marizu_okereke

<p>This is an interesting thread. I've been shooting almost exclusively Fuji Pro160 for the last couple of months. I have mainly been scanning the sheets but I have also been printing some of them optically.<br>

Last night, I was preparing some of the scanned images for print and I decided to batch and send some Nikon digital that I shot 6 months ago. When I opened the files, I was a little bit surpried by how punchy and lurid they appeared. It was quite a contrast.<br>

When I have been looking for more punch in film, I have been using Provia (although I like using negative so I'll have to try Ektar). Punch and saturation is available to film users, too. You just have to choose an appropriate stock.<br>

I don't think that one aesthetic is better than the other. I was fortunate enough to see both an Erwin Olaf and a David LaChapelle exhibition on Saturday (NSFW). These photographers are poles apart in terms of their tonality and presentation but they are clearly producing quality work.<br>

It's great that we have the choice. After all, McDonalds probably sells more meals than the finest restauraunts but that doesn't mean that it's the only game in town.</p>

<p>Before Christmas, Jessops in The Trafford Centre (Manchester, UK) was selling off all of their darkroom equipment.<br>

I popped in there again a couple of weeks ago and they seem to have changed their mind and completely restocked.<br>

I'm wondering whether it is down to the individual store and the local market. There are a few colleges around here that have well equiped darkrooms and the students are encouraged to use them.</p>

Using larger format film effectively requires more light for similar depth of field. I regularly shoot 4x5 or 8x10 film at f22.

The camera's bellows extension loses a stop of light. To do this, I need to be reading f32@iso 100 at the subject.

I sometimes use a single big light from a long distance with small cameras to light backgrounds etc in order to minimise

the amount of light fall off over the lit area.

Are the SB600 and 900 the same age?

One of my friends had told me that the colour temperature of flash tubes warms up as they get older. He was talking

about monoblocs.

I am also aware that the temperature of some flashes varies slightly with output.

I wondered whether these could be factors in your temperature observations.

<p>You may be able to tell whether your films will benefit from a pre-soak by looking at the negs.<br>

I never pre-soaked 35mm or 120 film. I switched to a Jobo when I started 5x4 but I found that my skies weren't as smooth as I expected. Pre-soaking helped that.<br>

I have recently started 10x8 in trays and found a little bit of streaking on my negs which I think may be helped by a pre-soak as that's what got the 5x4's looking good.<br>

If the negs look ok without it then there would be no need to pre-soak.</p>

<p>Depends which Manchester you mean. I live in Manchester, Lancashire, UK and if I'm not doing it myself I tend to use DS Colour Labs in Didsbury for my E6 (colour slide) and C41 (colour neg) processing. My college lecturers recommended them. They do a good job and they are competitively priced on mail order. I tend to personally drop the mail order through their door at night and pick them up during the next couple of days (you need to use the on-line form).<br>

I'm not sure where processes B&W but it's so quick and easy to do yourself that I never bother.<br>

If you specify your Manchester (UK, USA/State etc) then other people may have other recommendations.</p>

<p>There are some video's on his website that show him making some of the photographs. There are also some good tutorials on the web for the post-processing side of things.</p>

<p>These comparisons aren't absolute. You need to look at the pictures with the workflow that you intend to use.<br>

People can talk all that they like about the advantages of drum scanning 6x7 film but if you haven't got a drum scanner and can't afford the money or time to send them out then it doesn't make any difference.<br>

Shoot some film stocks that you are considering using and some digital. Scan the film using the scanner that you are thinking about buying and compare the results.<br>

You will probably just find that they are different. I find that they both have different (and overlapping in places) uses.<br>

Enjoy your photography :)</p>

<p>How dense do the negs look?<br>

On the Holga, because you don't have as much control over exposure, some of your negs can end up very light or very dense.<br>

Consumer scanners like the Epson V700 don't cope as well with very dense negs. They need careful use of the scanning settings.</p>

<p>Because I own a camera.</p>

<p>Hi Maurice, people are giving you a lot of great advice but it probably looks a bit complicated. I learned a lot of this kind of stuff by taking a 12 week Basic SLR night school course. I found it a lot easier than reading books and going on forums.<br>

If you get the opportunity, a course like that can really help to unlock the possibilities of that great camera and get you closer to producing the images that you aspire to.<br>

Good luck!</p>

<p>Jobo do have a different roller for running the CPE2 without water as the water does lubricate the standard roller as you suspected.<br>

Easy Running Roller<em> Item No. 92167</em> <br /> Roller<em> Item No. 07007</em> <br>

http://www.jobo.com/web/Spareparts.348.0.html<br>

You must put some water in the bottom to cover the heating element before switching it on.</p>

<p>Relevant? Irrelevant? Depends what you are trying to achieve and what kind of shooting experience you are after. I personally love it!<br>

This guy seems to like it for some reason<br>

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=856953<br>

The article implies that time constraints dictated the P45 over his preferred film.</p>

<p>Dust tends to be more of an issue if you are shooting stopped down. I don't tend to notice it on my d300 if I'm shooting handheld at f1.4-f5.6. If I'm working with lighting and I'm shooting f11/f16 then it can become a lot more of a prominent issue.</p>

