bsmith

I just buy color film by the roll at my local supermarket. If you need 120 or traditional B&W, you will have to find a local film/photo shop that stocks it, or go with mail-order. If you take into account shipping and processing costs, the savings from buying large amounts of film via mail-order really aren't there for me. What good does it do me to save $1 per roll @ $2-$3/roll if I pay $5-$8/roll on processing? I'd be better off shooting a few less rolls a year, or just being more prudent with exposures in the long run.

"Almost any camera can take photos in low light. All you need is a B setting and a tripod. A wide aperture is not needed as you can use a fast film. An 400 asa film compared to 100 asa turns a F1.8 lens into an F1.2 lens."

 

More misguided advice has surely been given, but not by much.

 

Leaf-shuter rangefinders are probably the best for low light, as the shutter adds very little vibration. This kind of limits you to mainly fixed-lens rangefinders like the Yashica Lynx, Canonets, and their ilk. Interchangeable lens rangefinders typically have a vertical or horizontal focal plane shutter that *can* be a little more problematic by introducing small amounts of camera shake. Not a deal-breaker for me, but worth noting IMHO.

 

Slow shutter speeds are nice. Some older rangefinders didn't have anything but "B" below 1/30th, which can be a handicap if you don't have a tripod and release cable handy. Speeds as slow as 1/15, 1/8, and 1/4 are quite useful for stationary subjects/cityscapes.

 

Fast lenses are necessary because even 1600ISO can't stop motion very well at f4 in dim lighting. If your subject is human or animal, you want a fast lens as well as a fast film. Even so, f1.5 at 1600 can be limiting in pubs/dance halls/peformances.

 

I've liked my Canonet QL17 G3, with its 40/1.7 lens and shutter-priority metering and manual settings for low light photography. That said, it's been supplanted by a Leica CL with 40/2 for the manual metering, interchangeable lenses, and small size (with the 40/2 lens mounted, smaller than the Canonet). If size isn't a main concern, any Leica M model will give you the advantages of accurate focusing, a veritable plethora of lens choices, and a body that will last for decade upon decade.

 

The fact that there are enough LTM bodies out there from a vaiety of makers means that if you prefer to go with a screw-mount body, you aren't tied to Leica and you still have many, many choices of lenses. The fact that LTM lenses will couple with M bodies with a simple adapter means that there really isn't a bad choice to be made here. If you get a screw-mount body, any lens will work with almost any M-mount body you might pickup later, and if you get an M body, you can use LTM lenses as you wish (there are few exceptions).

someone needs an editor.

Tri-X in D76 1:1 is my favorite all time fast film combo. From 400 to 6400 EI, I've been impressed over and over. (The actual images themselves, of course, are often lacking :) ) You could probably go faster than 6400 EI with a minimum of practice.

you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Removing the spindle loaded with film is easy. The film isn't wound very tightly in the spindle when you remove it, and it certainly doesn't have a tendency to "explode." I just turn the spindle to wind the film a bit so it comes out of the canister easily. There is no need to leave a tongue hanging out of the used canister. In fact, it is necessary to wind the film all the way inside the canister to extract it after removing the cap.

 

After removing the spindle, I just hold it in my hands while starting the film on the reel, then let it hang while loading the reel. If you sit while loading, I suppose you could let it sit in your lap. I stand, and the film never hangs too far down, so there is little danger of it touching the floor.

 

You can practice with a roll of cheap film in daylight if you wish. removing the cap is the hardest part, and if you've ever opened a bottle with a church key, it's about that hard.

Well, if your end goal is printing through your computer with a consumer inkjet printer, you might be better off shooting with a dslr. If your end goal is either printing enlargements from negatives or printing through your computer on an inkjet, you would be better off shooting film.

 

If you are going to compare film to digital using digital capture files and scans of negatives, you are really comparing scanners to digital cameras. If you use scans of film for film vs. digital comparison, you really ought to make prints of both at something like 16x20, and compare scans of the prints. A scan of the negative is little more than a digital photo of the film, and as such, you are then dealing with the limitations of scanning stacked on the limits of the film. It's not a valid test if the end goal is simply high quality 8x10 or larger prints.

