duncan_murray1 Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 <p>I mentioned in an earlier post (http://www.photo.net/modern-film-cameras-forum/00cDOn) I was doing a wedding exclusively in film, against my own, and everyone else's better judgement.</p> <p>Tell me what you think:<br> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/dIf4Kru.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p> <p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/b5gK4RQ.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p> <p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/GAkA2SI.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p> <p> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/v81OeJk.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /><br> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/MVDfE53.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p> <p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/bCBEQZX.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /></p> <p> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/ftfjUgU.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="800" /></p> <p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hZ5rwEp.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="530" /><br> I used my Nikon F5&6 with 35/2, 50/1.4, 85/1.8 and Portra 160 and Delta 3200. The church was v dark, and only the F6 could shoot, and even then struggled a bit. NCPS did the processing, and no PP was needed, except for a couple B&W shots which were poorly exposed, and one colour which needed matching to the other in the series. I didn't use any flash - which was a slight problem when I got roped into doing group portraits (which we hadn't planned to do - don't ask, long story!).</p> <p>My advice for anyone doing an all-film wedding - 1. Don't! - it was only luck with the weather that allowed me to use the portra 160 2. Use two good AF bodies 3. Bring more than 15 rolls of film</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bebu_lamar Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 <p>Why only the F6 could shoot? I shot at EV-2 with the F2. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Luttmann Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Nice series. I would have given more exposure to the Portra. I normally over rate 1.5 to 2 stops on a cloudy day. As to advice....I used film for years to make my workflow easier. Nothing magic about it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Howard Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 <p>I like it, a lot. I recently shot some pics at a friends wedding where I wished I'd used film. I would have felt far more comfortable.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddy_d Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 <p>Always use fill flash when possible or open up your f stop by 1 or 2 stops. I feel the same about digital. Nothing magic .</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alekos_elefteriadis Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 <p>-I continue to shoot weddings with films on my Mamyia 645 in church, buck up with fuji S5 as it have the best skin tones close to film, and in my studio Mamyia RB 6X7.<br> -I print in my wet-darkroom but if you want to evaluate a film you need to look the picture alive, not in the screen of computer, first because no one scanner can handle the deep color of film and second because of the way that light work in the scanner the grain is very obvious. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machts gut Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 <p>I like the mood of your photos and the colours are just beautiful. So I would say the experiment was successful! Now for some critique points. The colour shots don't look sharp, but that's probably just the scanning. But why didn't you just take Portra 400 for more flexibility? I never used Delta 3200 myself, but every shot I saw from this film on the net shows much grain, like yours. My impression is, that pushed TriX or TMax 400 could be a better choice. If your AF struggles with the light it has not much to do with film, rather with the technology. Manual fokus could help.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alekos_elefteriadis Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 <p>-Stefan is the problem of scanning that make the grain so obvious. If i print the same picture in wet-darkroom the grain is very small compared to scan. That's why most people now from new photographer who never see a real print, but evaluate a scanning picture, believe that the film have so much grain.<br> -I have print many times from Fuji press 800 & 1600 in the past and in the actual prints there is very little grain, but if i scan and look in computer screen those negatives, the grain is very obvious. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Those look really good. I'll bet the couple will be happy with those photos. Delta 3200 really is that grainy in 35mm. I used a bunch of it for theater pix and candids. My 8x10 darkroom prints look just that grainy. Exposing at 1200-1600 and using a fine grain developer can minimize grain a bit. But giant popcorn grain is the notable and endearing look of Delta 3200, along with low to moderate contrast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartMoxham Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 <p>Nice job Duncan. Film's great.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig_shearman1 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 <p>Since you say you did it on film against your better judgement, why did you?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted_marcus1 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 <p>The pictures are beautiful. But what did you actually get from using film that you wouldn't have got from digital?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karim Ghantous Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Both the colour and b&w sets are easily identifiable as film shots, but the colour set moreso. It's just so obvious. Perhaps the scanner has a big part to play! I agree with Stefan: TMax 400 at EI 3200 would work better. This is based on what I have seen by another PN member, Mauro Franic. No need to push if you don't want to. It's negative film, after all. I have not scanned film in any serious way, and perhaps Alekos has a very good point. Maybe some scanners act like the condenser heads of optical enlargers, while some scanners act like diffuser heads. I don't have a problem with doing a wedding with only film. Digital cameras do, admittedly, allow continuous shooting. You are therefore less likely to miss a shot. That's the thing, isn't it? Oddly, there are few digital cameras with discrete shutters. AFAIK, the only digital system camera with a shutter I'd call discrete is the Olympus OM-D EM- 5 (possibly the other Olympus mirrorless bodies, too). But, there are two system cameras with silent operation: Leica and Mamiya. They are arguably less flexible. Yes, you could use a blimp, but nobody wants to. I wish that film would be the dominant medium for me. But I don't think that is going to happen. But I won't cry over it. I'll just use film where I can and accept it all - for now. I'll bide my time and eventually, one day, crush digital like a paper cup. :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncan_murray1 Posted March 1, 2014 Author Share Posted March 1, 2014 <p>Thanks for all the responses - always good to hear thoughts and ideas</p> <p>Bebu - the F5 could shoot, just couldn't autofocus<br> Dave L - I'm pretty happy with the exposures, so I'm wondering what an extra stop or two does to the image quality? Do you pull the film in processing?