helinophoto

September 27, 2016

Just bumping an old thread, since there were so many old farts making fun of using centrifugal force to get excess water of the film. :)

I would suggest to the OP (if he is still alive and shooting), to keep the reels inside the empty tank and swing the arm back and fourth, empty tank, and do it again.

I find that after I did this, water-spouts went away. (yes, I use photo-flo, I've always used it, yes, I hang my films in the shower, yes, I run the water first. Doesn't matter, the excess water-droplets are still there and they aren't running anywhere, even when the film hangs diagonal, they stick and dry where they are).

By keeping the reels inside the tank and then forcing the water out via centrifugal force, by swinging your arm back and fourth, you:

- Avoid forcing potential dust-ridden air trough the reel.

- A firm grip on the tank keeps it in place (just make sure you have room).

- No more water-spray around the room.

Some people actually DO use salad-spinners to get the water off before drying.

This is simple logic; Unless you rinse in isopropanol - or force most of the water off, you will have water-spouts. All water has materials in it, even distilled water will pick up crap from the tank and reels or the air.

All air has dust in it, even if you put the shower on (which minimize the dust issue greatly, but not completely).

Old farts may laugh, then again, vision gets worse with age :P

January 19, 2016

Ha.....hello from the future, old thread.

Found this thread when googling about for some info on Neopan 1600 and just wanted to comment on that claim, to push TMax 100 to 1600 or even 3200.

I've had pretty crappy results, even trying to push Tri-X to 1600 and even crappy results with Neopan 1600 @1600 (HC-110). All these occasions have been dark setting, where you need a higher sensitivity film.

Always wondered why my pushed negatives looked so bad, but I think it has an easy explanation:

You cannot really push a low-iso film to astronomical heights, or a medium sensitive (400) film in dark situations because:

- The film, at it's nominal rating, will not be able to see see any real highlights, mostly mid-tones and shadows.

- When you expose a 100 ISO film at a 1600 ISO film, you effectively put a pair of welders-goggles on your camera, your film will "see" very very little during exposure, unless it is very sensitive.

- During development, the highlights is the thing that moves up the zone scale (usually from zone 5-6 and up), the rest of the zones stays put, in the case of dark scenes, they go black, no matter what you do.

So basically, if it's dark, you better use a film that can actually "see" that scene the way you want it.

This means that if a scene is dark, you need a high sensitivity film to be able to "see" what you after after, then expose accordingly, or else, you are left with mid-tones and shadows and you'll end up with thin negatives and a bad day in the darkroom.

The TMax 100 @1600 - 3200 claim is a shot done directly into the SUN, the reflections in the scene holds so much power that even with "goggles" you will still have highlights to work with, thus the push works, somewhat because it's not a dark scene at all.

The shadows are blocked though and the tonal scale is compressed, because all zones below 5 is basically black.

I'd like to see the poster shoot his TMax 100 at a dimly lit party at 3200 and try and get something useful out of it (not just blank negatives, because in my mind, they will be so thin that they will be effectively blank).

Pushing, effectively, is a mute cause with film, either you are lucky to retain something above zone 5 when you expose, or you are shooting a scene that has enough light to begin with.

Since Fuji has discontinued Neopan 1600, IMO the only viable option for low-light photography, is to actually use digital these days, no film can compete with cameras that operate normally at ISO 6400, 12800 and even higher.

Push film for effect, not to save the day (IMO)

December 16, 2013

IMO, the photographer nailed the exposures, shadows and general feel, to create a real "Noir-feeling" (IMO).

Too bad about the scanning indeed, clean them up (or make prints), and this will be a real winner! I would probably try and set a darker, romantic feel to this, instead of a very happy couple, trying to get them into character. (scruffy detective and dangerous scarlet of the night ^^). Nothing wrong with these, apart from the flimsy scanning, good job ^^

September 10, 2012

Maybe a stand develop procedure will be better (Rodinal or maybe even caffenol)?

It seems like stand is often used with pushing anyway, just a thought.

