sue_deva

<p>Thanks, everyone, for your advice. I developed it at 6400 and the negs look good. The overexposed (+1/2 stop) frames looked slightly overexposed, and the rest was correct or a little under. But everything still quite usable. </p>

<p>I recently shot two 120 rolls of Ilford 3200. I rated at 3200, though I tended to overexpose by roughly half a stop. The film is about 18 months past expiry. For most of that time it was in my freezer in lead-lined bags (which I guess doesn't do a lot for cosmic background radiation, but, eh). </p>

<p>I do not currently have a home setup for B&W processing, so I'm going to send the film to a lab I trust. They will use Xtol, and the target for me is digital, so I will use Photoshop for the scanned negs. In addition to the usual 1-stop push for 1600>3200, how many stops would you add to account for the age of the film? Thanks!</p>

A friend of mine recently purchased a Polaroid 900 EE Land Camera in

working condition. However, there is no manual and we cannot figure

out what sort of film to use with the standard back that came with it.

Is such film even available? I assume it's 4x5" film loaded into paper

sheets (from the looks of the back). If the the film that was used

with this camera is no longer available, is there any way to purchase

a back that will fit on this camera and that uses a currently

available film type? Thanks.

Why don't you call one or two stock photo agencies and ask them about their prices for photos that are similar to the ones you're providing. Then charge a bit less than whatever they quote you. If you're lucky that amount will cover your shooting costs and leave a little bit left over.

Michael,

 

You're most welcome. It took me a lot of trial and error to get the best work out of the best places, so I am very happy to share my observations with others. Mazda claimed to have a good amount of experience with processing X-Pan when last I spoke to them (and they even have a separate price list for X-Pan), but I suppose if you don't need those rolls immediately you'd be better off just freezing them and then processing them yourself. There is a certain lack of delicacy in the handling of photographic materials at even the best Indian labs. If I say, "Is this a process stain on this negative?" they'll grab the negative strip in the middle with bare fingers and hold it up to the light, essentially making my question irrelevant. ("No, that seems to be a huge fingerprint.") Also, I don't think I mentioned this, but if you're shooting 35mm and you want it contacted in strips of five, ProFoto will refuse (because they use a 6x6 masking template for contacts). If you're shooting 645 or 6x6, tell them to contact on 8x10 paper (or else they may just cut everything weird and use 10x12 paper and charge you more). OK, those are the only addenda that come to mind.

 

Cheers,

SRKZ

I recently started using a friend's Super Coolscan 8000 for color and monochrome

negative scanning. So far the color negatives have been great, but the B&W scans are

TERRIBLE. The bands in the highlights are so consistent and so big that they can be seen in

the Photoshop thumbnail preview! Are there any settings that I could try turning on or off

to correct this? I have tried running test negatives with every option in place (ICE, LCH,

Curves, Unsharp Mask, etc.) and then with none of them selected and it doesn't seem to

make a difference. My previous experience with Nikon film scanners taught me that they

sometimes band in the shadows. Now it's in the brightest parts. Suggestions? I've included

a sample detail of these B&W images. The jpeg crop is about 1/3 the length of the total

negative in the horizontal dimension and 2/3 in the vertical dimension. Thanks.

Dear Michael,

 

Mazda Lab (mazdaimaging.com for the address, phone number, and price list) is the most technically advanced lab in Bombay. They are a Kodak Q-Lab member, so their E-6 quality is consistently high. My only complaints are:

 

1. There are very obvious 'tooth' marks near the edges (but within the frame) of the 4x5" E-6 sheets that I processed there and

2. They don't do a very good job with 4x5" C-41, either.

 

They are, however, excellent with all other C-41 work--and their digital C-prints are fantastic and very reasonably priced: $4.40 for a 12x18", $15 for a 20x30". (I use Mazda for this service even when I am not in India and just have the prints air-mailed to me.) The place I actually used more frequently when I was in Bombay is called ProFoto Lab, a tiny (cash only!) manual lab that provides high quality analog work. (ProFoto: 64/14 Botawala Building #1, New Prabhadevi Road, Bombay 400025, ph: +91 22 2436 3397. And--seriously--tell them that I sent you.) They work out a little more expensive than Mazda for most C-41, but there can be some advantages in using them, such as very precise, cheap contact sheets and the fact that they can run 220 C-41 film. (Most places, Mazda included, have to cut it down to 120-length, so you lose one frame from somewhere in the middle.) ProFoto also processed my C-41 and E-6 LF materials without any sorts of errors for about $3 a sheet. Beware, though, that you have to be VERY specific with them about how you want your negs cut. I mean, make a drawing or something, because some of the guys in the back don't speak English so well. Once I got back a roll that had been cut into two frames of 1, three frames of 2, four frames of 3, and three frames of 4.

