tony_demma

<p>Mendel, thanks for the advice. I'll definitely look more into developing my own b/w (after my living situation gets sorted out — long story). The digital camera I have is a Lumix LX7, and while I do love it (and would love a DSLR even more), I simply cannot see myself going primarily digital. Whenever I get my film pictures back, even if it is from wal-mart, they have a special 3-D "naturally suspended in time" sort of look to them — especially slides. When I look at digital, it just seems off. Full frame digital photos look close, but not quite. My LX-7's photos don't come close. And then you have the experience of waiting to see those photos you think were <em>awesome, </em>and getting something out of that regardless of whether or not they came out well or how you expected. With digital, I take my picture and, well, there it is on the screen. I could go on and on.<br> Any way, thank you all for your help. I've heard that the walgreens nearby (the specific walgreens) still develops in-store and returns negatives, so I'll check them out with a old undeveloped "mystery roll". If I don't like what I get, I'll probably just drop cheap consumer film (unless I decide to develop and/or scan b/w myself) and wal-mart all-together. Only time will tell! Here's a picture which I think exemplifies that 3-D "suspended in time" look. Maybe it's just because I took the photo and I was there, but man.</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks for the tip, James. For the Milky Way, I guess I'll have to use Delta 3200 and cross my fingers (with a digital camera nearby). Acros will be reserved for star streaks if not static shots.</p> <p>Robert, thanks for the information. Although that's wayyyy out of reach for me, it's pretty cool.</p>

<p>I do have a Digital camera, but find myself only using it when I don't have film, or if I'm being careful not to overexpose or underexpose my shots. Do you guys think Walgreens or CVS would be better for developing my cheaper film? Do they return negatives? I know there are some older posts about this, but things change over the course of even a couple of years. Right now, my more expensive rolls are going to The Darkroom for processing.</p>

<p>Tuomas, when I took that picture, I remember focusing on the people, if not the circle at the bottom. Unfortunately there is no way for me to rescan because Walmart does not return negatives. As far as I know, it's the full scan. are soft. Walmart gives you prints and a CD with the scans on them, and on a mac the CD software doesn't work, so you have to go in into the files in order to retrieve the scans — the file folder is always called "hires" — hi-res. Here are two more samples: both the same picture, but one is edited to increase brightness, contrast, etc. I remember doing my best to get the photos on focus, but Mendel has brought it to my attention that it would be a better idea to look at grain sharpness. Grain is visible, but it is no longer grain, more like freckles.<br /><br />http://www.photo.net/photo/18074028<br /><br />http://www.photo.net/photo/18074027<br> <br />Lenny, I am definitely <em>not </em>surprised at the results, at least not anymore. When I first got the scans, I was appalled. That was the first time I'd used walmart's services in years! I was just getting back into film photography. Now, like I said, I drop off my cheap film at walmart because I know that the scans are not of good quality, and the rolls I drop off are usually not important to me. This post is a post of curiosity, because from what I know, Wal-mart sends their film out to Fujifilm labs, where the rolls are developed and scanned without returned negatives. How can such a company not have trained people on the job? How can they not have good (i.e. decent) scanners? How can they give me scans which are light years behind consumer scanners such as the Plusteks (https://www.ephotozine.com/article/plustek-opticfilm-8100-film-scanner-review-18933)? Can't they at least offer a "high quality" scanning option to their service?</p>

<p>Over the past few months, I've been sending my (cheap) c41 film to wal-mart for development. 100% of the time, the scans are soft, as if treated with a very slight gaussian blur — I don't know if they do or not, but it just has that bad look to it. Two samples will be included here.<br> Can anybody provide insight into this? Why are their scans so bad? Does this happen at the lab they send the film to, or does it happen later?<br> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18073780-md.jpg" alt="" width="453" height="680" /><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18073779-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" /></p>

<p>Thanks guys!</p>

<p>Hey everyone, I'm planning a trip to California where there will be good opportunities for long exposure night photography. I was considering Delta 3200, but I did a little more research and found that it would not be the best film for the job, and instead I should use a slow film such as Acros 100. My question is: should I shoot it as 100 ISO, or push it to 3200? I'm aiming for shots of the milky way without star streaks.</p>