<br> Michael - Thanks, I'm also more comfortable shooting with film<br> Eddy - I did use fill-flash at a previous wedding, but didn't really get the hang of it. As it happens, I don't have a flashgun, so it wasn't an option at the time, but I know it's standard practice for pros. The f-stop was almost always wide open or close to. (PS what's with the not magic thing?)<br> alekos - It was all shot in negative I'm afraid - I would have to get it hand-printed in colour at a large size to get a good idea of how much worse the scan is than the negative. But I'm happy with the quality of the scans - NCPS always seem to do an excellent job, the resolution/sharpness/colours are good. You're right that grain is much worse on the scans - and actually, resizing the image is difficult - some methods enhance the grain, others lose the sharpness. I'll post a close-up at the bottom.<br> Stefan - thanks, the scans are sharp (not all the shots are, though!), but resizing seems to lose some of that - it was either that or have the grain unbearable. Personally, I don't mind the grain at all - I couldn't use a digital, so I'm happy to embrace the grain. No the autofocus is nothing to do with the film. I like manual focus, but not for this setting. I don't think I could autofocus accurately in a dim church at full aperture on a fast-changing situation - the F6 is able to keep up, the F5 was at a loss. It's a shame I can't shoe-horn the D4's AF into the F6.<br> Lex - thanks - I hope so. I don't mind the grain! It's a novelty nowadays, anyway.<br> Stuart - thank you.<br> Craig - I don't have digital equipment with fast enough AF to shoot a wedding, and for the time of year and location, the cost of hire was high. They were friends so did it for expenses only. In all honesty, the cost of the film was not far off the cost of the equipment.<br> Ted - Interesting question. To be honest, I think a good quality digital wouldn't have looked much different overall. The colour neg is better at controlling highlights - not just preventing them from blowing, but also controlling the hue up to white, and having smoother tonal range. The situation is reversed in the shadows, with digital having better hue/tone/smoother tone, but I guess for portraits colour negative is good. The other thing is I find colour negative film deals with subtle colour variation well - in the third photo the colour areas have subtly differentiated, but similar hues, which I find tend to look similar in digital shots.<br> Karim - will have to give Tmax 400 a go sometime. One B&W film I like is Ilford's HP4, which I think can easily be pushed to 3200. Maybe I should have gone for that. To be honest, the B&W quality was far more dependant on me giving it the right exposure - which was harder to do in the dark. I used centre-weighted with AE-L mainly, but the AE-L keeps resetting after each shot. I might look into the custom setting to keep the lock on for longer (but then risk forgetting I've set it!). With regards to the scanning - I'll leave a close up below - I had more problems with the resizing to be honest.</p> <p>So here's the grain at 100%:<br> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/s1eA5Vm.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="500" /><br> Here's what I think of as classical 'film colours'.<br> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/KLT7gIS.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="394" /><br> This is just a detail shot at 100% - seems sharp enough to me - I doubt there's much more resolution on the film. It looks like there's some noise-reduction going on - NCPS tell me there isn't, but to my eye something funny is happening! There's some CA from the lens.<br> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/v97Plpw.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="454" /><br> And this is an example of portra being good at highlights (different wedding though)<br> <img src="http://i.imgur.com/qDsTQkG.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="401" /></p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matias Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 <p>Great Job with film, Congratulations ..<br> Keep using Film</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicaglow Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 <p>I love the color, but feel the B&W could use a little better contrast control, either through printing/scanning, or through better exposure and development of the negative. But for the 3200 film, it is okay. Shoot a slower film with flash if you can. I see no reason not to shoot with film. When asked to shoot a wedding, I always say "NO!", but if it is someone I like, I will offer to do controlled, formal shots/portraits with my 120 and 4x5 cameras.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Luttmann Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Duncan, I simply rate the film with a lower iso and meter for the shadows under chin. Your colour shots look a bit dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karim Ghantous Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Dave, rating the film at lower ISO in addition to metering for shadows sounds redundant to me - am I misunderstanding? One or the other should be enough, according to what I understand about what you're trying to achieve. Duncan, it seems that NCPS is right. However, in my experience, some scanners like the Noritsu produce very brittle looking grain. It's not nice. Flatbeds - even cheap ones - are smoother but take longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_photos Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 <p>To the gentleman that stated that color darkroom prints show less grain. Yes, this is absolutely correct. Few people have any notion given all the low res grainy color neg scans seen on the Internet. No conception of what negative film was originally designed for (i.e color darkroom work). Scanning 35mm color neg is an art. You will always get more grain typically unless they are custom scans on a high end Drum or Nikon Cool scan with an operator that knows how to handle negative film.<br> Overexposing portra 160 by 1.5 to 2 stops is plain dumb. A third to 2/3rds over is adequate. Anything beyond this is nothing more than speed loss. Shooting a wedding at iso 40 is just silly. The results will not vary. I have lots experience with this emulsion. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Luttmann Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Not redundant at all. This method is used by many of the top wedding film photographers for good reason. I rate a stop or two over, and spot for the skin under the chin. This results in less gain...and also less sharpness....a perfect combo for photographing skin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasma181 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 <p>I am not a pro, but I have shot one wedding in my life. That was with 4 rolls of Portra. It was quite an experience. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanjay_chaudary Posted March 22, 2014 Share Posted March 22, 2014 <p>The photos are awesome. I love the look</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 <p>great job! Well done for not giving in to peer pressure! ;)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen t Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 <p>Nice job. Congratulations.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now