arachnophilia

> "Are Some Films Inherently Flat or Contrasty?". Essentially, negative contrast is controlled by development. Back issues are available from phototechmag.com

 

this is true. but if you only follow the directions on the back of the box, some films are flatter than others at the recommended development. this can of course be modified.

 

anyways. i've started using tmax 3200. the development on the back of the box is actually pushing it about two stops, so it's quite contrasty if you're the type who likes to follow directions.

i stopped using tri-x a few years ago, due to the fact that i don't LIKE tri-x.

 

i use a total of three kodak products. i use tmax 3200, kodafix, and the occasional roll of hie. and i mean VERY occasional. i find tmax 3200 to be about as grainy as my tri-x, or only moderately more so, with MUCH better contrast and a few stops better.

not to be a troll, but it looks like tri-x to me. what do you want it to do?

not sure what the guy above meant. my prints come up rather quickly in rodinal, generally under a minute. it's the film that takes a long time, 17 minutes.

 

if you're just doing b+w though why not develop yourself? as for printing, i dunno if the paper rodinal is that different from anything else. you can take those a lab if you don't have your own enlarger...

i consider the hc110 development of tri-x too grainy (at ANY dilution) and too gray for my use. i'm also not fond of the fact that the emulsion stays purple. it just messes me up every step of the way.

mine came with a case of deteriorating lightseal foam. make sure you check for that. a lot of rb's are 20 years old or so, and the foam turns into this gooey mess with age. it can get all over your mirror, or worse, your lens.

 

thankfully, the shop i bought it from was nice enough to fix it for free when i brought it back the next day.

1:100 for 10 minutes?

 

i did 1:100 accidentally once. musta been tired that day, read the measurement wrong or something. only figured it out after. did it for the normal tim i do 1:50 for -- 17 minutes.

 

the results were usable, but rather underdeveloped for my tastes.

i pretty much do it according to the box.

 

68F, 1:50, 17 minutes. out of curiosity, where is this 13 minute figure coming from?

no one spotted this?

 

1:50 rodinol on agfapan 100 is 17 minutes at 68F in the developer. not 13.

why i want a full frame digital camera:

 

format size is a visible difference, and more important than quality. a normal lens looks different on an aps size sensor, 135, 120, 4x5, and 8x10, even if the focal lengths are all exactly equivalent.

 

this is partly a product of the fact that wider lenses have larger depths of focus than longer lenses. a 90mm lens on my mamiya resolves the same range in total sharpness at f/4 as a 90mm lens on my nikon fm2n at f/4. but for my mamiya, that's normal, and for my nikon, it's long. a normal lense on my nikon would be my 50mm, but that resolves more in focus than the 90mm. on an aps-sized sensor, a normal lens would resolve ever more.

 

this has the overall effect of flattening the image out. the smaller the format, the flatter the image at the same range of focal lengths.

 

some people like this effect, because they are sharpness nuts. i am not. i like my subject matters to be mostly flat, but not the images. i rely already on relative prominence for my pop. 28mm on 135 works great for me, and i don't want to have to go wider and flatter to get the field of view that i like.

 

in other words, it'd be forcing me to make a compromise i wouldn't want.

 

this is currently my only picture-quality objection to the digital format. i used to hold on to film tonalities and whatnot, but i've been wowed enough times to know better now. and megapixels mean very little to me. just the physical size.

 

my other two turn-offs are view-finder size (i like to, you know, see what i'm taking a picture of) and physical controlls. i want something that works like an older camera with real manual features. i don't like scroll wheels, i want an aperture ring, a shutter dial, and a focus ring.

 

other than that, i'm all for digital. film is getting to be such a pain nowadays.

i have a beat up one, and i'm in love with it. it makes the best pictures i've ever seen. 28 is now my new standard focal length.

one of the many reasons i'm not going digital.

 

ironically, none of them are a bias against the medium. just can't find a digital camera i like.

actually, normal refers to the range of lenses closest to being normal with film size. 135 film has an image area of 24x36mm, and a simple pythagorean calculation will reveal that that is about 43 1/4 millimeters between it's furtherest two points.

 

in other words, a lens that casts a circle of light 43.26mm in diameter will most accurately portray the persective as the human usually sees it. the closest lenses made to "normal" are 45mm.

 

the range the eyes see is a different matter. my eyes see about 20-24mm worth of image, but no 20 or 24mm lens comes close to looking like the perspective i see. i compromise at 28mm, because it's close to the range i see while constraining the image enough to make good compositions, and without exagerating or distorting the perspective.

 

so my normal lens is a 28mm.

yeah, ditto on the apx. great stuff. well, the 100 anyway. the 400 developed too thin for me. hopefully it's safe, otherwise i'm buying a couple of bulk rolls.

how come no one takes this seriously?

 

physical sensor size is a lot more important that megapixels, which everyone always seems to rave about. people like the degree of control over focus and depth of field 35mm gives them. why is it so wrong to want a 35mm-size digital camera?

i seem to recall that the fm2n had a VERY long production run.

 

they just recently discontinued service on it, and it began its run in, i think 1982.

 

why do you need to know when they were made?

my guess is something no one has mentioned.

 

in addition to needing a darker blue sky to begin with, you also have to METER to get the darker sky. film (especially that c41 b+w) just doesn't have the latitude of the human retina. you're gonna lose something. if you want the sky 18% grey, use a spot or center weight meter over a patch of sky. if you want it darker, try taking that exposure down a notch or two.

 

you will likely lose some shadow detail in whatever else in the picture, though.

there's no sync speed difference, or max shutter speed difference.

 

ie: it doesn't really matter.

i'm not in la, but i'll take darkroom donations. lol.

i met my girlfriend through an art site, because we both take pictures.

 

and we work really well together.

 

and oh yes, it is worth it.

i drew and painted before i photographed.

 

and yes, i find it helps. i tend to ignore rules in all three media.

right now, i have:

 

nikkor 28mm 1:2.8 AIs

nikkor 50mm 1:1.8 AIs (the crappy version)

zoom-nikkor 28-50mm 1:3.5 AIs

zoom-nikkor 35-105mm 1:3.5~4.5 AIs

 

the last two are sort of touristy going places lenses, but the first two tend to get used for portraits and stuff. (yes. a wide angle lens. and it uhh, works really well)

 

i'm thinking of adding a 35mm lens to use a standard, because i use that end of the zoom alot, and i might as well have a good lens for a commonly used focal length. i've also had thoughts about replacing the 50 with the better version, early AIs.

 

and if i had enough money, i'd get the 45mm AIp. just for the hell of it. and a telephoto or two, like and 85mm or 105mm or 200mm. but i don't need any of that.

 

in short, "enough" is limited by my monetary fundage.

 

as for choice: at any given time i only carry around two, with a general foreknowledge of conditions i'm gonna be shooting in.

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/nikkor.htm">ken rockwell's site</a>

<li><a href="http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html">bjørn rørslett's site</a>

<li><a href="http://mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/">the malaysian site</a> (not really reviews, but good info/pics)

</ul>

yes. digital is nice.

 

now i have all kind of pretty old metal mf gear from people selling it to buy a digital camera that's not as good.

i was in the store the other day and they had both the 85mm 2.0 and 1.4 ais. the 1.4 was beautiful, but the 2.0 was visibly soft just in the viewfinder. i might have been a bad example, or a damaged lens however.