gwebster

Here's a negative in which I see the blotchy marks that I mentioned in my post

above. They don't look like the kind of drying marks that one of the posters

showed in his negs so I'm wondering if they are caused by dust on the film or

bubbles in the tank. If you look on the front of the building in the upper left,

you can see a cluster of them against the dark background.

I pre-wet the film and I agitate the tank carefully every minute or so during

developing, as well as tapping it on the counter to remove air bubbles that

might be clinging to the emulsion. I also use LFN wetting agent in the final wash.

What do you think?

Best

Gordon<div></div>

Thanks to all of you who gave me such invaluable advice on setting a

"no-darkroom" hybrid film-to-digital workflow at home, I really appreciate it.

Thanks to you, I am now set up to do all my own B&W developing/scanning.

I purchased a used Leica M6 TTL with the Summilix 50/1.4 lens, along with a

Nikon Coolscan V and all of the chemicals and paraphernalia for developing B&W

film. I also purchased Ed Hamrick's excellent VueScan software and having spent

the last two or three days playing with it, I think it is an essential add-on

for the scanner, offering far more control of the scan process and ultimately

better results than the Nikon software that ships with the scanner.

Having practiced loading the Patterson reel in the light bag many times over, I

finally plucked up the courage to develop the first roll of film that I exposed

with my M6 and I'm hapy to report that it actually worked (I will try and upload

an image or two from my first roll).

Its been a while since I developed film and that showed itself in a few of my

negs that exhibited what I presume are water marks (blotchy white dots clustered

in certain areas of the frame that are clearly not part of the image) and the

odd fingerprint. Still, I am very happy that I can make this all work in

principle and now the learning and practice begins to optimise both the process

and my skills to achive the kind of results I eventually aspire to.

If any of you have any useful tips or tricks that you use when handling the film

during loading, developing or when drying it, as well as any other pointers you

might wish to share about optimising the quality of the negs in general, I would

love to hear them.

For example, do people normally wear e.g. latex gloves when loading film, to

limit sticky paw prints or should I just learn to keep my paws off the emulsion

while loading? I used LFN wetting agent in the final wash and I squeegeed off

the excess water between two fingers before hanging it to dry, but are there

better ways to dry the film that limit the water spots (if that's what they

are)? I also pre-wet the film before developing and I'm using regular tap water

at 20C to mix my chemistry (one fo the darkroom gurus at the photo store told me

that distilled water isn't necessary).

Best

Gordon<div></div>

Dan - You're a true gent and it's very gracious of you to post this response. I apologise if might have come across as a tad over-sensitive.

Best Regards

Gordon

>Gordon Webster: It wasn't my intention to direct my comments to you or >anyone else in particular; I was merely expressing my impatience with >those who seem to be ready to rush to judgement. If I offended you I am >sorry and apologise for not being more discerning in my plaint. >Regards, Dan

Do any of you have any tips or tricks for getting your chemicals to 20C for

processing. I don't have a darkroom or any kind of sophisticated gear since I

want to have the film development be the only chemical part of the process,

before transitioning to a digital-workflow thereafter, using a film scanner.

Is a basin of water and a thermometer the commonly used option or have people

found better ways to do it?

Have any of you explored options for storing chemicals and stock solutions at

20C e..g using one of those thermostatically controlled cabinets that

wine-lovers use or are there other options specifically for photographic

processing. I did a lot of darkroom work in my youth but all that kind of gear

was industrial scale and not really made to be used at home.

Best

Gordon

I will mostly be shooting B&W but some color too ...

Is there a substantive difference in quality between the Nikon V scanner and the

more expensive 5000 or is it just that the 5000 is designed for more

"industrial" usage and greater throughput? I am an avid amateur, not a pro, and

I don't anticipate processing rolls and rolls of film every week - I guess I

would like to know whether I will sacrifice any image quality scanning my negs

with a V, or whether I might need to consider springing for a more expensive

model. I have a Leica M6 that I just purchased used and I do care a lot about

image quality but not so much about high throughput. Having stumped up a

sizeable wad of my hard-earned cash for the M6 and the lens, I certainly don't

want to "spoil the ship for tuppence worth of tar" by buying a scanner that

won't do justice to my (hopefully) wonderful Leica negs.