 

For years, magazines published scans of slide film. With the advent of DSLR's that generated high quality images for a comparable cost of a Nikon F6, the extra costs of film, development, shipping, and drum scanning was dropped, in favor of digital images captured in-camera. It certainly wasn't a decision based on the superiority of DSLR images over slide film.

 

Digital camera sensors, including top end DSLR's, cannot capture the same wide range of light and dark in a single image as films.

 

High iso settings in digital cameras have noise, which is random color and luminance values sprinkled over the image. Film has grain. I know of no-one who thinks digital noise is pleasing to the eye, but I know many digital photographers who proclaim a love for grain in B&W, and only see grain in color films when they look for it.

 

In addition, film handles light falling on the film plane without prejudice - it makes little difference between 90 degrees or 60 degrees, the fall-off is minimal. Digital pixels are like little pieces of film in shadowboxes. As the distance from the center of the sensor grows, the amount of light hitting each pixel decreases. Light fall-off on digital sensors is greater than that of film. This is really an issue with wide and ultra-wide angle lenses, increasing as the focal length decreases. Film suffers from light fall-off as well, but the effects are not as severe. DSLR software can compensate to a degree, but ultimately, film is superior in this regard.

 

In addition, because digital sensors are arrayed in a grid, certain patterns in images can cause problems. It's like when you see someone on TV wearing a plaid sportcoat (you don't see that very often anymore). You get weird Moire patterns, distracting curves overlaid on a grid. Again, this is handled somewhat though software, but the issue exists. Brick walls in the distance, especially at an angle to the camera, show it best/worst.

 

Another concern is that with either film or digital, sharpness decreases as the aperture is closed down, due to diffracting effects on light. Not something that generates obvious issues very often with film, but when photographing certain textures, like courduroy, the loss of sharpness with digital sensors can be dramatic.

 

Applying a megapixel rating to a film image is silly. Any 100 speed film has the potential to capture more far more detail than a 10 megapixel DSLR image at 100iso. But when you scan that film image, you lose a lot of the detail. It's there, it is just beyond the capacity of scanner technology to capture it without introducing degrading artifacts like grain aliasing. If you scrutinize a DSLR image on a computer monitor at 100% to determine image quality, you have totally missed what that term means anyway.

 

In summary, if the end goal is a digital file, you'd probably be better off with a DSLR and just deal with the shortcomings, but if the end goal is prints, film is superior.

how'd you know when time was up?

Gene M. Quite possibly one of the most valuable contributors on the internet today. Thank you for sharing these photos.

you can buy DX-coded re-usable film canisters for less than a buck each, if that's an issue.

 

I started bulk loading about a year ago, and it is so quick and easy I would encourage you to do it yourself. One potential problem is accidentally exposing the reel to light. I did this at one pont on my first bulk roll, but was still able to use enough of the film to get my processing and everything down. Now that I've replaced the fogged roll, I'm happy as can be. I've not had a problem with bulk-rolled film in airports - no-one cares as long as it is film and not some secret death ray-looking thingy.

nice. I once was sure I saw an arm sticking out of a pile of rock in the back of a dump truck watching an industrial film in grade school.

quote: "The Sunny 16 rule goes like this"

 

I'm familiar with the rule. The camera in question has one shutter speed (if you don't count "T") and I am not sure what it is, exactly, or how accurte the "claimed" speed is. I purchased the 50 speed film on the assumption tha the shutter was ~1/30, but I would like to hear from folks wih more experience with the camera than I have. The linked manual lists some film combinations and lighting, but with no idea what those films were rated, it doesn't impart much useful info.

 

:) I mentioned the "lightly colored D76" to get an idea if it was something to toss, or use up.

just got an Ansco Speedex Junior. Found the manual online, but they

emntion films that haven't been produced for maybe half a century,

so I am at a loss as to how to rate the thing.

 

I bought three rolls of Ilford PanF Plus 50, and will be developing

myself in either TMax or lightly colored D76. Can someone share

their experience with the camera and film?

