gareth_harper

XP2 can be a great film for portraits. The lab cannot negate the effect of the filter when processing the film. If you intend to print this film in the darkroom make sure you find a good lab. Many if not most highstreet labs will scratch your film to some extent. If you are using a condensor enlarger this can be a nightmare.

Red and orange will certainly reduce skin blemishes but will also remove lips etc.. Yellow is what I like to use.

Hello Guy,

I used to get my tri-x from 7dayshop.com but they no longer stock it. I now buy it from mx2.co.uk ,it's 2.09 quid a roll or 18.90 quid for a ten pack.

You don't say if you are already experianced with other aspects of B&W work.

If not, I would suggest picking one film and developer to start with and once you are getting consitant results and feel confident with it then maybe try something else.

 

I suggest picking a 400asa film to start with as these are usually more forgiving, but if it's 100asa you want to shoot then don't worry about it go with the 100asa.

 

Apx100 in rodinal is a classic and should be straight forward.

FP4 in Ilfosol S or DDX is another good starting point.

 

HP5 in DD-X, or tri-x in rodinal or DD-X.

 

Oh rodinal will give you super sharp contrasty but grainy negs.

DD-X will give you superb tonallity with fine grain.

Ilfosol S is sharper but not as tonal as DD-X

 

At least that's how I see them. Oh you can use Ilfosol S with 400asa films, but you will loose some speed, you will get very sharp images with quite fine grain but you won't get the tonallity of DD-X.

Demonstrations are absolutely brilliant for people photography. There are endless opportunities, and there really is no excuse for turning out dull pictures.

I also feel that people are becoming more aware of the power of demonstration. The current estimation for numbers at the 'Make Poverty History' march in Edinburgh in the run up to the G8 is 200,000. Those are big numbers in a little city.

If you want to get really good pictures, get plugged into the networks. They won't be impressed by this little statement however,

 

"As a note, I'd like to add that I would be going purely to take pictures, and have no political affiliations whatsoever. "

 

It's the G8 for crying out loud. Best do some thinking, why do you want to take political pictures when you have no interest in politics?

 

As for trouble, well over 100,000 marched through Glasgow against the war in Iraq. Many 10,000's more couldn't get to Glasgow as the transport systems couldn't cope. As far as I am aware there were no arrests, there was certainly was no riot.

If the popular media talk of peaceful protest there will be no trouble. If the media talk of riots and water cannons, then every football casual and general nutter will be heading up for the G8.

 

Things you don't want to miss,

The march in Edinburgh,

The blockade at Faslane,

The demo at Dungavel Prison for Refugees.

 

See you there,

 

www.photoecosse.net

In short the answer is no, and definately no if you are within 5 degrees C of your dev temp.

 

I guess I over wash. I do a brief Ilford method. Empty the tank, put some water in, then 2 inversions, empty, another 2 inversions, then continue but with 4 inversions, then 8 inversions.

 

Then I wash in running water for 20 mins. If the temperature is down under 10 degrees, I'll let the film soak for a couple of minutes in say water at 12 degrees. The water temp at times can slip down to and under 5 degrees round here. I finnish off with two or three rinses in distilled water.

Oh I process at 20 degrees C.

Never had any problems. I have heard of film cracking if you go from warm to very cold but it's pretty rare.

It's the same lens wherever you buy it.

Remember that if you import from outside the UK you may have to pay import duty, VAT and the post office handling charge.

But remember you will have, as far as I am aware, no warranty.

Beware of sales staff in other countries talking about "international warranties". For example US sales persons will talk of an international warranty. It is indeed, but what they won't be too quick to tell you is, the standard US warranty is a USA/Canada warranty. Two countries hence international.

 

7dayshop is another option. They sell parallel imports, usually from the US. You should be protected by UK consumer law, they do offer a warranty but you will have to contact them in the event of a claim.

 

Considering current UK hight street prices, for many items but not all, I'll buy abroad or from the channel islands. The savings are quite substantial.

SL Attanapola,

 

I use quite a bit of film. I buy most of it from 7dayshop, and some from mx2 as they have tri-x and Tmax which 7dayshop don't carry.

Prices are per roll and a fraction of UK high street prices.

