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

Another vote for the creamy and ironically "silvery" Ilford XP2.

Really no grain, per se, just those lovely C41 dye clouds.

Seems to work with black and white filters just like a normal B&W film

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>

<p>I have hundreds, probably thousands of slides from the days when I shot such things. And I wouldn't even think of scanning all of them. If something has sat unviewed for years in a filing cabinet, why would I spend a great deal of my valuable time digitising them so they can then sit unviewed on three hard drives (including backups)? My approach has been to scan the ones I would want to print, and then make prints from the scans. As there is a relatively small number of slides involved, I am happy to send them off to get them scanned commercially. I know that doesn't begin to answer your question, for which I apologise, but it's another approach. :)</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>I've upgraded the EM5 firmware once but it didn't have any effect. I can't remember what version I'm on. I haven't upgraded the lens firmware at all. I'll check and see if there are any more upgrades.</p>

<p>Many thanks, Bruce</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>One potential problem with the E-M5/Panasonic 20mm combination is that a number of people have found that using this lens on the this camera results in the camera being unable to wake up from sleep mode. I have this problem and it means that the lens is unusable on that particular camera. Obviously this is not a universal problem as a number of people in this thread love the combination. For me the combination would be ideal if it worked. But, for me it doesn't.</p>

<p>It's difficult to see how you would test this without comitting to a purchase, and I don't know the odds of having an incompatible combination.</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>" I find it fascinating that with analog film and audio, there is literally no limit to the resolution of the recording"</p>

<p>Strictly speaking, 'analogue' film is actually just as digital as digital shooting. Each grain of silver in an exposed film is either exposed (1) or not exposed (0). So you end up with a series of 1s and 0s in both media.</p>

<p>Just a thought :)</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>My experiences of D3200, which don't directly answer your question, but may add to the total of human knowledge on the film :</p>

<p>I personally rate D3200 at 400 or 800, which is then developed commercially, so I don't know the developer used. Rating it at 3200 I never got anything other than the thin mess that you are referring to. So a rating of 3200 is a fairly large push for it. I use D3200 as a grainy film rather than a fast film. I am going to try XP2 at 1600 and 3200 to see how it comes out. Everyone says it doesn't work, but one chap on the web does it anyway and gets good results.</p>

<p>BTW, I have not used Rodinal myself, but it does have a reputation for highlighting grain in films, so would not be the first choice if you want low grain results.</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>As someone who gew up with TRJ's work, it's interesting that he isn't known amongst a wider photography audience. His book "A Day Off" has been residing on my shelves since it was published in 1974. Maybe he's only really known by people of a certain age in the UK.</p>

<p>Sadly, TRJ died tragically young.</p>

<p>Regards</p>

<p>alan</p>

<p>The actual answer to the question is "it depends". If you want to focus at infinity then the answer is no. If you focus close enough to the subject then the answer is yes. As you move the lens away from the film (which is what you do when you focus close) then you increase the area of coverage of the lens. I remember an old Kodak book on photomicrography which used reversed 16mm cine lenses on large format cameras to take photomicrographs.</p>

<p>But for more general usage, the answer is no.</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>This is a UK based company, but you may find it useful. I tend to buy my old cameras from here. They have accurate descriptions and I find them good value. This page shows a number of cameras at around your price, but you obviously need to factor in postage and taxes etc to the US.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.marriottworld.com/stock/rollstock.htm">http://www.marriottworld.com/stock/rollstock.htm</a></p>

<p>Hope this helps</p>

<p>Alan</p>

<p>I don't, mainly because I only see pictures when I am specifically looking for them. So I only take pictures on specific photo trips.</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Alan</p>