 

basically, on a bright sunny day, at F16, is PanF+ 50 over-exposed,

under, or what? Should I just dev as if it was done right, and work

from there, or can someone out there with one of these give me some

tips?

 

here's a link to the manual, if someone wants to look and make an

educated guess (it lists original films and conditions).

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/ansco_speedex_jr/ansco_speedex_jr.htm

 

From what I can find on the net, the INST shutter is 1/30, but IDK

for sure.

 

In addition, if anyone has any suggestions as far as films to try,

or what-not, I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks to anyone who can offer some experience.

They're fine. You could never buy anything if you depended on internet forums to back you up unanimously. If you are looking for manual focus lenses, I don't think newer always equals better. You can use the lenses on almost any manual focus Minolta, so if the body is lacking something, you can replace it with a different one, and the same with the lenses. Hell, if that kit was under $200, I'd consider it a fantastic deal, even if nothing in it is the absolute best ever. You gotta start somewhere.

film is dead, photo labs unable to dev or print film in a year or two? Gimme a break. Hell, wasn't it kodak not long ago who said film is still being used by half the US yet? For crying out loud, every time I go to the grocery store I see piles of one-time use film cameras in the checkout lanes and on a whole rack of film they have right by the registers. And you know what? It is mostly Kodak film. If no-one bought them or developed them, why would they be there? You think the store can afford shelf space for things people don't buy?

 

Can we stop this idiotic narrow-minded posturing about how "digital is the way," and just deal with inquiries and conversations regarding the two as if they are both valid and here to stay? Or is that too much to ask from the people who dumped a whole ton of money on quickly obsoleting tools? I mean, at the very least, let's agree that the image quality from the 5D you bought is never going to get any better, while with the film cameras anyone might own or buy, quality will improve as the film improves. So any owner of a digital camera has absolutely NO BASIS for insisting their camera is anything other than disposable when compared to a film camera.

 

And who cares whether the image was captured on film or a digital camera? A film print is a unique piece of craftsmanship, while a digital print is merely a duplicate, with no inherent unique qualities. But aside from that, it is the image that matters, not the medium. The cameras are tools, not content generators. A pocket knife in the hands of a master whittles out a masterpiece, while a whole wood shop can't help a hack turn out a masterpiece. Even if it is a digital woodshop.

 

BTW, I'm a hack :D

"Jim Huddle , feb 22, 2006; 08:32 a.m.

The video card is running 512 mb ram itself."

 

sorry, didn't see that. More than adequate.

your hard drive speed is a major factor in computer speed. You apparently have enough ram, and displaying file names isn't really taxing on a video card, so the issue is likely your hard drive speed. Just make sure you have at least 64MB of RAM on your video card, or you will want to upgrade that to an AGP model with more RAM.

 

One thing about hard drives is they only function as fast as the connection allows, i.e. if you have two different speeds connected via the same cable, they both will only run as fast as the slowest drive. You might open up your case, and see if the ribbon cable attached to the hard drive is connected to anything else, such as a CD-ROM/DVD drive. PC systems have two available cables, each capable of connecting to two drives. It would be worth while to put the hard drive on a end of a cable with nothing else connected.

 

Drive speed is also affected by at least two factors within the drive itself. One is the drive speed, i.e. 5400 or 7200 rpms, and the other is the amount of buffer, i.e. 2MB or 8MB. If you determine a new drive is warranted, you want to look for a 7200 rpm drive with an 8MB buffer. Go with a Seagate or Western Digital, or even an IBM. Stay away from Samsung drives - I've personally had nothing but problems with them failing after only a few months. (Sure, it's under warrantee, but my data is gone, and the best they can do is ask me to pay to send them the drive :/ )

 

Processor and RAM are only part of the picture. For the kind of use you want out of your machine, you want the fastest hard drive, a more than capable video card, and the system properly assembled (the hard drive connection on it's own cable) on top of just a fast processor and lots of RAM.