7dayshop is also good for inkjet paper, ink, batteries etc etc.

Dates are usually fine. Of the 100's of rolls I've bought from them only a small percentage were a little tight on date.

Just allow for up to 2 or 3 weeks delivery at times, but at these prices you can't grumble.

Never mind who makes it, it's not as good as the main brand films.

Nor is it cheaper. Go to www.7dayshop.com You get neg film like Fuji superior 135/36 for 99p a roll, or Fuji NPH for example for just over 2 pounds a roll. Excellant value.

Ah I take it 100% crop means cropped. 100% means the whole thing to me.

If you want a lens for indoor low light use get a prime. Bar a few speacialist lenses all lenses get soft wide open, and zooms tend to be softer than primes wide open, not to mention that they are usually a good bit slower anyway.

You already have a 50mm f1.8 which is a good sharp lens, add a 28mmf2.8 or f1.8 or a 35mmf2, use your legs for the inbetween bits.

Also I take it whether you are using scanned film or digital that you are suitably sharpening the image. All digital images need sharpened.

That looks like camera shake.

Also always avoid shooting wide open, particulary with zoom lenses, it's a last resort.

Use flash, or invest in a mono-pod.

Meanwhile looking at your picture I wonder if you are serious, or just taking the piss. It looks like one of those accidental shutter release shots. Why else take such a shot?

"Speed in these areas is immaterial - the output quality is the only thing that matters and that favours digital in most cases."

 

I totally disagree. There is simply no way a digital SLR can touch medium format film in terms of overall quality. Resolution, sharpness, lattitude, grain/noise, medium format still has the DSLR licked in all areas.

The time difference is as you have pointed out massive. With digital, take the picture, load it into your PC/mac, tweek it and e-mail it to the client. Time is money.

Just as newspapers decided they could live with 1Mpixel long ago, today many in the magazine, features, fashion buisiness have decided that 6-12 mpixel will do them.

Don't expect to see many fine prints down the local photographic art gallery taken on DSLR's though.

"Why do you guys think so many medium format cameras are being sold at 1/2 of the prices they used to demand? That's because an APS-size high-end digital does what they do, and in most ways better."

 

There is no way that APS sized digital sensors can touch medium format. The reason is speed and cost, pure and simple.

I have both this lens and the 24mmL.

I found it to be disappointingly soft, particularly when doing large B&W prints (in the darkroom). I have noticed a certain amount of distortion towards the edges but it's the lack of biting sharpness that disappointed me. So much so that I shelled out for the 24L.

It distorts less and is a good wee bit sharper but not as sharp as I had hoped for.

Many people have commented that the 17-40L is sharper (I've not tried one myself) but considering you intend to do landscape work with it the 24f2.8 might still be the better option.

I suggest buying one in mint condition secondhand, that way if you are disappointed you shouldn't lose too much money on it. Or consider the Sigma 24 f1.8, it's very affordable.

Just a few wee things,

Cost. By far the cheapest film to use is negative. I shoot mainly negative, either B&W which I print myself the old way or colour which I scan. I can buy a roll of Superia for 99 pence here in the UK. I get it processed for 2.99 a roll. I don't get prints. I look at the negs on a light box and select what I want to scan.

Well exposed slide film like Provia is very easy to scan. But if the exposure is a little out it gets troublesome. To ensure good exposure I often need to bracket slide film. Provia costs me 3 pounds a roll with processing 3.99 a roll. And once you have factored in bracketing it's expensive. There is no need to bracket neg film, it is very flexible. I always slightly over-expose colour neg film. I rate 200asa as 160asa, 400asa as 320asa. Colour neg film will happily take a 1 stop over-exposure, it however does not like to be one stop under.

I don't understand why folks have trouble scanning neg film, particulary with good qulaity film scanners like the minoltas and Nikons. I use mainly superior and sometimes NPC and NPH.

Always scan at your scanners max resolution and at 12 or 16 bit. Do not sharpen. Leave sharpening as your last task before re-sizing or printing.

Bear in mind that films often have a colour cast. Fuji slide films I find have a blue colour cast. Fuji print films have a red colour cast.

