rexmarriott

On 4/20/2023 at 7:29 PM, Minox said:

Fomapan 400 was one of the very few choices I had, once the film price skyrocketed. Apart from some 30m rolls of APX 400, Tri-X and HP5 acquired right before the Covid time, I had to stock up a bit. My choice for 100 and 400 was Fomapan, but these are strange-behaving films. I tamed the 100 and 400 in the end, by shooting at box speed but process it at half the value. 

For Fomapan 400 you can see some results here, although nailing this film is still a work in progress: https://juliantanase.com/the-strangeness-of-fomapan-400/

Alternatively, I bought (not very recently, but last year in Dec) 2 rolls of 30m Ilford XP2, which is also one of the films with a very good value for money.

You may try the Rollei Retro 400 S, although I never shot this film. It's right under 60 euro, and not bad images out of it, from what I see around.

Wishing you good luck !

I've also taken to metering Fomapan 400 at 200 and developing as per 400 in Ilfosol 3 and the results are a lot better than if I follow Fomapan's recommendations.

As it happens, I just bought some more bulk film and there was no Fomapan 400 in stock, so I got Kentmere 400 instead for about £75 for 30.5m. This is a film I can shoot at box speed. My first impressions are favourable. Perhaps there is life after HP5.

26 minutes ago, rexmarriott said:

Today being a bank holiday I'm at a bit of a loose end, so I've been rummaging through old invoices to find out how much the price of Ilford HP5 has risen in the UK in recent times. I bought a 30m bulk roll in June 2022 for £69.17. The cost today, from the same supplier, is £105. I believe that this is a 51.8% increase in price 10 months. Gor blimey.

What of Fomapan 400? The price of a 30m roll in March 2022 was £40.25; today it costs £56, an increase of 39.1%. After the holiday, I think I might be getting in touch with Ilford.

On 4/6/2023 at 11:49 AM, rodeo_joe1 said:

I doubt that they're the same. The Kentmere brand name has been owned by Harman technologies for many years, while the Agfa photo brand is owned and distributed by Lupus imaging & media. 

Rumour has it that Agfa films are manufactured by Fuji. Fuji photo products also being part of the Lupus portfolio.

FWIW, film has always been expensive stuff, both in time and materials. One of, if not the main reason, why digital so quickly displaced it. 

Today being a bank holiday I'm at a bit of a loose end, so I've been rummaging through old invoices to find out how much the price of Ilford HP5 has risen in the UK in recent times. I bought a 30m bulk roll in June 2022 for £69.17. The cost today, from the same supplier, is £105. I believe that this is a 51.8% increase in price 10 months. Gor blimey.

2 hours ago, Niels - NHSN said:

Kentmere 400 or AgfaPhoto APX 400 - whichever is cheaper as it is likely the same product. Much better than Fomapan 400 which is at most ISO 200 if you care for shadow details.

I checked out prices for bulk rolls of AgfaPhoto APX 400. The Kentmere is cheaper here.

2 hours ago, Niels - NHSN said:

Kentmere 400 or AgfaPhoto APX 400 - whichever is cheaper as it is likely the same product. Much better than Fomapan 400 which is at most ISO 200 if you care for shadow details.

I've got a bulk roll (30m) of Kentmere 400 on order. Cost me £75. I'm also now using Kentmere paper instead of Ilford MGRC. As I understand it, Kentmere is now owned by Harman Technology, who also own Ilford. The Ilford Photo website says Kentmere 'follows the same high quality processes that are used to make all Ilford Photo films and papers.' If so, that'll do for me.

Today I turned to my trusted darkroom supplier to order a bulk roll (30m) of Ilford HP5 Plus and found it now retails at £105. It seems like yesterday that I was paying £60. I like this film, find it versatile and have got used to it, so it's with a heavy heart that I conclude that I can no longer afford it.

I've been using Fomapan 400 recently. I find that if I shoot it at 400 ISO I get images that are seriously underexposed, so I have to overexpose by at least 1 stop.

The other alternative for bulk loading I see is Kentmere 400.

Does anyone feel the same way as me about HP5? If so, what has been your chosen alternative? This is probably going to be a UK only thread, but you never know.