October 24, 2011

I've never tried, but I believe agitating harder/more also increase grain....?

October 24, 2011

I just think you've attached the tape wrongly. On a empty cannister:

It needs to go in a "loop" from the top of the film, around the spool and attached to the underside of the film. When you do it like that, the spool stops when the film is done, if you don't the spool will simply just "roll" off the tape and you're stuck with a bunch of film in the wrong end of the camera. I bulk-load all the time using cheap, clear office-tape using this method, no problems.

If you re-use an old cannister, I suppose you'd have to tape both sides, making sure you are covering the film well, I am pretty sure that regular office-tape would keep up well still, provided that you tape both sides of the film properly. :)

October 19, 2011

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=22127">Mike Dixon</a>: So, MRI scanning the brain while doing logical tasks showing activity in the left hemisphere of the brain, and activity in the right while doing creative things are nonsense? The same nonsense that builds upon centuries of studies of the brain and it's functions? I must ask, you aren't one of those people believing that the earth is 4000 years old as well are you? Trough science, we have learned a lot of things on how the brain works, it's not something some individual sat in a room and decided last year you know. :)

October 17, 2011

I agree with JDM von Weinberg and peter carter, I would think that this might be related to processing and agitation/fix/washing procedures.

I have also seen something similar to this on a few of my negative lately after I changed to Rodinal and Tetenal devs. I also changed to a hardening fixer (I shoot a lot of Efke and Fomapan)

Also, I agitate less and I agitate much more gently now (trying to avoid too much grain).

Also, I've tried the "ilford method" in washing for the last few films and I have a few negatives with marks and lines that I've never seen before, like black spots and line-formed areas of the negatives showing different density (I don't have any photo-flo).

When it comes to drying, I've found that holding the paterson tank in one hand, swinging it hard in a pendulum motion, will get rid of most of the water. (make sure you got the room for it).

Swing - spool out - empty - spool back in / * 3

I even put the spool in the salad tosser some times, works really well to throw off that runny water, only small dots of water remain.

Also, I dry my negs in the shower with a small electric oven on the floor inside, dries much faster and dust spots are now almost history, as the negatives doesn't need 2 hours to dry naturally.

October 10, 2011

Thomas K, it is easier to spot the left or right dominance easier than you might think, even though we all have traits from both sides.

Emotions (positive or negative) have strong ties with creativity in arts because they lie in the same brain half, and if you happen to be middle brain "dominated", you can pull out all the stops from each side, but it is very rare (probably as rare as finding both-hand dominated people), that's what I mean. =)

October 7, 2011

Ok thanks.

Well the Tetenal variant I am wondering about, is Ultrafin, I am not sure how these types vary from eachother.

=)

October 7, 2011

Hi I've bought a bunch of stuff to have fun with in the coming months, developers, fixers, 120 films, bulk 135mm films, microfilms and so on, - even a new Hassy =) I've been using Rodinal 1:50 for three rolls of Fomapan, which came out really punchy and great, but I have some Tetenal on the way, which I originally planned to use with this film. Rodinal concentrate is, as known, "ever lasting" on a bottle, but how is Tetenal concentrate in this department? I plan to use Tetenal in around 1:20 dillution and I really don't shoot heaps of rolls every day, so the bottle may be standing in a room-tempered cuppboard for a good while. Will it go bad pretty quick? Anyone with experience using "old" Tetenal, which has been standing around for a good while (1 year ++ ) ?

Regards =)

October 6, 2011

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=977570">Luis G</a>: I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying that I don't know any (I know people who are extremely one-side dominated and at the brink of being geniuses, but never both).

I think it is very rare to come across such people. :)

If they are, they might have the abillity to come up with formulas like e = mc^2, or paint the Mona Lisa one day and then go ahead and invent the helicopter a few hundred years before it is actually invented for real. :)

October 5, 2011

Correction: Right side is home to emotion and art.

