jim_causey

Get Hewes stainless-steel reels and an SS tank. Compared to what people drop on camera gear and expendables, this is an investment that will last you a lifetime.

 

Some of the plastic reels and tanks are decent, but can be a real PITA if there's even a drop of moisture on them.

 

If you've ever tried any other reels and had problems with them, you'll be delighted at how easy it is to use Hewes reels... they make it practically impossible to load film incorrectly.

Have you tried re-washing?

 

They look more like Photo Flo stains to me.

If your budget is really more toward $1250, stay with the 300D, and get glass. But keep in mind the kind of things you shoot -- if you shoot a lot of action and sports, the limited buffer of the 300D can be extremely frustrating.

Reticulation is completely unmistakable, and much more serious than what you describe.

 

The effect you're describing with grain is more subtle, and more likely with the difference in temperature that you describe.

Why don't you switch to a C41 B&W film and just use photoworks or shutterbug or something like that?

Ron,

 

Thanks for working on this... I would love to work on room-temperature C41 myself, and really appreciate your efforts.

 

I don't find 24 minutes to be too long -- I often develop B&W at dilutions that require @20 minute development times.

 

68 degrees is not a problem (since I'm commonly using it anyway); if there are no downsides, 75 wouldn't bother me either.

 

None of the other times you mention are too long either.

 

I'd prefer not to use a Blix for the reasons you've commonly cited when discussing E6 kits.

Best suggestion I've seen came from Rowland Mowrey here in photo.net: use a bulb syringe or some other kind of squeeze bottle filled with photo-flo and give an even squirt down each side of the film.

I made the mistake the other day of leaving film to hang only for an hour (since it dries that quickly at the labs at school) in my bathroom; the emulsion was still tacky, and picked up lint like crazy.

 

I'd say 3 hours as a safe minimum in a humid area, overnight to be safe.

Aside from issues of resolution, you have a lot more control over how your prints will come out if you submit digital files, particularly if the lab you're using can provide you with a color profile for their system.

Medium format photography is like any other kind of film photography. The size of the negatives is larger than 35mm, but still small enough that commercial processing facilities are not uncommon.

 

Whether or not you get slides or negatives depends on whether you shoot slide (reversal) or negative film, just like with 35mm.

 

You can scan the negatives, or slides, if you want to, just like 35mm. Or, you can make traditional (either negative-to-positive, or Cibachrome/Ilfochrom from slides) prints from them, just like 35mm.

 

120 prints can be enlarged as much as your lab (or enlarger) can handle; acceptable enlargements will depend on your tolerance for sharpness and grain, as well as the choice of film, but will likely exceed those of 35mm in all circumstances.

 

Some labs can produce prints from 120. If your lab offers 120 processing, they may send it to a larger office to handle it, but in any case, a lab that can process 120 can normally also produce prints from it.

I've been reading with some interest lately about the technical

properties of Kodachrome -- in particular, the rem-jet anti-halation

layer.

 

I did not previously realize that different films took different

approaches to anti-halation. Apparently, other films (such as motion

picture films) sometimes also use rem-jet.

 

My questions:

 

1) How many different approaches to anti-halation are there?

 

2) Why do different films use these different approaches?

 

I could see, for instance, if rem-jet were invented before other

technologies, why it would have been used in early Kodachrome, but if

that were the case surely Kodak would have used a more modern

technology when they reformulated the emulsion later on?

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

Sandra,

 

If you intend to process traditional B&W film in any quantity, it'll be far more economical to simply process it yourself. In addition, you'll have far more consistency and control -- selection of chemistry, adjustment of processing time, etc.

 

Very few professional labs exist that will provide the same quality and consistency that you can easily reach on your own.

Tim,

 

How much time do you think you've spent getting worked up about this issue that you could have spent shooting, developing, or printing?

 

I definitely go out of my way to search for answers, but I try to be sympathetic to others who aren't as successful.

 

And as someone who made the drastic mistake of posting a "1st roll of film" message, I have no regrets -- I wanted to thank the photo.net regulars for all the help their answers have provided over the years, and also share my excitement with like-minded photographers.

I developed my first roll of film in over a decade yesterday.

 

I've been reading photo.net for years, and playing with various color

films and, more recently, digital cameras, but the whole time, I've

been aching to get back into the darkroom. I took a photo class as a

kid, but struggled with it quite a bit, and took those fears with me

into adulthood.

