stephen hazelton

If "issues like enlargement quality and such are not very important", it shouldn't make much difference whether a Leica or something less exotic is used?

What kind of camera/ lens are you using? Could it be a leaf shutter hanging open slightly after the exposure?

By coincidence, I was out photographing by moonlight last night (35 mm, tho), and had the same question. Go to google or one of the other search engines, type in "moonlight exposure" or something similar, and you should pull up several sites that deal with it. Example: http://www.cruzers.com/~twakeman/Photo/moonlight.htm

 

For photographing the moon itself- assume it is illuminated very much like the earth, so the sunny-16 rule should work.

There are about a jillion different kinds of film, and it would be more like a book to compare them all. Photo magazines occasionally have listings of available film, but no in-depth details. Also, whenever any new film comes out, you can always find reviews about it. Otherwise, check out the photos here or in magazines and see what other people are using. Or if you could be more specific about what you would like to do, people here would have a lot of helpful input.

I use a K-1000. But I bought it new maybe 10-12 years ago for $129. I bought an all-manual camera because it was cheaper, not because I felt it was better in some way. If I bought another body now, I would look at the current low-end Pentax models (since I have Pentax lenses) and see if those would fit my needs. I would never pay extra to get a 10-year old camera. The K-1000 is an okay camera, but if it does have any sort of problems, it's not worthwhile to fix, so you take a certain gamble there.

 

Sync speed is slow, 1/60, which may make it difficult to use fill-flash.

The meter doesn't go down to real low light levels- some other models might do better there.

You should be able to push any of them to 800- the question is, what will the results be like??? More to the point, is that extra stop of speed worth using an unknown film/ developer combination?

 

If so, pick a film, shoot it, and do the testing later. Expose an extra roll with identical frames all shot at 800, cut it up in the darkroom and start developing at different times.

 

Do you have developing times for normal developing for any of these films with this developer? I only find the developer mentioned two or three places on the internet, and not in combination with this film. I see it used for the slower Efke films and for Efke papers.

 

I see on one website that the Efke 400 speed film is repackaged Ilford HP5+, if that helps any.

You might be better off to shoot what you know (whatever you have been using for the last 10 years), rather than trying something new on such a major outing. For sure, try to get out on some snow and get some practice shots before you go. Once you get away from developing, its too late to change how you do anything...

 

Possibly check your local library. I seem to recall that Galen Rowell's books were pretty good about telling how he made his shots, although they weren't B&W. Perhaps there are others that would be helpful.

When I first started hearing about the new xray machine problems, these machines were only being installed at SOME airports- only, it wasn't made public which airports they were at. So you could fly all over and might or might not come across one.

 

I thought it was funny in the past, that when I handed my camera to the security person for hand checking, I was informed that I could run it through the xray machine. But on other trips when I ran my camera bag through the xray machine, they always had to stop and hand examine the contents! (Evidently lenses turned on end are not real distinctive in an xray)

"I know that to learn I need to JUST shoot a lot of practice photos"- that depends. If you are trying to learn landscape photography, then snapping pictures at a party probably won't help much. Suggestions:

1) Take photography classes.

2) Read photography books and magazines. Check the local library.

3) Go through your four rolls of film very critically to see what makes the difference between a good picture and poor one. Maybe have another photographer look at them with you. You should be able to start spotting what's good and what's not, and avoid the poorer shots. You can snap off a lot of shots without learning anything if you don't watch it.

4) Get involved in your own developing. Two reasons: First, you can print a proof sheet of each roll, and only print the best shots. Second, assuming you are shooting B&W, you have the opportunity to crop and adjust the contrast, and some of your pictures could probably be improved considerably over what drugstore processing could do.

5) While you are learning, consider some aspect of photography that is slower paced. Are you interested in photographing people? Have a friend set for a portrait, and in an evening, instead of 4 rolls, you might snap off half a roll while you experiment with lighting, etc.

6) If you are going to shoot a lot of pictures, with no thought of publication or contests, either go digital or use cheaper processing (try chromogenic film for B&W). Check your local Walmart, with non-premium processing, single print, etc. It's not great, but it'll do for 4 rolls of party pics.

A couple of additional thoughts for you:

Some of the neatest landscape pics I have seen (or taken) included elements both near the lens and far away. Example: Flowers very near in foreground, scenery in distance. With this type of shot, it seems it would be difficult to compose with the TLR as you can't see the exact alignment that the taking lens sees.