October 5, 2011

I agree that creativity an suffering may be linked, but I think it is more correct to say that creativity and emotion is linked. I've found that "suffering" damages my photographic creativity, but it enhances my musical creativity and vice versa. I've never met people who are left-brained dominated (math-geeks, physics majors, chess-players etc) that are also creative in the art department and I have rarely come across people who are great artists, but at the same time are great at math, physics and typical logical subjects. Some may argue that the likes of Einstein and Miclelangelo are personality types that have equally active brain-halves, that enables that person to be logically-creative, seeing concepts in logic never seen before. The left side of the brain is said to be home to emotion and art, I am 100% sure they are closely linked and that they can enhance or influence each other and various parts of each other. One artist once said that melancoly is the joy of being sad, but different moods can producs different artistic expressions or influence other parts of creativity. Also, I saw a very interesting program about brain damage and creativity once (BBC), where they followed a few individuals who had suffer strokes or other kinds of damage to their brains, suddenly the left side went haywire and they become hyper creative in painting, music and so on, even though they might have been pretty dead art-wise before their accidents.

October 5, 2011

Bakker: Yes indeed, you are totally right.

I got the link to the user manual on another forum and I have actually printed it out on my printer =) It's a stupid mistake indeed and I kind of suspected that the camera must be cocked before attaching the back. ^^

I will read the manual carefully when I get the time between work and everything else though, because I plan to use the camera in the studio, on location with some canon speedlights via pocket wizards and maybe with a digital back in the future. :)

October 4, 2011

Thanks Russ, yes I noticed this while I was trying to understand up from down on the lens on it, I could not remove it when the camera wasn't cocked, kind of used a few minutes on that one. =)

After googling I found that you can "lock out" a lens from the body if you are not careful (and need a special tool to re-cock the lens), so I take it pretty slow, as I am unsure of any other hidden features that might ruin my day. =) By the way, Fomapan is pretty cheap. It's €2.30 per film when you buy 10 or more rolls from fotoimpex.de, luckily I know some German, so I was able to complete my purchase with no problems. (the shop is in German, but you can order in English via mail from their brochure.) I ordered by email the first time and got a quote and a pay-pal request via mail, easy-peasy. Still, seems like every lesson so far has been, fail once, never again.

Just a positive thing, feels good to use my head for a change :)

October 4, 2011

Ah...!

Ok, I see.

Well this mistake stems from watching a youtube clip where some guy shows how to load the back with film, as he states, this procedure is the same with or without the dark frame.

Thus, I concluded that when you wind the back, you're not really winding it to frame no. 1, the camera will somehow do that for the first picture, or else you would ruin your film if you infact didn't have the dark slide on while cranking the back.

Thanks for the help, I will make sure to wind the camera as well, before I put the filmback on the camera after loading and cranking it to "1". =)

October 4, 2011

Hi Fresh owner of a Hasselblad 503 CW here, pretty familiar with 35mm film cameras, but the Hasselblad is new territory for me. Question: When you've loaded an A12 back with film and you've winded the crank on the film back so that "1" shows in the little window, are you then supposed to crank the camera (cock the body) as well _before_ you mount the back to the body? I did not do this last night when I had my first trial-run with the camera, and I only got 11 frames in the end. I took photos until the main crank of the camera wouldn't wind the film forward any more, so I am sure that there were no more frames left on the film-roll.

- I was shooting a fresh roll of Fomapan 100 ASA

Tips? =)

September 26, 2011

I use coffe more and more these days, but as a general tip, try out caffenol-c-m with TMax 100 as a start, because if you use other films and other ASA ratings, you may need to start adding a restrainer (potassium bromide for example).

Also, check out one of the first entries in the caffenol.blogspot.com blog for the "standard" caffenol-c-m recipe, this works like a charm on TMax 100.

Do NOT try to convert the formula into the typical American "teaspoon of this" "pinch of that", "a square foot-pound of those" etc etc...keep it in grams and liters and milliliters and it will work all the time, every time.