 

<p>Check that the lens T-switch is in the N position.</p>

<p>A challenge that you might need to overcome if you shoot large format 4x5 and roll film back is that a given lens focal length will give radically different field of views.<br>

A 150mm lens on 4x5 is standard. A 150mm lens on 6x7 roll gives a telephoto perspective. I have both marked on my ground glass and they are radically different.<br>

Maybe large format is an option if you do it all using 4x5 film holders.<br>

This is actually one thing that I really like about LF - the ability to choose your film emulsion on a per shot basis.<br>

Good luck!</p>

<p>Yes you can but you will need to find a way of triggering it. This could be as simple as an optical trigger unit. The power of the SB600 will likely be lower than the monolights and the recharge time could well be slower.</p>

<p>Whilst, I personally would enjoy the option of video in my DSLR, it could be a different story for events journalists. Many events license the video rights separately. I shot at something that the BBC had exclusive video rights for. The marshalls were running around and stopping all of the people trying to video it on their phones!<br>

If DSLR's had video capability, I don't know whether they would have allowed me to use it in the venue despite being the official photographer. The BBC rights were just to valuable for them.</p>

<p>Arnold Newman was a very influential environmental portrait photographer. That would be a great place to start.<br>

He photographed a number of artists in ways that referenced their work (Picasso, Hockney, etc.)<br>

When I think of this brief, I'm thinking of his portraits of Kenneth Noland http://www.answers.com/topic/kenneth-noland and David Ben-Gurion (politician) http://www.imageedu.com/Mode/UploadFiles/200611/20061129104051175.jpg<br>

Both subjects are presenting things and viewed in a wide angle perspective.<br>

These quilts are here babies. She is their creator. The emanate from her.<br>

You could do something like this (not from her mouth)<br>

http://firsthour.net/screenshots/katamari-damacy/katamari-damacy-king-of-all-cosmos-rainbow-suck.jpg<br>

but with her at the head of an undulating sea of quilted colours.<br>

Go as wide as you dare and have some fun.<br>

M</p>

 

<p>On my D300, on some of the AF-C settings, the suutter can be released before auto focus has completed. Maybe that is the same on the D90.</p>

<p>Hi Scott, I might have misunderstood your post, but you do actually get the extra frame rate with AA's. I use high capacity NIMH's.</p>

<p>My medium and large format cameras are totally manual but I shoot a lot of Aperture priority on my D300. I also shoot Manual when needed and occasionally SP with Auto ISO for some sport stuff.<br>

The benefit of shooting manual is that you visually evaluate the scene, consider the meter's suggestion and then make the exposure having deviated from the meter's suggestion as you consider appropriate. It you just line up the meter in the middle then you might as well be shooting AP as you gain the ability to quickly turn round and make a grab shot if the lighting is different on the other side.<br>

The problem that I find with making a judgement based on the D300 meter reading is that I'm not exactly sure what the Matrix meter is doing. On a meter that just averages the scene, like my Seconic, I can tell that a bright area in the background will bias the reading so I may expose longer than the meter suggests in order to accomodate.<br>

Sometimes the matrix meter really calculates things well, such as a grab shot that I made of someone blowing candles out on a cake. I have no idea how it knew what I wanted. At other times for completely unknown (to me) reasons, it occasionally makes a real mess.<br>

I use the different modes as I deem appropriate for the situation.</p>

 

<p>There is a lot of good advice about cross contamination occurring from the stabiliser step of the E6 process. I will attempt to do that in a separate tub as recommended.<br>

I get the impression that the first developer is most prone to contamination so I was wondering whether I need to have a separate tank for processing E6 only and never let any B&W chems into it or am I ok just using the same tank but washing it thoroughly with water?<br>

I am also a bit unsure of the best way to do the stabiliser in a separate tub. My Fuji 3E6 kit only has only the same proportion of stabiliser as the other steps. I can't think of a good way to 'dunk' the film in it if all of the other chems are being mixed in rotary amounts. Also if I take it off the spool, I think that the roll will all just stick together so I don't know how to ensure that all of the layers are getting stabilised.<br>

Thanks in advance for your help,<br>

Marizu</p>

<p>I am in the UK and we can stil get Protectan.<br>

I have ordered some but it has been taking AGES to arrive. In desperation, I cracked open my E6 chemistry and developed some slides (not altogether successfully , but that's a different thread :) )<br>

I bought some butane and thought of using that but I am concerned that some liquid comes out when it is squirted. Is this liquid butane? Is it a propellant? Most importantly, is it likely to adversely affect my chemistry?<br>

Thank you,<br>

M</p>

<p>Don't overexpose your images whatever lens you are using.<br>

If you are taking portraits of people, it is generally a bad idea to have particularly highly saturated colours. It will make the people's skin look weird.<br>

Whatever choices you make, try to take some test shots before the date of people with similar skin complexions. That way you can choose appropriate saturation and exposure.<br>

If you shoot in RAW then you can apply the saturation afterwards in software like Nikon Capture NX2. That way, you don't need to make choices that you get stuck with.<br>

Good luck.</p>