Are there any serious alternatives to the Nikon range of scanners? I only ask

because nearly everybody here seems to be using them.

I would greatly appreciate any advice/lessons-learned-from-experience with

regard to choosing and using a film scanner that would suit my needs as

described above.

Best

Gordon

Dan - maybe I was not as clear as I could be, but I wasn't making any "dire predictions". Rather, I was trying to convey the dilemma that Leica faces in melding new technologies that rapidly become obsolete, with their more traditional optical and mechanical engineering approach to creating timeless precision instruments. I don't pretend to be a know-it-all and I feel that your response comes across as rather rude even if that was perhaps not your intention. Reading my post again, I don't think I trampled on anyone else's opinions or ideas so I cannot imagine why it should have made you so cross with me - it was certainly not my intention.

Gordon

Wai-Leong, I am assuming that there will be many parallel advances in digital image capture of which resolution may be the least important going forward since (as you are effectively saying) it already rivals or exceeds that of film in some cases. There will hopefully be improvements in the dynamic range of sensors and their ability to record color - the time it takes to "harvest" the stored image from the chip and write it to storage media will almost certainly improve, making it possible to capture images more rapidly or to do fancy things like oversampling to reduce noise. I am sure that with digital image capture, we're really only just beginning and the best is yet to come.

Gordon

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the dyed-in-the-wool Leica afficianados,

it seems to me that even setting aside all of its much-discussed teething

troubles for a moment, the configuration of the new Leica M8 makes it much less

of a "timeless" instrument of the classical Leica ilk, than its forerunners in

the legendary 'M' series.

First off, let me say that my feeling is not driven by any kind of "purist"

notions of film vs. digital or any kind of nostalgia for collecting photons on

silver halides rather than photosensitive semiconductors. I adore technology and

all the great new possibilities that it creates, and let's face it, such an

argument goes nowhere because film was also once a "new-fangled" technology when

it first appeared. After the semiconductor revolution, the progression from film

to digital was always an inevitable step in the evolution of photography.

No, my feeling is driven more by the fact that the Leica M8 is already somewhat

behind the state-of-the-art when it comes to digital capture and will appear

ever more so as digital image capture technology advances - obviously I'm

talking about the chip here and not the marvellous Leica optics. The 10MP sensor

might arguably have about as much resolution as you could want to compete with

film (maybe not, but let's assume for now that it does and that the image

content is at least comparable with film). The Kodak chip however is not a full

frame sensor and its reduced size means that some considerable fraction of each

of your luminous Leica images, the result of decades of dedication to the art of

optics, is essentially being wasted. This is also true for rectangular 35mm film

but not to the same extent. With the M8 we are seriously losing some of the

dramatic "wide" that we have come to love in our $3000 Leica wide-angle lenses

as well as paying the price of noisier images as a result of smaller pixels

packed densely onto a smaller sensor. All else being equal, the laws of physics

make the larger Canon 5D sensor a superior instrument for recording images and

because its geometry mirrors the historical dimensions of 35mm film, it can

optimally exploit the vast legacy of lenses that have evolved to support 35mm

photography. But even if the M8 had been shipped with the 5D chip, it would not

have solved the fundamental problem of having built-in obsolescence at the core

of this otherwise timeless instrument.

None of this would really matter if it weren't for the fact that sensor chip is

an integral part of this camera in a way that film never was in film cameras.

Since the 19th century, there have been incredible advances in film sensitivity

and fidelity, yet you could still take a Leica 35mm body of any vintage, pop in

a roll of the latest and greatest film and let those marvellous Leica optics

work their magic for you. Leica film cameras have a timeless quality about them

by dint of a mechanical and optical precision that serves the photographic

process as well in the present century as it did in the previous one.

