bernhard

June 25, 2003

Did you turn off all of the automatic features especially black and white point clipping and sharpening? Did you scan in negative or image mode?

I never scanned NPH on my FS4000 and NPH could be just like that. But whatever film you use it is best to use Vuescan to squeeze the most out of your film and scanner and give you a raw image with as much information as possible (that's what Vuescan is good at), but do all the postprocessing in photoshop, because photoshop is much better at this than Vuescan.

So turn of most auto-... things, scan in image mode, save as 16 bit tif (or raw file and apply the FS4000 ICC profile in photoshop) and go from there in photoshop.

June 23, 2003

Lex, you seemed to be a bit pi$$ed at me, because I disregrded your advice, but when in doubt I usually go with Scott's advice, his advice has (almost) never let me down. And I was in a light mood when I wrote the reply, sorry.

Reina's advice sounds interesting, especially as DD-X is the recommended push developer for D3200, her pic looks rather low contrast with acceptable grain and I have a fresh bottle of DD-X.

Also sounds like a sound compromise between Lex and Scott, I don't want to alienate anyone :)

June 23, 2003

"Not sure if you've ever heard of it, ..."

Mrs. Tweezers: ?... haven?t you heard of the vinegar trick?? said Mrs.

Tweezers.

Owen?s parents hadn?t. Mrs. Tweezers filled them in.

[from my kids' favourite book]

No I haven't heard of Acu/Diafine, but thanks for filling me in :)

I haven't bought some developer yet, so I'll go with what Scott says, sorry

Lex and Philippe.

As for Technidol, I guess your point is, that I would need constant agitation.

I just have small tank, but in my biochenistry lab we have plenty of devices

to constantly stir variuos soups, so may be I'll give it a try. Any idea

about times for D3200 in Technidol?

If anyone is interested, I posted an <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1567156">example </a>from

my experiments with TX (old) and extended times in dilute developer mixes

(used DD-X, because I haven't found any Xtol yet). It's just a very quick

scan to see what I can expect, shadows a gone of course, contrast is still

too high and tonality is not so good, but at least I got in the ball park.

And it's an example for what I would want to use the high speed low contrast

combo.

Thanks again all of you

June 22, 2003

OK, that helped. Tomorrow I'll get some D3200 and Microphen

Thank you all

June 21, 2003

Thanks Lex, always a pleasure!

June 21, 2003

Lex,

I tried Delta 3200 only once @1600 developed in Xtol and it was MUCH granier than expected. Nevertheless I'll try it again on your suggestion, bur what would be the developer to get 3200 and reasonable good grain out of it? In a local shop there's a lot of developer gathering dust on the shelves an I can get it for half the price, so I can afford buying a special one for this task.

June 20, 2003

I'm looking for a really low contrast - high speed (3200 and more)

film or film processing combo. Grain is less important and I'll scan

the negs (35mm and 120 depending on how grain turns out). The final

image will be B&W but I 'm also willing to try some C41 color hi speed

film if it sounds promising.

I already tried XP2 pushed two stops and

there is just not enough detail and too much grain in the shadows. How

contrasty is Press 800, Press 1600 or NPZ pushed 1 or 2 stops? Will

the shadows hold up better?

I'm currently experimenting with Tri-X/HP5 and long development in

dilute developers and sparse agitation (5s every 3 minutes) and plan

to try Delta 3200 so if anyone knows a good recipe to maintain speed

and lower contrast, bring it on.

Thanks for your help.

June 19, 2003

Based on the data sheets the info above is correct, but from my experience it is not. Even when exposed at 400 both films tend to loose shadow detail and increase grain in the shadows, so that many people shoot them at 320 or 200 to begin with. So if I were in your shoes I'd have it pushed at least one stop. If shadow detail is important and you can tolerate some additional grain penalty push 2 stops. As both films have very low contrast, the increase in contrast from pushing is most likely not relevant.

My experience with pushed XP2 however was rather mixed. I get better grain AND shadow detail with Tri-X or HP5 pushed in Xtol (processed my self) so that I essentially stopped pushing chromogenics.

June 3, 2003

Is there a way to give subscribers priorties on the server meaning that all/more requests to the database and server by subscribers are served before request by non-subscribers are served. This would make the site faster for subscribers and slower for non-subscribers. Or in other words those who pay get a bigger piece of the bandwidth/throughput of the server. A reminder along Bob's suggestion just above my post could say that if you pay, the access to photo.net is not only unlimited but also faster.

A major incentive to subscribe in my book.

Any M user eating a German sausage? · May 27, 2003

after more than 3 years in the "New World" I'm now back to the "Old World" in very heart of Bratwurst country, Frankonia. So if you ever get the urge, you are hereby formally invited to stay a couple of days at my house (provided you don't take nude pics of my wife while I'm at work). I have to admit that I'm NOT a Leica user though, hope this is no an obstacle.

May 22, 2003

Although everyone should know this: RAID1 is no substitute for backups.

Sure RAID1 saves the day when one HD fails, but if a virus or toddler (not sure where the difference is) gains acces to your files, they both will happily mess up your data in ALL HDs on the RAID.

May 19, 2003

Leave out the 35mm reel and use enough dev to cover the 2 120 reels. The movement of the 2 120 reels during inversion will provide sufficient agitation.

May 8, 2003

1.Remove the requirement for comments on 1-2 and 7.