 

Yesterday, in the closet, I rolled the Tri-X 400 onto a Hewes steel

roll, then processed it... and at the end, the joy of seeing those

silver negatives hanging to dry was greater even than I thought it

would be. And it was so much easier than I remembered, and feared,

that I still can't believe it.

 

Thanks to everyone who's posted here over the years for the tips and

help... that Hewes roll was so much easier to use than the plastic

crap I used in school that I nearly wept with delight.

 

Now, I just hope that the B&W tools and chemicals that I've been

aching to play with for years stay available for a while longer.

I really hope that Ilford survives. I'm moving to digital for color work, but I'm just now falling back in love with traditional black-and-white processes, and I never dreamed that those materials would be dying off so quickly.

Buy a good tripod and cable/electronic release, and spend the rest on film and development.

 

Get out and shoot, shoot, shoot!

To backk up something Marcus already said, make sure you reformat your CF cards on the camera each time before shooting.

JJ,

 

I'm hardly outraged, just continuously stunned by people who have enough disposable income to buy expensive cameras without doing the most fundamental of research into their features or how they work.

How on earth could you buy a camera as expensive as the Digital Rebel without knowing that it's an SLR, or that you can't use the LCD for composing photos? If you don't understand these basics beforehand, WHY would you invest that kind of money in the tool?

I'm now into my third day of ownership of the EOS 300D (Digital

Rebel). Up until now, I've been a user of Minolta manual focus film

SLRs, with a brief period when younger owning the Minolta Maxxum 7000.

 

My impressions of the camera so far are, for the most part, very

positive.

 

-- Shooting digitally is FREEING. My learning process has been

greatly accelerated by having instant feedback on my exposure choices,

framing, etc. This is exactly why I wanted to go digital at some

point, and I couldn't be happier with this aspect.

 

-- Image quality is quite nice. I've taken mostly snapshots while

learning the controls, so my pictures are nothing to write home about,

but I can't wait to go do some serious shooting.

 

-- Compared to my Minolta X-700 (and especially to my SR-7), this

camera feels like a toy. I've got basic prime lenses for my Minolta

that are far, far heavier than this body and kit put together. With

all that said, the amera still doesn't feel like it was poorly

built... just... "economically" built.

 

-- Compared to the MF cameras I've used, modern SLRs appear to be far

less intuitive. My Minoltas have very little "hold this button while

turning this dial, except when you're holding this button on the third

day of the week". (That being said, there are many easy ways to screw

up your shots with my Minoltas that are completely automated away with

this camera)

 

-- Autofocus has changed MASSIVELY since the days of the Maxxum 7000.

AF was little more than a toy on that camera, but on the Rebel

Digital, it's positive and faaast and reasonably quiet too. I can't

wait to get some USM glass to see how it really works.

I concur. Not everyone who takes photos that they love uses Canon, Nikon, or Leica.

 

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for their answers. <p>It looks as though I overreacted upon glancing at the <a href="http://www.minoltausa.com/eprise/main/MinoltaUSA/MUSAContent/CPG/CPG_Attachments/Maxxum_Lenses">Maxxum lens chart</a> on Minolta's site. Most of the lenses I thought had been discontinued were either replaced with restyled lenses, or still exist lower on the chart in higher-end lens ranges.<p>

 

Some of the lenses listed above (100mmf2, 135mm f2.8 non-portrait, the 50mm 1.7) have all been discontinued, but it sounds like that may not be such a big deal... there's still a great 50mm 1.4, there are portrait 100mm and 135mm, and then the zooms...

 

Bruce, Canon and Nikon both still have 100 (well, 105) and 135mm lenses in the AF ranges (and Nikon in their manual range), in both soft focus and standard versions (actually, I can't find soft-focus Nikons on their site), but that alone is not such a big deal to me.

 

Thanks again to everyone!

I've got a Minolta X-700 and am slowly building up an MD/MC lens

collection. However, I do occasionally dream of getting a new AF

system someday.

 

I've been leaning towards a Maxxum 7, but it looks like Minolta has

discontinued a large number of interesting fast prime lenses in

their AF line (ie: no 135mm or 100mm without "soft focus"). Is

Minolta going solely for the consumer zoom market?

I find Jay's comment highly irritating. No one is forced to smoke cigars, and if someone who does has any illusions about the dangers of using tobacco products, they deserve neither sympathy nor this sort of pseudo-parental hand-wringing.

 

Besides, regardless of what you think of cigars, you can still appreciate the art of this shot, and the craftsmanship that goes into their construction.