, and you could pick up a couple of useful primes for under $100 each.</p>

<p>Maybe you should post in the Pentax forum, where lots of us own one. Sadly, mine has been sitting on the shelf for the past 2 years so there's not much practical advice I can give you :-(</p>

<p>Fun! :-) I loved the form factor of the ME -- small like the Olympus OM models, but somewhat chunkier. The SMC Takumar 50/2 is a very nice lens, BTW.</p>

<p>If you're going to shoot B&W for dynamic range, you'll want to "pull" it (overexpose and undervelop). You'll end up with what looks like a low contrast negative. In truth, you won't have a lot of middle tones in the high-noon desert. If you pull process, you'll need to develop it yourself. It's relatively easy, though.</p>

<p>In the end, you'll need to cram all that dynamic range into a print that has relatively less dynamic range. You can compress much of the middle range by scanning and applying curves judiciously. If you do your printing the old fashioned way, there's no way to compress this range. You'll have to make a low contrast print (which will represent high DR), or you will have to pick off just a portion of the range in your negative, printed with higher contrase (e.g. with Polycontrast RC, if they still make the stuff). None of these approaches will give you magically gorgeous results. Whether digital or film, B&W or color, the same problem remains: cramming the enormous dynamic range of a full-sun scene into a print with much less dynamic range.</p>

<p>Gary, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to ask the lab for their

recommendations…I’ll certainly have to do that.</p>

 

<p>Roger, while I can understand the romantic allure of doing everything the analog way…well,

I’ve already got a fair amount of proficiency in the digital darkroom, and it would take waaaay

too much time, money, and physical space to match that in the analog realm. And, for me, the

moment of exposure is but the beginning of the process…giving up control over everything that

comes after would suck all the joy out of it.</p>

 

<p>Miserere, I’ve already got the camera, and I can understand why it would be a favorite.

I’ll be sure to check out the Pentax forum if I need more help.</p>

 

<p>Sarah, I agree. Put the 5DII sensor in this camera and I doubt I’d look back. The Tempe

Camera Web site at least says they offer custom processing for a buck or two extra; assuming

that’s really the case, I’ll let the experts worry about the details. I’ll be doing

all the post-processing in Photoshop, probably Camera Raw, so I think I’m reasonably well

equipped to make the appropriate tonal manipulations. At least, that’s one of the main points

of the exercise. So long as there’s some sort of information there to work with, I figure

it’s my job to make the most of it.</p>

 

<p>Thanks, all!</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

<p>Actually, i don't do anything myself anymore... i had the whole shebang for the darkroom, i even had my own commercial lab for a year shaking cans and making fiber based prints for customers... i gave it all away a few years ago to a house full of artist who rotate in and out, i have no idea if they use it still. i get a hankering once in a while to drive by and see if they still use it and snag a couple choice pieces back but really with the day job and the kids, i am dropping stuff off at my local camera shop lab to have done. they do dip and dunk processing still, and are not that badly priced when compared to the time it would take me to do it myself. I did darkroom work for 25 years, so it was all about the joy for me for over 2 decades, but now i fill the creative juices with digital (i am nowhere near as good on the computer though as i was in the darkroom, but i'm learning) and it keeps me happy, the black and white is fun because it's strictly hands off and what comes out of the camera is what it is. </p>