Last night it was maybe 15 degrees F, and my Minolta SRT worked flawlessly. On other nights, my Canonet QL17 G3 has worked fine as low as zero F, with no indication that it was struggling. I'd say that a camera that relies on a battery for anything other than the meter would be less than ideal. If you have a camera that you want to use in extreme cold, and need it CLA'd, I'd ask the tech to be *very* sparing on the lubricants, to prevent problems. I don't know that I'd want to shoot a camera all summer with *no* lubricant. Excess lubricant collects dust and dirt and causes its own problems, so less is more in any case.

 

As winter goes on, I fully expect to see how my cameras work near -40 F :D

Thank you all for the very helpful advice. Looks like I need to decide if the increased cost of Ilfotec offsets the hassle of mixing and storing XTol. Oh well, if that is my biggest dilemma, life is good :D

eh, pic is too dark. Whatever.

I have just recently got into processing my own B&W film, and have

found myself pushing alot of film, mostly because the people I want

pictures of don't always congregate in well-lit areas. I've been

using Tri-X 400 and HP5+, pushing to 800 and 1600. I have been using

Ilfosol S at 1:9, and I am happy with the results, but I am running

into a problem finding information regarding dev times for film other

than Ilford, and push times past 1600. I am considering trying

another dev solution like D76 or Ilfotec DDX just so I can count on

good results pushing 400 to 3200.

 

I'd like to pick just one set of chemistry and stick with it. It

seems like now is a good time to make a change, since I am running

into a wall with Ilfosol. I guess I am leaning towards D76 purely

because, but I don't want to make a change into a more complicated

and expensive process, and Ilfotec DDX *seems* like a drop-in

replacement for Ilfosol S.

 

I guess the goal is to be able to expose one film at whatever ISO the

light allows, and develop the negs accordingly, rather than get out

there and realize my film is too fast or too slow.

 

I currently use Ilfosol S at 1:9, stop by filling and dumping the

tank a few times, and then use Ilford Rapid Fix at 1:4 for 5 mins.,

then rinse under running water for ten mins. or so. If I go with

D76, is there any reason to change the rest of my process? Do I need

to use a Kodak fixer and hypo clear? Is there a reason Kodak fixers

are "hardening" fixers, and Ilford's aren't, and should I care which

I use? Is there any reason *not* to use D76, other than the fact it

is a powder that needs to be mixed to a stock solution prior to use?

 

Any advice from someone with more experience in this would be greatly

appreciated.<div></div>

Here's a link to a site where the use of said munition is discussed:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/insomnia/630212.html

If you read some of the posted comments, you'll find a well-written response by someone who is in a position to know what he is talking about, much more so than an italian journalist who is coming around after the fact.

 

One has to keep in mind that, while it is all good and fun to say the US news media white-washes everything, what passes for "journalism" in amy countries is quite the opposite. IOW, not all "news" is the same. While Fox News redifines "fair and balanced" to mean "pandering to conservative interests," many foreign news outlets go much farther in their interpretation of journalism. Sensationalism sells, and all you have to do to see proof of this in action is read foreign news reports, such as those from certain Italian and British (the Mirror, Independent) outlets, and certainly Al Jazeera. The charge that US news outlets are simply shills for advertisers rings particularly hollow when it is implied the same doesn't hold true for their foreign counterparts.

 

Rumors, half-truths, and plain shoddy reporting are trumpeted by headlines in some foreign presses, and certainly result in heightened circulation numbers and corresponding ad rates. There is a different, higher standard to US news outlets, as evidenced by such scandals as seen at the New York Times, Boston Globe, New Republic, and Washington Post. If they really didn't care about the integrity and veracity f their news room, these scandals wouldn't be scandals, but par for the course. As someone who has some limited experience working in a news office, quite often a story is not published until there is some effort to capture the other side of the story, with a minimum of posturing by the reporter. Not so in many foreign news rooms, as can be easily seen when reading article after article with no quotes from anyone but witnesses and second- and third-hand reports of events.In the rare case where comments from the "other side" are included, it is often perfuntory stuff like "As expected, the US State Department denied any such thing." Kind of like the old "so-and-so denies he still beats his wife."