Additionally, for a shot like this, it helps to have very wide angle lenses to increase apparent depth-of-field. Here again, the TLR is limiting due to lack of really wide-angle lenses.

I'd suggest to look through your 35mm landscape pics and see what kind of shots you like best, and how they would work with the TLR. If you're taking everything in 35mm with a 50mm lens anyway, you may not notice the difference. If you use zooms or very wide angle or tele lenses a lot, you could find yourself very limited.

I assume TLR's normally have a decent DOF scale?

In the past, some of the photo magazines have had articles on this topic. The consensus formerly was that this was not much of a problem in the first place, at least in the US. Perhaps in some other countries that used older equipment, it was more of a problem.

 

Recently, though, they have begun using x-ray machines that make a first scan, then zoom in on anything questionable, and evidently these machines can damage film, and concern for the problem has increased.

 

From a search of "airport" on the Kodak site, these two articles come up, one from last April, one from December:

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/support/technical/xray4P.shtml

 

http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/en/service/tib/tib5201.shtml

FYI: Updated web page is www.freestylephoto.biz. I had the other one, started having probs loading it a couple months ago, emailed the webmaster, and they gave me this one.

 

I bought an enlarger here a while back, haven't bought any film. The enlarger was shipped promptly, shipping charge was minimal.

Ditto on the B&H and Adorama. I've bought from both and had no problems. When trying to buy from some other dealers in the NY area, I found that they weren't willing to sell their products at the price advertised. For example, a US warranty was extra, but it was also required to buy the product- so the lens was really $30 more than advertised. Or the lens is only the cheap price in one obscure mount- every other mount is more, etc.

Will the drugstore type developers actually print each frame on a separate print? Or will they just print pairs of frames on each print?

 

It seems that you could easily kill all your cost savings on the film if you had to go to any extra trouble to get them processed. You may want to check with your processing service and see if they will actually do the half-frame. My experience with drug-store type processing in general is that they do a good job on run-of-the-mill type stuff, but anything out of the ordinary can easily mess them up.

Your Pentax K1000 already has a lot of lens options available, unless you get into some very expensive/ specialized lenses. Consider upgrading to a newer, better Pentax with autofocus; keep the K1000 as a backup. Whatever lenses you have now can be used on both, as well as those you might purchase in the future.

 

If you change brands, $500 won't get you very far with new equipment.

"The Amateur Photographer's Handbook" by Aaron Sussman, 7th Edition, 1965:

"In 1943, however, the American Standards Association arrived at a method of film rating which ultimately will become THE American Standard to be used by all exposure meter, film and flashbulb manufacturers..."

"The new ASA Exposure Index for this film (Plus X of the day) is 80.."

"(In 1961 this figure, with reduced safety factor, became 160)."

 

Same book, 8th edition, 1973:

"When the ASA system was first devised, the published speeds incorporated a safety factor of anywhere from 2.5 to 4x the minimum exposure required for a properly exposed negative. Because of this, a generation or more of amateurs suffered through the densest negatives you've ever seen .... Subsequently, Kodak and all the other film manufacturers adopted new ASA ratings with reduced safety factors for all monochrome film."

 

In other words, the ASA ratings were revised in 1961, and the conversion varies for meters made before then. Hope this helps!

You don't necessarily need to fill the tank to the top. Check first off how much it takes to actually cover the film, to make sure you do have at least that much. Also, check the capacity of the developer- somewhere on the data sheets, it should say one quart or gallon is good for so many rolls of film. For D76 diluted 1:1, it shows the capacity as one roll per pint, and a pint is quite a bit more than required to cover a roll. For undiluted D76, half that amount would be required, but that might have to be increased to cover the reel.

 

The film size question gets involved. The film number refers not only to the size of the film itself, but also to the type of packaging it is in. For example, 110 film is understood to be in a certain cartridge, even though the film itself might actually be 16mm wide film (not sure about the width). I understand that 120 film and 620 film are basically the same size, but the reels and and the paper leader are different, so using a size x number of shots designation wouldn't distinguish them. For 35 mm cameras, most (but not all) cameras take the same size negative, and the number of frames per roll is more or less fixed. But for 120, negative sizes range from 6x4.5 cm to 6x17 cm, and the number of shots on a roll varies accordingly, so the number-of-frames is not a useful designation. If you start reading about all the different film sizes, it sounds confusing, but there are really very few sizes that are commonly used; the rest are antiquated (620, etc.) or uncommon (Minox, for example).

