scott_kinkade

Thanks for posting these. Nice shots!

 

I have a Mat-124 with a lens hood, and I still get flares here and there. I sometimes end up blocking the sun with my spare hand, if I have one.

Charles...

 

Your last post makes sense to me, but I sometimes have to remind myself that the scene itself affects the histogram. I'm in the habit of adjusting my endpoints so the blank space to either side of the lightest and darkest points is eliminated. But this assumes that there is, in fact, some white and some black in the scene. If there is not, or if there are other unusual color distributions in the scene, my understanding of the "ideal" histogram may not apply.

Shawn...

 

Some of your answer doesn't make any sense to me. A histogram, to my understanding, is simply a count of the number of pixels that are set to each shade of grey between black and white. Since the number of pixels in a scan will not change according to the quality of the negative, how could each shade of grey be represented either all near the top or all near the bottom? If they were all near the bottom, for example, that would mean that there were actually fewer pixels represented by the histogram.

 

Also, it seems quite possible that you could have a well-exposed and properly-developed image represented by a histogram that is a straight line--what you refer to as "flat." If the photographed scene contained equal portions of each shade of grey, this is exactly how we would expect it to appear in the histogram.

 

I am very far from an expert, but I don't think these interpretations of the histogram work to answer the poster's questions.

 

This next part should be taking with a very large grain of salt, because I am a rank amateur. But my understanding of the terms in question, based soley on context in this and other forums, would lead me to the following definitions:

 

"flat" - the image doesn't have much in the white and black areas; histogram is bunched up in the middle

 

"contrasty" - the image has unnatural transitions from light to dark; histogram has clusters of pixels in both the light and dark areas

 

"thin" - exactly as it sounds, when looking at the negative...it's easy to see through; histogram is clustered on the dark end (remember it's a negative)

 

"dense" - the negative is hard to see through; histogram is clustered on the light end.

 

Bottom line: I understand histograms but know next to nothing about photography. Flame away or instruct as appropriate.

Mike, how did this turn out?

I demand pictures of motorcycles.

Steve...

 

Congratulations on the first roll. I've been playing with this for just under a year, and sometimes I think I shoot film just to have something to develop!

 

I have a method for getting my chemicals to temperature that may apply to your setup, provided you are diluting from a concentrate during the session. This is basically a variaton on Oliver's #3 above:

 

1. Add room temperature water to your concentrate to create half the total amount of solution you need.

 

2. Measure the temperature of this solution.

 

3. Whatever the amount of temperature difference between the current and the desired temperature, prepare a container of water the same difference in the opposite direction. For example, if your current solution is too cold by 4 degrees, prepare a container of water that is too hot by 4 degrees. The amount is not important, as long as there is more of it than you need to fill the second half of your solution. This should just take a minute or two of trial and error at the tap by dumping a little, adding a little, etc.

 

4. Add this additional water to your solution until you fill out the desired total quantity. The final temperature will be pretty dang close, as the 4-degrees-too-cold will cancel out the 4-degrees-too-hot.

 

This method works well for me as a hobbyist. If your working area has an extreme ambient temperature and you don't use a bath to maintain the chemicals during processing, you may consider starting a little too hot or a little too cold to make up for a possible change during the process. For short development times I don't think you'd need more than a degree of "drift allowance." (I've never used any at all.)

 

Disclaimer: I'm just some dude processing film in my basement.

I think it's very telling that the cosmetic condition of this camera is described as "Excellent," when the pictures clearly indicate otherwise. There's not necessarily anything wrong with a camera that is "rough" cosmetically, but it should be described as such, so that one may better trust the descriptions of lenses and operating condition and other things that can't be seen in a picture.

 

Good luck. I hope it works out for you.

Second the Photoflo.

 

I think you're taking the right approach...starting with the minimum. You may decide to consider one or two more graduated cylinders. I wrote "Developer" on the side of one, and that's all that goes into it. Since I don't presoak, the developer is the first thing to go in and there's no chance of it being contaminated. Additionally, you may want to have separate fixer and water vessels.

Zac...

 

There are tons of choices that I know nothing about, but if she looks at Yashicas, I can advise that the 124 goes for less than the 124G and is virtually identical. The Yashica Mat 124 is my first and only (so far) MF camera and I am having no trouble getting "keepers" with it. I bought it for less than $100 this past summer. With the remainder of her $300 budget she can buy a lens hood (just about mandatory, ~$30) and a whole bunch of film.

Peter...

 

That is the funniest typo I've ever seen.

Doug...

 

I have wondered about the same thing, but it's never caused me a problem. Give yourself some comfort by understanding where the first and last frames are (couple inches from either end, maybe?) and where the emulsion is (on the inside of the curl.) You can touch the film anywhere else without worry (within some common sense limits, of course.)

Pascale...

 

You got several different types of responses, but I just want to restate that my objection is not that I "hate Flash," but that I sometimes CANNOT VIEW A SITE because it has a Flash-only front page, and flash is not working on my machine for whatever reason. I tinker with my computers quite a bit, and often a machine is in mid-upgrade/tweak/coma/whatever when I use it to browse the web. HTML is standard and a no-brainer; Flash is not. It comes down to this: a flash-only site forces users to install third-party software to view what should be a standardized medium.

Dave...

 

I've used CinePaint, which is from the GIMP branch that you've referred to. It has 16-bit support, but it's a little rough around the edges yet.

 

Bill...