 

For TriX or T-Max you'd have to go with Mazda. They do a decent job with any major B&W film. In summary:

 

C-41 35mm, C-41 120: Mazda OR ProFoto. Try both places and see which lab you prefer.

 

E-6 35mm, E-6 120: Mazda (or ProFoto; they did a good job on one roll of E-6 135 that I dropped off for a friend)

 

C-41 4x5, E-6 4x5: Profoto.

 

C-41 220: ProFoto.

 

B&W: Mazda.

 

Digital Services: Mazda.

 

Both places can be very difficult to find the first time, so be sure to get some CLEAR directions. In fact, they don't really give clear directions even if you call them, so just e-mail me if you're actually planning on using either of these places. Also, you have to call to make sure your order is ready before you pick anything up. There are delays, there are DELAYS, and then there is India.

 

Cheers.

I recently ran out of sheet film (Portra 160 VC) that I was using to shoot a

certain project, so I had a friend FedEx me some more. The brilliant customs

service decided to unseal the sealed box and then to open the sealed bag in

which the film was contained, thus ruining it. Apparently some people can

read and speak English while not enjoying the benefits of higher-brain

function.

 

There is no way I am going to put another $80 box of sheet film at the mercy of

our famously incompetent government lackeys. If any of you know anybody

who is coming to India within the next week, please let me know. I would like

to ship a new box of film to such a person, whom I would then owe my

firstborn. I could collect in Bombay or have somebody else collect it in Delhi.

 

Thanks,

Rafil

I like the circuit board idea. Any idea what kind of retailer/wholesaler stocks it?

Maybe a place that repairs commercial electronics?

Hello, all. I am in India right now and I need to install a Schneider 90/8 Super-

Angulon with a Synchro-Compur shutter in a 4x4" lensboard for a Calumet

4x5. The problem is this: I don't have a lensboard and none of the major photo

dealers in Bombay provide/make/have anything to do with them. So I need to

make one myself; I can't afford to wait for one to arrive. I have looked at

related threads on this forum and have determined that I may choose from a

variety of materials: black Lexan, aluminum, high-grade plywood--all these

seem to be plausible. I'll need to give it to a machinist or carpentry shop,

though, 'cause I don't have any tools of my own. So here are my questions:

 

Are there any materials that are more idiot-proof than others as far as cutting/

sanding are concerned?

 

Also, could one of you kindly provide the correct hole diameter for the lens/

shutter arrangement described above? I'll get a hole drilled that is 1 mm or so

smaller in diameter than the required dimension and sand it out myself

(excepting aluminum?); I'll also sand the outer edges of the board until they fit

tightly.

 

Now here is another, slightly more involved problem: I am using an old

Calumet monorail (the kind with a thin rail). It's pretty clunky and I am worried

that I will have a hard time getting much play from the movements if it is

focussed at infinity; I have read in earlier threads in this forum that there may

be problems with this particular camera/lens combination if I don't use a

recessed board. I need some pretty generous movements. So how terribly

diffcult would it be to make a recessed lensboard? I imagine I would make

some sort of 'frame' 2cm thick with outer dimensions of 4x4" and then use

other strips of the same material, perhaps 3/4" wide and oriented

perpendicular to the plane of the "frame" board, to dip into the inside of the

bellows and form a sort of box. Then I would attach to that the actual board

with the hole in the middle, which would sit inside the bellows. Would this

work? I imagine I could make the recession as deep as the distance between

the plane of the board that actually holds the lens and the front element of the

lens.

 

Thanks in advance for the help. And please keep in mind that materials and

professional machining/carpentry are very cheap here, so I would not be

averse to trying out more than one suggestion. That is, assuming I can FIND

the correct materials and somebody to cut them.

 

Thanks,

Rafil

Photo Magic 'went pro' about two years ago and it's more or less smack in the

middle of things (12th and Lamar). They do good, quick processing for 135

negatives. I've had good experiences with mounted slides and slide dupes

from Holland.