6 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

WRT sprocket-hole streaming. I can honestly say I have never, ever seen this effect on any film I've developed over many decades, using the method of agitation I described above: Tip the tank upside-down, wait for the air bubbling to stop (2 seconds tops), right the tank and give it a knock on the bench.

Streaming marks usually come from too little, rather than too much agitation. This can be caused by tipping and righting the tank too quickly, and not letting the bubbling airspace do its work of mixing stale and used developer.

Like I said, it's not cocktail shaking, nor a gentle "don't wake the film fairies". It's in between those extremes.

Perhaps it might be instructive to read up on a tried and tested method of large-scale commercial processing agitation called 'Nitrogen-burst'. This was used throughout the film industry before continuous roller-processing became the norm.

Thank you, Rodeo Joe. Clearly, it was high time I revisited my technique; I'm going to put your advice into practice.

23 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

Could also be air bubbles clinging to the edge of the film. 

Are you using that daft slo-mo figure-of-eight inversion method shown on the Internet? If so, don't! 

I have no idea where that stupid method came from, but it's just plain wrong. 

Simply tip the tank smartly upside down, hold it there for a couple of seconds, then turn it back upright. Repeat that 2 or 3 times, then knock the bottom of the tank on a padded surface to dislodge any air bubbles. (I use a folded towel on my work surface). 

I've used that agitation regimen for 60 years, with thousands of films, and never had a marked film - well, not one that could be attributed to poor agitation anyway. 

WRT sufficient developer in the tank; don't overfill it either. Inversion agitation needs an air space in the tank, because it's air bubbling through the spiral that does the work of mixing stale developer with fresh. And that's why the slo-mo figure-of-eight method is really poor. 

Take note of what Kodak recommend. They should know what they're talking about after all.

Extract from Kodak T-max datasheet - 

Except 7 inversions in 5 seconds is too fast and too many IMHO. Two or three inversions with a count of two in the upside-down position is more like film agitation and less like cocktail-shaking!🙂

Thank you, Rodeo Joe.

I started processing my own film 8 years ago. I think I got my method from a leaflet that came with a Paterson developing tank, and refined it on the basis of my reading. Am I using the daft figure of 8 method? I hold the tank in both hands, invert it, twisting it at the same time, then right it, twisting again, and then bang the bottom of the tank 3 or 4 times.

I have, from time to time, had problems with 35mm film whereby the sprocket holes show as light ghosts within the frame, along the long side. I read up on this, and found various different suggestions as to the cause. The one that sounded the most plausible was that the agitation was too vigorous and the ghost sprockets were caused by water gushing through the holes. In response to this, I adopted a gentler approach, and have not seen the ghosts again.

All of which is to say that I'm now split as to how vigorous the agitations should be. What do you say?

3 hours ago, Dustin McAmera said:

It might be due to foam restricting access of the developer to the film along the edge nearer to the surface in the tank. You could try using a slightly larger volume of solution.

This sounds spot on, Dustin. I will make the necessary adjustments this evening. Many thanks.

I've twice recently come across this fault that I had not seen before - cloudy blotches, here along the left-hand edge of the negative.

On the two occasions I've seen this I was using different cameras and different films (Ilford HP5 and Kentmere 400), so I'm assuming that the fault lies with my developing process.

Can you help me identify the cause?

A lot of the Kaiser products are rebranded from other manufactures. The Kaiser plastic reloadable are the same as those from AP but cost twice as much. Same with the Kaiser film loader - same as the one selling by the name Bobinquick - only difference is branding and the almost twice as high price for the Kaiser product - at least in Europe.

 

If reuse of standard cassettes isn't appealing to you, a little patience will pay off:

 

I recently spotted a batch of NOS Ilford reloadables from the 60's/70's on one of the other forms, great quality from back when Ilford sold empty reloadable cassettes and film "refills" in aluminium canisters.

 

The FSU casettes @JDMvW depicts above also show up on eBay from time to time, at least they did when the Ukraine sellers were active.

 

I haven't seen any reloadable cassettes in current production worth anything.

The current commercial preloaded cassettes are better, but as you can't open them without breaking them, you need a film extractor - if you wind the film into the spool.