Here are some photos from my recent caffenol attempt, as well as a few general notes about how I did mine:

<a href="http://helino-photo.blogspot.com/2011/08/making-your-own-film-developer-from.html">http://helino-photo.blogspot.com/2011/08/making-your-own-film-developer-from.html</a>

August 26, 2011

The techniuque may already have been covered, but I just wanted to contribute to the thread with a link to Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii's amazing photographs using red/green/blue filters.

Stunning quality and a good inspiration:

<a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html">http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html</a>

August 22, 2011

Thank you all for additional information (and a really funny story as well, the model laughed hard when she heard about the IR-incident) =)

She doesn't have any tattoos, so I don't have to post-process them out or anything ^^

Beautiful model, Russ, she does have the face for vintage stuff, all you need is a mua that can put the makeup on jsut right and fix the bangs and she is ready to go as well! =)

Again, thank you all for valuable information, my analogue processing is still very basic (and not what I do most often), but I'll definitely keep en eye out for older films and equipment. Keywords in this thread really helps the mental trigger, should I come a cross some vintage stuff. =)

Regards =)

August 17, 2011

Thank you for those suggestions for the films I bought, I will check the (only) store for film and developer over here (http://www.fotoimport.com/shop/ ) , perceptol yielded no results, but they seemed to have Tetenal (do I need hardener with that? I use the TMax fixer usually).

I see that b&h has more, but I'll try and order as much as I can from the norwegian shop, to support the local businesses a little, my guess is that they don't sell a lot, because they have several out of date films on sale regulary, which is a bit sad.

August 16, 2011

Sorry for answering every one in the same post, my day-job tend to keep me away from the computer for longer periods. :/

Michael and Andy: Thank you very much for your critic, the photos are indeed mine (my photo.net user name is some old account I created a few years back and haven't really been updated, so I can understand the confusion). =)

The particular lightning used on the black & whites, was deliberately bad, as I was trying to emulate the photos found on the Betty site (especcially the ones in the "black" and in the "white" sections).

As I say in my original post, I think those photos were shot with direct flash/bracket mounted flash of some kind, and, as Lex and Craig mention, placing more weight on content rather than the photographic expertise. ^^

The light is still too soft though, so I would probably use a camera mounted speedlight, because it is smaller, if I was to do this shoot again. - I would definitely light these differently if I was not trying to emulate the Irving photos. =)

Craig: I tried some hard-core googeling, but I cannot seem to find any photos of Irving Klaw with his camera, the only thing I've found so far, was a similar question on yahoo answers, where someone answered that it is almost impossible to know what camera he actually used, because he burned his negatives =)

Thanks for the historic references and information. Unfortunately I don't own a medium format analogue camera (thought about buying a Hasselblad but ended up with the 1ds mk II instead). But knowing film types and such, enables me to look more into characteristics and learn a little more, so get a better idea on how those things worked.

...I'll keep researching though, funny how the Internet tend to contain such obscure information, somewhere =)

Lex: Thanks for the information about embedding photos, the original exports are fitted to a 1280*1024 box for the model, so they are indeed crunched now I suppose. I'll leave them in, if I upload smaller ones, original links would be broken. I wasn't aware that you could attach more than one photo to a post, I saw only one upload button before confirming my post..?

Chris: Would this yield similar results on 35mm as well? I don't own a medium format camera unfortunately. I thought about investing in one, but the cost of a scanner (I am space-challenged, so I don't have room for a wet darkroom), was just too high, so I went for the 1ds mk II instead. I have a Canon 1V which I run a few films trough now than then though, actually just bought a batch of TMax100 and Ilford Panf+, I'll check to see if I can get hold of some of the other Ilford stuff you mention (it's getting harder to get hold of this stuff these days in my country, Norway).

Thank you all for information and suggestions, it really helps a lot. =)

Regards

August 15, 2011

I see that the photos were a little distorted, they look better on my site, here:

<a href="http://www.helino-photo.com/p39802272">http://www.helino-photo.com/p39802272</a>

Sorry about that.

August 15, 2011

I am sorry if this is posted in the wrong forum section, but I feel it belongs more in the BW - Film and negative section than in the digital section of the site, at least the questions I have are related to BW-film and equipment.