Are products that are sold and then returned sold as demo?

Ditto on the "Stick with Pentax" response. It sounds like several of the problems would be aided by the faster lens. The problem with buying the lens now for a digital camera to be bought two years from now, is that there is no telling what Canon will be making two years from now. There is no telling what the digital camera market will be like two years from now!

Infrared certainly will penetrate some items that visible light won't. I suspect a lot of the cautions are because someone somewhere sometime had a product that was not opaque to infrared and the warning has been in there ever since. I've used a plastic tank and will continue to unless I see some problem.

 

Even if you had some infrared leaking through the tank, you could cut it down a thousand-fold simply by developing under a dim safelight or under fluorescent lighting.

 

As to the film being fogged when left in the tank for several days, could that be light leaking through the light trap? These things are meant to process film in for a few minutes, not days of storage. The light trap is a convoluted channel, but some very very small percentage of light should still pass through.

Wouldn't it be much simpler just to use a digital camera in the first place? If you don't need especially high quality, the cost won't be too high, either.

If this helps any- from Ilford's site:

 

For a final rinse use ILFORD ILFOTOL wetting

agent added to water, it helps the film to dry

rapidly and evenly. Start by using 5ml per litre of

rinse water (1+200), however the amount of

ILFOTOL used may need some adjustment

depending on the local water quality and drying

method. Too little or too much wetting agent can

lead to uneven drying. Remove excess rinse

solution from the film before drying.

 

Drying

To avoid drying marks, use a clean squeegee or

chamois cloth to wipe PAN F Plus film before

hanging it to dry. Dry PAN F Plus at 30�40°C/86-

104oF in a drying cabinet or at room temperature

in a clean dust-free area.

If you have a very accurate meter and equipment, and know exactly how to use it, you can hit the proper exposure dead on. But with an averaging meter, and variations in film speed, shutter speed, aperture, etc., you could easily wind up a stop or so off from the ideal exposure. Keeping this in mind, it would be preferable to avoid the extreme maximum and minimum exposure settings. If you consistently use them, you will occasionally have photos that are over or underexposed. It would be better to use the middle range where possible and allow the film latitude to cover any exposure errors.

 

If you are processing prints through a one-hour lab, I doubt they will care what exposure variations you have on a single roll of film. The exposure for each print is done automatically. If you are making 4x6 prints only, grain size won't matter.

 

Also be aware that with the 1-hour approach, there is no way for them to vary contrast of the prints. You may get some photos that could be printed much better on variable contrast B&W paper than what your 1-hour lab can print them.

 

From limited experience, making small prints, I find that very thin negatives are harder to print manually- the exposure time becomes unduly short. Something to keep in mind if you will be printing any of your negatives yourself.

Has anyone tried using standard black and white films (not infrared)

with an #87 filter?

 

I have read numerous places that an 87 filter is "opaque". Having

just bought a Tiffen #87 filter, I find that I can see strong light

sources through it (looking through the filter, not mounted on the

camera). In sunlight, with outside light shielded, after my eye

adjusts, I can see the surroundings, including the "white foliage"

effect. This causes me to wonder if there is enough visible light

coming through to expose conventional films.

 

In looking at Kodak and Ilford spectral sensitivity charts, I find

that the Tmax and Tech Pan sensitivites extend right up to the

Infrared region, whereas the older films, Plus-X and Tri-X, etc.,

don't.

 

Any experiences or comments from anyone?

Several years back, I had a roll of 120-sized Agfa Isopan F that was in my dad's camera for 30 years or so. I took it to one of the pro labs (I think, BWC) here in the Dallas area and they processed it for me. I took it there the first time, and they weren't too interested because they didn't have the developing time. I looked that up in a reference book at home and went back. They did a "strip test" as I recall. The film had definitely deteriorated in all those years, the pictures were of interest but were obviously damaged, too (splotches on them).

 

I notice that Kodak's web site still shows data sheets for Verichrome, although it is shown as discontinued.

 

Good luck!