 

In this particular case, concerning the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah, the US State department has not denied the use of white phosphorus, and even described how it was used. I certainly don't believe no-one was hurt in the use of the stuff, and considering it was used in some cases to flush combatants in order to kill them with high explosive rounds, one has to seriously question WTF one expects to find but burned and destroyed bodies, after such a battle. Was it a massacre? I don't doubt it. Did American soldiers focus their attacks on women and children, ignoring armed combatants? Please, I'm not that stupid, and I doubt many other people are, either.

 

I am not suggesting all non-US news sources are full of crap, nor am I trying to suggest all US news sources are above reproach. But this assumption that US news organizations are somehow inferior to their foreign counterparts is born of a lack of critical thinking, not supported by observation of reality.

 

Sure, US news outlets don't report the same kinds of stories that foreign outlets do. Why would an Italian daily cover the exact same things that a US daily covers? Why would British, or Italians, or Egyptians, for that matter, all report on the same events in the same manner? Their respective readers all demand different things, and there isn't room enough to cover virtually everything that happens. Some thing that are front page news to an Italian is certainly going to be crowded out by other news in a British rag, and so on for the rest of the world. A big American "scandal" to the Italians is just over-shadowed by other concerns in American papers, and predictably so. The seamy details of how Fallujah battles progressed just isn't front page material in the States - we have many other things of concern here, and Fallujah is just one battle in one city in one country where we have troops and activities. That isn't to say the peaceable citizens of Fallujah don't matter, just that I have a hard time believing that there were a whole lot of innocent women and children running around at night amidst pitched battles in the streets of Fallujah. It will take more than one Marine of unknown character to convince me in wholesale slaughter of innocents by my friends, colleagues, and schoolmates while they were over there.

if you exposed the pictures for ISO 100 manually, the iso setting on the camera makes no difference. It is only used to let the camera know how to set auto exposure settings. Don't worry about it if you used manual settings.

excellent discussion on a very timely topic (is it ever NOT timely?).

 

What disturbs me far more than incidents of rights violations is the lack of willingness to pursue such violations. If you have your film taken away, and are angry that such a violation of your rights and property has taken place, why would you be content with impotent complaining on a public forum? If a known (non-uniformed) person "relieved" you of your property, you would surely pursue the matter, filing a police report at least. Why would you not at least notify said person's employer, seeing as the officer in the OP's case was clearly abusing his status as a representative of the organization?

 

Filing a police report is hardly arduous, and creates a public record of the event. Contacting the employer of the officer would give the organization the opportunity to ensure such abuses do not recur. Merely sitting on your hands after such encounters is not helpful, and it may be suggested that it is not becoming of a citizen of the US of A. Assuming out of hand that said officer is acting on behalf of, and with full support of, his employer and the public is foolish. If his employer has instructed him to act in such a manner, they are culpable. If the officer is acting out of his authority, surely his superiors wish to know about it. Certainly your fellow travelers would appreciate your speaking up against such abuses, to prevent them from suffering the same.

 

A bully is a bully only when he has the de facto support of the crowd. Not speaking out against such abuse you've suffered is tacit approval of such behavior. In this country (United States of America), authority is granted by the people. If you think someone has overstepped their authority, by all means speak up to those in a position to do something. All it takes is a phone call, for starters. File a police report to ensure official documentation of the event.

 

"The pigs are using every opportunity to limit our freedoms, and we are doing nothing." If I may correct you: one man violated your freedom, and YOU are doing nothing. Do you plan on continuing to do nothing, then exhorting against such abuse impotently?

that's a pretty cool issue. I think it makes it better to know how they got up there.

hell, you can see the lens through the viewfinder as it is. Yes, the step-up ring will block some of the viewfinder. It's not that big a deal, you just can't see the lower right corner :)

 

As long as the step-up ring matches your other camera, I really don't see it as a big deal. You can either leave it on all the time as a hood, or not, if it blocks too much. It really depends on how bad you want to use a filter.