The least that will happen is that the number of 7s will increase dramatically

2. Require that photo comments be at least 40 characters long (about 7-8

words)

Nice idea, but people playing the ratings game will learn how to paste an

enthusiastic but meaningless standard text of what ever size you mandate

and you might end up with <a

href="http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member-all?proc_name=ad_general_comments&user_id=455896#ph_photos">comments

like these</a>, only a little longer ...

3. For photos on the system less than 30 days, users would be limited

to not more than 5% of 7's. So, someone can go through older pictures in

the database and rate the ones he or she likes without restriction, but on

newer pictures would be limited to no more than 1 "7" per 20 photos rated.

Excellent idea. Why not apply the same idea to the raters. Everyone has to

maintain a balanced (bell-shaped) distribution of their ratings and if the

distribution is to skewed, they have to give out a couple of 3s or 4s before

they can give more 6s and 7s.

May 4, 2003

The artefacts in the gallery images in my post above (2nd and 3rd image) are gone as I re-uploaded them as Gordon suggested and obviously the changed chroma sub-sampling since Noverber 2001 helps a lot. Just for reference I attach the version wwith artefacts.

May 4, 2003

Ok Gordon,

here is an example:

This is the original:

<img src="http://www.photo.net/users/bernhard/hatbreaks.jpg"

alt="original">

This is how the large view appears in the gallery:

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/432687&size=lg"><img

src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=432687&size=lg"

alt="large photo.net view"></a>

And this is the small view that most people see first:

<img

src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=432687&size=sm"

alt="small photo.net view">

I hope you can see the artefacts around the hat.

Cheers

Bernhard

May 2, 2003

1. Nuke the medium view.

2. Leave uploads untouched as long as they meet the dimension and filesize guidelines. Most artefacts (and they are pretty common) on photo.net seem to be exaggeration of sharpening artefacts (possibly) by JPEG recompression.

3. If people want to upload files that exceed the guidelines, allow it, but charge for it. Sell the right for bigger individual uploads or a bigger total portfolio size or a combination thereof. Maybe a seperate icon could identify those people who find it worth to go the extra mile/buck to present their pics as good as possible. This would also help spotting photo.netters who care about the quality of their pics.

I have said it before, I would happily pay a membership's fee worth just to keep photo.net from messing with my pics.

March 13, 2003

Tri-X @ B&H is cheap, they have 3 flavors. 1. Made in USA for USA, 2. made in USA for outside the USA, 3. made somewhere else. You want 2. as it's much cheaper than 1. at the same quality but only slightly more expensive than 3. which is of unknown or variable quality.

PORTRA B&W, USER RESPONSE PLEASE · March 13, 2003

Do you print yourself? If yes, XP-2 is better. If you have them printed, your choice depends heavily on the lab, some might do better with Portra B&W others with XP-2. Ask them.

March 13, 2003

Tri-X in Rodinal gives you nice grain, but as said above, the classic character of this grain might not make through the scan. I never used D-76, but Tri-X (more precisely TX aka old Tri-X pan) in Xtol is amazingly fine grained. If you can tolerate more contrast (and I can with my FS4000) 100TMX pushed to 400 in Xtol is very nice, definitely better to scan than TX.

My choice would primarily depend on the situation: high contrast scene - XP2. Low contrast scene - 100TMX @ 400. Low light, where you need a film that tolerates underexposure best: TX.

March 12, 2003

2 years ago I tried to capture the leonid showers, one camera with NPZ, one with Provia 400F. What you describe with NPZ is like a deja vu, I got EXACTLY the same crap, the negs were just too thin, I didn't even attempt to scan them. Provia 400F however came out pretty decently exposed and I didn't even push it. So Scott's suggestion is right on the money.

March 10, 2003

bold off.

March 8, 2003

I find the XP-2 'rolls over and plays dead' if shot at 800, but the TCN gives a quite usable 'drugstore print' under the same circumstances.

I absolutely agree. Even when rated lower, ANY of the Kodak flavors of C-41 B&W in my hands gave better results from consumer minilabs with respect to grain in the shadows.

March 8, 2003

When I bought my first all manual rangefinder I also guessed exposure and used Ilford XP-2 super, it is just what you need: B&W, C-41, the widest exposure latitude in any film I know and if you want re-start your own darkroom you can easily print it yourself. XP-2 is ISO 400, most people rate it 250 which makes eyeballing exposure easier anyway as you can start with a sunny 16 and 1/250s and go from there.

March 7, 2003

Ask the lab about their experience with this film. If they don't have any I'd consider using a different lab. If they are however nice and forthcoming and you can talk to the actual guy doing the processing you could maybe risk doing the following: Shoot @1600, check the dev times for their developer (Tmax or Tmax RS ???) and tell the guy: "I want it processed for A minutes in developer B at C degrees. If you have any doubts about them doing ot right, get the film somewhere else, develop yourself or shoot C-41.

March 7, 2003

5063 is old Tri-X 400 (TX) in 135

6043 is old Tri-X 400 (TX) in 120

6049 is old Tri-X 320 (TXP) in 120/220 from the Xtol-datasheet J-109 Feb 02 and a <a href="http://wwwfr.kodak.com/FR/plugins/acrobat/fr/professional/argentique/FilmsTRI_X.pdf">french datasheet that google found</a>. No info on the numbers for the new Tri-Xes 400TX and 320TXP. And finally I have to quote myself from a thread a couple of weeks ago: "I hope Kodak sacks the guy responsible for their film codes."

Sign In

Profiles

Forums

Blogs

Events

Downloads

Gallery

Store

Posts posted by bernhard