I would contend that if Leica truly wish to retain that certain cachet and

mystique that gives their cameras the timeless quality for which people are

willing to pay a high premium and preserve their advantage in mechanical and

optical precision, they should separate or "modularize" the image capture

aparatus from the camera body in an analagous way to the separation of the

camera body and the optics. Interchangeable film and digital backs are already a

tried and tested feature of some of the world's best medium and large format

cameras - admittedly 35mm camera bodies are required to be smaller and more

compact but I find it hard to believe that Leica's pool of sophisticated and

creative engineers couldn't come up with an elegant solution for 35mm bodies as

well.

With interchangeable options for image capture, there would be no built-in

obsolescence as there is with the M8 in which a sensor that will quickly show

its age is trapped in a timeless Leica body. Leica users could switch from

digital back to film as mood and subject demands and their significant

investment in the mechanical and optical perfection that makes Leicas great

cameras would be protected as the bodies and lenses continued to take advantage

of technological advances in image capture while aging as gracefully as they

have always done.

Thank you all so much for your excellent responses, it's certainly given me a lot to think about. In my former darkroom years, film scanners and computers that you can process images on were simply not generally available. I have never used a high-res film scanner and it seems that the scanning time can potentially be a big time factor in a film-to-digital workflow and one that I hadn't really considered.

In answer to the question about the software that allows you to use the zone system during image processing, it's called "LightZone" and it's available at www.lightcrafts.com (for full disclosure, I have absolutely no relationship, financial, legal, familial or of any kind whatsoever with the makers or distributors of this software but I do like its rather unusual but intuitive interface).

For my own (possibly perverse) reasons, I am contemplating switching from an

all-digital to a 35mm film/digital hybrid workflow in which I capture my images

on B&W film which I then develop myself and scan digitally so that all of the

post film-development process can be digital. Although I have done a

considerable amount of darkroom developing and printing in my earlier days,

living as I do now in a rented city apartment, a darkroom is not an option for

me at present. I also have considerable experience with "digital darkroom"

techniques and although the idea of capturing images "the old way" appeals, I am

also a real techno-geek who loves the flexibility that the new technology gives

me in controlling the image downstream from the film-development process (I even

use software that implements Ansell Adam's zone system for working with digital

images prior to printing).

I anticipate developing my B&W 35mm negatives without a full darkroom and then

transferring the film negatives to digital using a film scanner, and I would

welcome any advice that the experienced B&W film users on this forum could give

me about the best way to set this up. I am very interested in the best choice of

developing tank systems for B&W films - it's been years since I used a Patterson

tank and I don't know whether there have been any big changes in this area

(possibly not). I am planning on using possibly a Leica M series camera and I

would also be grateful for advice on which combination(s) of B&W film/developers

would give me the best and most consistent results given my lack of any kind of

"professional" darkroom facility i.e. which film/developer combinations are most

forgiving/least temperamental and would best complement the kind of sharp and

"contrasty" kind of pictures that a Leica M series camera/lens combination

typically produces?

I would also be grateful to benefit from any experience that this forum's

readers have had in using B&W film scanners for scanning negatives. I am very

keen to preserve the quality and fidelity of my images as far as possible and

while I am unable to spend the huge sums of money that a professional graphics

studio scanner would cost, I would nevertheless like to find a scanner that

offers the best possible quality for the money and is also well suited to the

Leica-style B&W images.

Yes, I know I could buy a Leica M8 and dispense with film altogether, but if any

of you have opinions about why (or why not) I would be better off using B&W film

(aside from the M8's early teething troubles), I would love to hear them. As far

as the M8 goes, I am more inclined at present to stick with film and wait for

the M9 in which all the bugs of the 1st generation M8 have been fixed.

Is this film/digital hybrid workflow ill-conceived or stupid? Should I buy an M8

or pay a local lab to develop my film negatives? If not, how best could it be

made to work. I welcome your input and advice.