 

I shoot and scan medium format black and white, and adjustment with curves is pretty much required for the process. I worry about tweaking curves in finely graded areas with only 8 bits to choose from. It's not like the difference knocks me in the head when I don't have 16-bits, but I've seen my monitor in 8-bit color before and I don't want that look in my prints.

 

Regards,

Scott

Have you tried that place over on 17th Street?

Art...

 

I have been using GIMP (stupid, stupid, stupid name) for several years now. I am not a photoshop guru by a long shot, but the GIMP has done everything I need it to do (including working with my scanned medium format film the past few months.) My only complaint is that it only has 8-bit grayscale rather than 16, but apparently that is the case with economy versions of photoshop as well.

 

There are some decent tutorials if you look around online. Feel free to send questions if you have them, sk at fansong dot net.

 

Regards,

Scott

Oh, and Pascale...I did look at the site and it looks very nice on my current machine. I hope that doesn't erode my crusade in any way.

I suggested a "no-Flash" alternative to someone on this site recently, when he asked for feedback on his website. I received in reply a very thoughtful and polite analysis of Flash as it relates to target audience. I didn't take the time to post a screenshot of what I saw when I visited his site: a nifty puzzle-piece icon and a button to click to install the plugin.

 

I don't necessarily have anything against Flash, but my computers are constantly evolving as I add and remove software, add and remove hardware, and experiment with different browsers. I have wrestled with Flash in the past to get it shoe-horned into my browser. There's a very good chance that I could get it working again with a minimum of effort, but why bother when the CONTENT of a website is almost never contained in the Flash itself. Why in the world would someone hide their photos or other work behind an impenetrable wall of third-party, non-standard software? Flash can look good, but lack of an alternative tells me loud and clear, "Go away. You are not in my target audience."

Thierry...

 

I'm glad you asked this question! I've only been processing for a few months, and I started with D-76, which worked fine for me. A few weeks ago I switched to DDX when I found myself a) breathing developer dust while mixing a new batch, and b) spending too much of my rare free time mixing that batch. I've been happy with the DDX but I too wondered why it never came up much in discussions about chemistry.

Have you tried that place over on 17th Street?

You will want some tension when you hang your negs. A clip on top and bottom work well. I bought a special pair with teeth, and one was weighted. After a while I got tired of the teeth bending the film, so I started using just the flat edge of the clip...and I moved the weighted clip to the top so it wouldn't slip off since I wasn't using the teeth. Therefore, both of the "special features" of my clips were no longer in use, leading me to suspect that common office clips would work. I'm talking about the little spring loaded clamps like you would use to secure a large document without binding or stapling it.

Thierry...<BR><BR>

 

Two sites that gave me all the info I needed are <a href="http://verba.chromogenic.net/archives/2005/04/become_your_own.html">this one</a> with very basic processing instructions and <a href="http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.html">this one</a> with times for most combinations of film/chemicals you can think of.<BR><BR>

 

Two specific points from your post:<BR><BR>

 

- I don't think "shaking" is the right way to describe any of the steps, including mixing your chemicals. The agitation done for the developing--really best described as an inversion--should also work for the other stages where you want to move chemicals around.<BR><BR>

 

- You can't over-fix. Follow the instructions for your fixer...they will probably be something between 3 and 10 minutes. But if all else fails do it for 10 minutes without worry.<BR><BR>

 

Finally, I recommend you just pick a very simple process, like D-76 developer and simple Kodak fixer, and stick with it until you get results that are consistently pretty good. Then you can experiment when you identify a specific aspect of the results that you want to change.<BR><BR>

 

Have fun, et bon chance.

 

Scott

Several months ago--I'm a beginner like you--I spent $50 on the basic chemicals and gear, and developed my first roll. I peaked at the film after the fixing stage, and it appeared solid black. I rinsed it anyway, just for practice and to go by the book, and when I pulled the film from the reel and it fell into a straight strip, I saw that I had twelve properly exposed frames. I shoot B&W so I can do that again and again. I barely even care if the pictures are any good...though a few frameable keepers in the lot have made it all the more worthwhile.

Subhankar...

 

I would think that for just checking negatives--like a sort of digital light table--any flatbed scanner with a negative holder (and accompanying backlight) would suffice. I've been using the 4490 for a month or so and I'm very happy with it for making frameable prints, but if you don't plan to ever commit your results to paper, you could probably find any number of candidates for less that $100. I don't know anything about the other models you mentioned.

 

Just as an aside, I bought the 4490 to replace an Epson 4180. I was happy with the 4180 until I encountered a negative that had just the right type of sky to show some weakness in the backlighting system of the scanner. I was able to fix this with a temporary diffuser fashioned from parchment paper, making it not a good canditate for my printing needs, but probably still OK for proofing.

 

Good luck...

 

Scott

Mr Primes...

 

I would encourage you to follow and understand the advice given by the first couple posters. Later, if you can find a utility or package that makes things happen automatically, that's great, but the power of Linux is the ability it gives you to fix or adjust fundamental operations when things don't "just work" you we all hope they would.

 

Regards,

Scott

David...

 

I used to just split the difference, and hit the timer when I figured the tank was about half full. Then I heard it suggested that if the timer was started before pouring, the difference would be made up on the other end if the tank was dumped out such that the dumping was complete just as the time ran out. Makes sense to me. You might figure that the bottom edge would then get more development than the top edge...but of course this would happen no matter how you did the timing.

 

At any rate, I don't think it makes a bit of difference as long as you are using developing times in excess of 6 minutes or so.