Ok, so I photograph a lot of alternative models. I'm not a pro, but take my interest very seriously and have a lot of fun with both film and digital. been photographing people for 3 years now.

Some of the models I photograph, are modern pin-ups. Usually they borrow the styles from the 50's and 60's and incorporate modern stuff like piercings and tatoos and add some very agressive music into the mix, using style names like rockabilly, psychobilly, gothabilly, dead barbies and so on, good fun! =)

One of the models I've photographed before, came to me with an idea that she wanted to do a vintage Betty Page shoot and showed me some photos. I think those were from Irving Klaw's hand, Ms. Page posing on what seemed to be a very crude set/living room and such. (see "the black and the white sections" here <cite><a href="http://www.planetbettie.com/bettiex.htm">www.planetbettie.com/bettiex.htm</a> ).</cite>

I wanted to emulate these crude looking photos using my 1ds mk II digital camera, which made for a bit of research. Not much could be found on the camera type and the film type he used for these photos, but from analysing the photos, it seemed that most were just taken using on board flash (on a bracket of some kind?) and perhaps some kind of fixed focal lenght (35mm or 50mm?). (explaining the amateurish stuff with bits and pieces of furniture in the photos etc?).

Also, many of the photos are crooked and in some, the perspective distortion tells of photos from a 35mm-50mm lens (35mm eqvivvalent) while standing too high and too close to the model.

- Project "Badify your style" was on, funny how we usually try to do the best job possible, and now I had to create really bad ones. =)

Emulating really old style film is very hard to do digitally I think. The conversions I've usually seen, looks too modern and not vintage, there is just something about that old style. Modern b&w films are also ofte "too good" in tonality to recreate the old film look (I photograph 35mm film, develop the negative and scan)......but again, I am not expert, so creating a really old style look may be related to the processing?

What is it with vintage b&w's like the ones in the link? Is it the contrast? The lower dynamic range? Less detail? Grain?

So anyway, these are the final result after the shoot, what do you think about these? Am I in the ballpark here? I feel they have a certain vintage feel to them indeed, allbeit maybe still not as crude as the Bettie pictures in the black and the white section.

About the process:

I used a stuio flash with a 7 degree reflector on it, close to the camera, to produce hard light.

I see now that I probably could have used a regular speedlight, creating even harder light and shadow perhaps. I had the notion that old style camera flash had some kind of round reflector thing about the size of your palm? So I went for the standard reflector on by Bees.

The digital process, consisted of reducing detail, dark edge enhancements, tonality "crunching", black and white conversion and after that, a "old film" emulation plugin from Efex pro 3, which crunched the tonality spectrum even tighter and added grain (causing shadows to block more, highlights to blow here and there and reducing detail even more).

Bonus photo, this is from setting number two, where we took some regular photos with "modern" setups and such, so you see how she looks like in real life, a very adorable red-head. =)

The reason I am asking here, is that I know that there is a vast amount of knowledge about he analouge process here and probably also a lot of technical knowledge about vintage equipment and processing.

- What camera/film did Irving Klaw use for the Betty shots...or what is the most likely used equipment?

- What kind of film was the most widely used one during the 50's for consumers?

- Any ideas/pointers on the difference in 50's films and modern emulsions are greately apperciated.

I did shoot the model with Tri-x 400 and developed that in TMax to see how that panned out, but it was no way near the photos on the Betty-site, grain was way to high and the tonality just wasn't right at all, any manipulation on it just caused the grain to jump out even more.

- I scan my negatives on a Nikon LS-50 negative scanner, but it seemes like grain is enhanced by the scanning process. Am I right, or is the grain in modern films really as hard as "wet sand"..? (I don't have acces to the scans here, as I am still working on them and haven't sent them to my mailbox yet).

Anyway, this was a fun project for me and I hope you like the photos, any pointers/ideas would be greately apperciated. =)

(And I hope you don't mind me posting at this particular section of the forum, I need input from "film-guys" and history buffs, I doubt the digital forum have that! =))

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