Create a some rough brush patterns to taste. You could even tear various

objects and scan in the edges. You could make some of these brushes

ragged on both sides and others ragged on one side (for the edge that will

touch the main part of the image). Just experiement and give yourself some

options and you should be able to find something that works well. When you

have a variety of rough-edge brushes to test, mask the main part of the image

so that it gets excluded from your brushing. (I assume you'd want the inner

edges of the borders to be more or less sharp and straight.) Then use your

brushes with black as the foreground color to create those edges. If you want

to test the waters before you go making your own brush patterns, try out

Spatter 14 and Oil Pastel Large 63 (maybe even Airbrush Dual Soft 45) on a

blank mid-size PSD file to see if they would give you something like the edges

you want. "Stipple" and "Charcoal" brushes of all sizes (in Natural Brushes

#1) might also be helpful. Layering a few brushes and creating irregularities,

you should be able to build something like a Polaroid mask.

p.s. It's type IV chemistry that I have, not type II (for which I do at least have SOME instructions).

Hi. I have been shooting Gigabit 25 at its rated speed and now I have

enough to sheets exposed to justify developing them. I don't have the

datasheet with me and the Gigabit "computer" isn't particularly

helpful because it recommends a range of options; with the 35mm

(slightly faster) version, it took me a few trials before I found that

high temperature and short time worked well for my purposes, so I

thought I'd see if anybody here has worked out a good formula for

developing the 4x5 size. I searched photo.net, digitaltruth, and other

Web sites but have been unable to find this information.

 

If anyone has simple advice about time, temperature, and dilution, I

would be very grateful for it. This will be tray developed. Oh, also,

the bottle of developer (but not the film--ha ha!) expired about six

months ago; should this make a terribly big difference? I am

unfamiliar with the intricacies of this chemistry.

I didn't quite understand whether or not it's a requirement that these images be produced via traditional silver process methods.

 

A friend of mine had a large collection of glass plate negatives (and some slides) that were shot by her grandparents. She made a number of beautiful prints simply by scanning the plates on a flatbed with a transparency adapter and then making (non-archival) inkjet prints. These could have just as easily been given to a lab that makes good digital prints.

 

If money and manpower were no object, I would probably print these using regular B&W processing. However, as there are no photographers involved in this project right now, it might be easier for everyone if some intern were assigned to scan the plates (up to 4x5 size) on a decent consumer scanner (an Epson Perfection 2450, for example), burn the files to CD, and give them to a lab. If the intern is familiar with Photoshop, hey, even better. The museum could even advertise for a high school or college student with a reasonable amount of experience in the relevant areas. The finished digital images could be sent to a good pro lab (Duggal in NYC, to name one of the most expensive/best) for printing.

 

The digital route just sounds less complicated than finding someone to do the whole thing via silver process, but of course silver prints and glass plate negatives were actually contemporaneous technologies, whereas LightJet prints and glass plate negatives certainly are not.

 

A final, left-field suggestion. Several very good, very old black-and-white labs in India still have all of their old negatives (including glass plates) and all of their old equipment. Their printers are extremely skilled and the prints are very, very cheap. (An 8x10 B&W enlargement on RC paper costs about $1; fiber is a little more costly.) Mahatta in Delhi (91-11-2341-4139) and GK Vale in Bangalore (91-80-558-9429) are two examples of such places. The museum might want to get in touch with one of these labs, describe what they have and what they need, and get a price quote. Perhaps they could send five or ten plates via registered mail and get a small sample of work done. This final option would be �true� to the medium and would also be inexpensive.

Are you absolutely sure about the NPZ? Because I just talked to a guy who until one month ago was a Fuji marketing representative in India and who assured me that NPZ was available HERE (in 120) for a decent price, so it seems odd that it wouldn't be available in a much more sophisticated market like Dubai. Maybe it's just too sunny there to require any 800-speed film! Ahahahahaha. Heh. Hoo...

Hi. Long story short, I'm in India right now and running low(ish) on

film. I am shooting mostly Kodak 400 UC (220), Fuji NPL 160 (120),

and Fuji NPZ 800 (220). Neither 400 UC nor NPL 160 are available in

India; I think that NPZ 800 is, but only in 120 size. Anyway, someone

I know is going to Dubai soon and who might be able to look around

for film. Can anyone recommend some good shops where these sorts of

products might be available?

Thanks.