I have no problem getting practically grain free 10x8 inch prints from superia 400 or NPH neg film.

The result you can achieve with a good scanner and inkjet combo should blow any mini-lab prints right out of the water.

 

Oh XP2 is a great film I use it quite often. However if you only intend to scan it there is little or no point. Just use colour neg and de-saturate, you get the same result. The reason I like XP2 is because it saves me processing when I'm in a hurry, it has more lattitude than any traditional B&W film and it prints beautifully on RC or fibre B&W paper.

Jedidiah,

I think it's probably got more to do with technique than the film you are using. When I scan I set up the scanner rougthly, what I'm interested in is that I'm catching all the colours and available light range and no more. Often what is then loaded into photoshop looks like mush. The first thing I do is go into levels and play with the red/green/blue channels to get the colour balance I want. Then I set the contrast in the RGB combined channel. After that it's of to hue/saturation which gives you 6 colour channels to set hue saturation and brightness of each. Then I do any touch up that is required (healing tool/ dust scratches etc) followed by any doging and burning that might lift the photo. Finally it into the unsharp mask to sharpen the image.

I go through that routine for every picture I scan. Also if that's over the top of your head there should be plenty of step by step scanning guides out there on the net.

 

Films that I've found scan well? Fuji Superior though the pro portriat films scan even sweeter. Fuji sensia scans well but the pro film Provia just blows me away. C41 B&W films scan well but traditional B&W films can be very troublesome to scan.

 

Good film does help but I suspect that more than anything it is work on your technique that will really push your scans forward.

Hello PE,

Afraid I only use 35mm film so I haven't taken into consideration medium format film. Though it is clear that if you want to scan medium format, flatbeds are the way to go, unless you have very deep pockets.

If I was going for a fatbed myself I'd buy the Epson. The Epson 4180 I got for scanning pints is very impressive, it works straight out of the box and the Epson software seems pretty good to me.

Also the latest top end Epson scanners have ICE which is simply brilliant. I don't know what the Canon dust and scratch software is like. Also the new Epson has a claimed D-Max of 4.0 which is getting right up there with film scanners and should take care of any contrasty positive film you have. Agaian I don't know what Canon claim for D-max.

I don't know if the new faltbeds will be as sharp as the film scanners, certainly my budget 4180 is very soft when scanning film compared to my Coolscan but I guess that won't be such a big problem when you are scanning bigger film sizes.

The Z650 is certainly a classic. Sorry to hear about your spill, hope the leg is OK. My Fazer's got one piece 4 pot calipers on the front, really sharp brakes, all too easy to lock up in the wet though. What really amazes me after the power (143bhp is just nuts) and the amazing brakes are modern tyres. I had the first generation radials on my CBR600 but the stuff today is just amazing, different class. Afraid mines more captain sensible than streetfighter. It is fitted with the usual race can so it doesn't sound like a sewing machine but also sports a full set of hard luggage. But after all if a bike can't carry a full set of camera gear including tri-pod and light box etc.. what use is it?

 

Sure I'd love the Elite 5400 but I just haven't got the cash, nor am I convinced that any film scanner is reliable. My Elite 2 lasted only 3 weeks which doesn't exactly make me want to splash out on the Minolta. I'd switch to digital capture for my colour work but that's an even bigger investment and I still need some sort of good scanner in the long run.

 

Anyway thanks for all the comments folks, I guess I'm gonna have to have a wee think and just make a decision. I think basically it's repair the Coolscan or buy the Epson.

45 cars Mark! Flippin heck. I passed my car test in 1986 and my bike test in 87. The Renault was basically borrowed from my Mum but it was kinda becoming mine, it began to make realise how attractive walking can be. Anyway after that I got a 1980 old Opel Record 2.0L, much better but it didn't last long, it was pretty done when I got it anyway. Then I got a 1983 Cavalier SRi, it was a bit unreliable but then I was still driving like a nutter, kept it for 7 years though. For the last 9 I've a 1992 Cavalier SRi, it's a bit rougth now but it's never missed a beat (touch wood), if it blows up tomorrow I can't complain.