Mazda Lab in Bombay is usually happy to handle special import orders. Also,

if you read the fine print of India's Customs and Excise Regulations (available

online, albeit in a totally incomprehensible format), you will find that importing

"sensitized finished photographic materials" is NOT forbidden to individuals.

Yes, there is a 30% duty or something like that, but it's not impossible. And

there is an exception (0% duty) for foreigners. So if you have any friends who

are foreign diplomats, you might be able to get the order done without the

shop mark-up.

Yeah, I am going to do some bracket tests. My experience with underexposed negs scanning much better than expected has also been serendipitous, and scanning is what they are destined for. Thanks!

Thanks for the replies. I actually wasn't having any problems metering, nor did I wish to get into a discussion of how or why or if either standard works (though the discussion was interesting). I just thought it odd that Sekonic made something so... gratuitously expensive that didn't correspond in some way to the meter's (nominal) calibration. I usually bracket with 4x5 exposures, so it was more of an academic question.

This is pretty weird. I've read several threads discussing the fact

that Sekonic meters are calibrated to 13% gray rather than 18% gray,

for a number of reasons--principally because 13% is more 'realistic'

than 18%. (I'm not going into the nuances of what that means because,

well, that's not what this post is about.) Well, Sekonic provides its

own gray card as an optional accessory to its light meters. This is

an 18% gray card (!!!) and costs $39-$42 (!!!). Does this strike

anyone else as odd? Spending forty bucks to get a card that isn't

appropriate for the meter calibration? Why is this so?

 

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?

O=details_accessories&A=details&Q=&sku=159057&is=REG

Hi. I didn't understand what you were asking the first time. I checked my 645 contact sheets and I also have the "jagged" frame edges.

Richard,

 

I usually wouldn�t want to give up two stops. However, this was a controlled lighting situation (with a good amount of light, at that), so I managed to squeak by with a 1/30th and a decent aperture; even then, yes, Efke was a little impractical. Under most conditions, I would use Delta 100. It�s either that or etherizing your subject in order to get him/her to be still enough at 1�, or shooting landscapes if you�re not into etherizing people. The principal benefit of Efke 25 seemed to be a tremendous exposure latitude. Even some fairly deep blacks retained shadow detail, whereas highlights on the subject�s cheek (about five or eight feet from a 500-watt spot) showed good tone and detail. A few days earlier I had shot a similar set-up with Delta 100 and I noticed that the Delta negatives were slightly flatter (which is unusual). At least for THAT particular situation. Who knows why. I was rating both films at their nominal speed and using accurate metering with consistent readings. The Efke�s super-fine grain was nice, too, but I rarely have grain problems printing Delta 100 almost-full-frame on 8x10 paper. (In that sense, it�s more of a �Wow!� thing that you can only appreciate close up rather than something that makes a difference from any realistic viewing distance.) I would scan some of the negatives or prints and put them up, but I am in India right now (and until next August) so I can�t� if you�re really curious I can do it when I have access to a scanner. (FYI� I have 10 rolls of Delta 100-120 in my bag. No Efke.) However, the Efke was developed in D-76 and the Delta 100 was developed in Rodinal, and neither one for the exact recommended time, so it�s not a completely fair evaluation. When it comes down to it, there are too many variables for me to say conclusively what was good about the Efke VERSUS Delta, though the negs and the prints were nice and contrasty without losing highlights or shadow detail. So we�ll just chalk it up to �look and feel.� But a nice look and feel. Also, and I don�t know how to describe this exactly, but there is something �soft� (and pleasing) about the look of the prints from the Efke negatives.

Steven,

 

I know that there is "manual override" in the sense that you can set the scanner to FULL manual mode. Give me some credit. My point was that there should be a 'manual override' that functions with the thumbnail previews. That is, there should be a way to FORCE the scanner to thumbnail the 35mm frames according to their predicted locations in the film holder, and not according to what it thinks it 'sees.' In other words, a little more manual control with the auto-scanning function.

I have been using Fuji NPL (4x5) to shoot long exposures at night

(people sometimes, flourescent and/or incandescent sometimes,

moonlight other times). I have found that it performs quite well,

even under hideously mixed lighting. However, most of the other work

I am doing right now is with Portra 160VC (4x5) and Portra 400UC

(220). I am quite happy with these films for daylight and night

exposures under 1/2 second. I have never tried using 100T, so I was

wondering whether it was worth checking out out for the applications

I am currently covering with NPL. Have any among you used NPL and

100T in similar situations? If so, what has your experience been?