As for bikes, learned on a 1974 Honda C90 (complete with front number plate), a good few years later I got a 1990 Susuki GS500E, followed by a 1993 Honda CBR600F, a 1999 Yamaha Fazer 600 and I've now got a 2004 Yamaha Fazer 1000 which I just love to bits.

 

I am tempted by the Epson. There's also the advantage of being able to stick 24 frames down on it, that's just brilliant. I just worry it won't be as sharp or sweet as the old Nikon. I'll try phoning Nikon and see if they can cut the cost down a bit but I's guess it's probably be it or leave it. Also I belive AP are publishing a test on the new Epson any week now. It'll be interesting to see what their conclusions are.

The film scanners I've had so far are a Microtech Primefilm 1800, lasted 18mnths before it when phut, it was still under the 24mnth warranty but I felt it was time to move on to better things.

The next scanner was a Minolta Elite 2 scanner, it died and would not respond after only 3 weeks. I returned it to the shop and swaped it for a the Nikon Coolscan 4. It's lasted about 30mtnhs I think before suffering auto-focus failure and hardware faults. The main FPC board requires replacement.

 

The Epson 4870 does sound impressive and I wonder if the new version may equal what dedicated film scanners can acheive, particulary older models like the coolscan 4.

 

Morris Marinas reliable? You must have been lucky with yours Mark. I learned to drive in a 1975 Renault 6. It was an utterly hopeless car and a rust bucket at that. On the other hand it was utterly reliable and unburstable. I began to detest it and tried to destroy it by reving it out in each gear, driving on farm tracks at speed etc.. It took what was dished out to it for months on end until it eventually ground to a halt with a broken drive shaft, not exactly terminal.

 

 

I'm afraid simply forking out on a new film scanner ain't an option, unless it's the budget Minolta Dual Scan 5. I've had very few problems with photogrpahic and computer equipment in general with the exception of film scanners.

 

I figure the choice is get the coolscan 4 repaired and hope for the best. Or sell my Epson 4180 and effectively bag the Epson 4990 for the same price as a repair.

Hello folks,

I've got a wee bit of a dilemma and would be grateful for the

opinions of anybody who has used similar equipment.

 

Basically my Nikon Coolscan 4 (LS40ED) has packed in. I've sent it

to Nikon UK and they have given me an estimate of 220 pounds to

repair. That's a lot of cash to repair a two year old scanner.

At the moment I'm getting by using the Epson 4180 that I got recently

to scan my B&W prints. I'm quite impressed with it's film scanning

capabilities, however scans are not quite as sweet as those from the

Coolscan, particularly concerning noise and dust issues.

 

As the coolscan is my third film scanner (the previous two died) I'm

not impressed with the reliability of film scanners in general and

wary of authorising the repair.

 

I notice that the Epson 4990 flat bed is available for only a few

pounds more than the cost of my repair. With a 4.0Dmax and ICE will

it deliver a scan with colour neg and slide as sweet as my Coolscan?

Or for the same money as the Epson there is also the Minolta Scan

Dual 5. What to do?

 

Finally is it just me or do film scanners in general have roughly the

same reliability level as British Leyland Morris Marina form the 70's?

 

Any info, suggestions, help very much appreciated.

It pushes fine, I often push process it to 800asa.

Above that I usually switch to Delta 3200.

Not at all, thanks for that Roger. Everyday I learn something new.

You'll need to give us a bit more detail. I take you have now checked the batteries and cleaned all the contacts.

Also you say you have just bought, do you have any warranty with it?

 

It seems that EOS30's and 33's sometimes suffer premature shutter failure. One I had went something like this. Press shutter, shutter opens but only patially closes leaving the mirror up, LCD goes blank bar a blinking battery indicator. Switch off and back on and the shutter resets. With mine it only occured with shutter speeds of 1/60th and less. I had the shutter replaced. Having said that it may not be worth replacing shutters on these cameras as secondhand camera prices continue to slide.

I here what Lex says, but I do have a soft spot for Ilfosol S.

It is extremely sharp when used with a film like Tmax400. If you are after sharpness while still maintaining fine grain it's worth a look.

Tmax400 in DD-X for example is finer grained and more tonal in look, but not as sharp.

I'd stick to the Ilford guidelines on storage.