I'm going to use up the cassettes I've bought, and then I am going to use your suggested method, Niels. I never fully rewind the film, preferring to cut the end of the film in the light, so I might not need a film extractor, but...

There are metal film extractors - try eBay.

 

but you can jury rig work arounds too

[ATTACH=full]1422586[/ATTACH]

1987-03 Modern Photography

... I am keen to try out this work-around, JDMvW. Thank you for sharing that. When using non-reusable cassettes, even though I leave some film hanging out, I see a need for a film retriever: when the bulk roll ends and I inevitably wind the last roll fully into the cassette. Waste not, want not!

I own and use vintage Ilford reloadables, unbranded metal reloadables, Leica IXMOOs and FILCAs as well as Nikon cassettes for Nikon F and F2, and some FSU reloadables I got from Ukraine before the war.

I actually find reusing regular commercial cassettes the easiest. Get a bag from your local lab (if you have one). There need to be a little film snip left out of the cassette, and you just tape it to film in the loader.

Never a need to open the cassette, indefinitely reusable, free - and no scratches in my experience.

So, Niels, if I understand correctly, I could buy a single roll of film and, when exposed, instead of prising the cassette open, pull the film out and load it straight on to a developing reel. When I reach the end, I would cut the film, leaving a little bit protruding onto which I would tape my bulk film. In this way, I could continue using the cassette indefinitely.

In your experience, do these regular cassettes moult less than the reusable ones?

Use the hoover (vacuum cleaner) on the light trap before loading. Removes dust, grit, and stray threads. Store loaded unexposed and exposed in the proper canisters.

Sage advice, thank you.

I would have said "Electrolux", but ...

 

It may just be time to buy some new reloadable cassettes - they are not expensive, and "several years" can be a long time in my case at least.

I say hoover, or Henry.

I've been bulk-loading film for several years without any problems. Suddenly, this year, I am finding negatives regularly being ruined, presumably by loose threads from the light seals in the film cassette. I've attached an example below.

I've been using Kaiser film cassettes. I contacted Kaiser and received no reply.

Am I correct in assuming that the cassette light-seal is at fault? Is this a common problem? Does anyone reading this who bulk-loads film know of a reliable brand of cassette?

I'm based in the UK.

Thank you in advance.

i doubt it would be better than any print you "could make", but apparently they are better than the ones you are making. Printing is not a 'neutral' stage, and a scan of a negative is one step closer to the original, so to speak,

 

Most of us are not and never will be as capable as Ansel Adams in the darkroom, but Photoshop does give us 'duffers' a somewhat better and easier way to a good work product. ;)

 

Of course, sometimes it makes things too easy for some people:

 

"correction of Adams image":

[ATTACH=full]1298968[/ATTACH]

April Popular Photography

A follow up question, JDMvW. I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand why my negative scans appear so much crisper/sharper than my prints. I am now coming to the conclusion that maybe it's not the prints that are inferior, it's the scans of the prints.

Is it possible, then, that the same scanner (Epson Perfection V550 photo) can make nice, crisp scans of negatives and dog rough scans of prints? I scan 6x6 negatives at 800 dpi and 8x10 prints at about 400 dpi.

i doubt it would be better than any print you "could make", but apparently they are better than the ones you are making. Printing is not a 'neutral' stage, and a scan of a negative is one step closer to the original, so to speak,

 

Most of us are not and never will be as capable as Ansel Adams in the darkroom, but Photoshop does give us 'duffers' a somewhat better and easier way to a good work product. ;)

 

Of course, sometimes it makes things too easy for some people:

 

"correction of Adams image":

[ATTACH=full]1298968[/ATTACH]

April Popular Photography

Thank you for your response, JDMvW. Ironically, prints I'm making from 35mm negatives are closer in overall sharpness to scans of the same negatives than are prints I've made from 6x6 negatives. I'm going to use the scan as a yardstick and aim to get prints as sharp. That should keep me busy for... well, the rest of my life, I guess.

<p>I've been working on the problem of archiving scientific (and forensic) images for a long time. I've completed (several times) the digitizing of a huge archive of professional and personal images. Being in a philosophical mood, and feeling a little "apotheosized", I thought I'd lay down some commandments for anyone who is interested.<br>

If you're not interested, why are you still reading this?</p>

<p>Like several better known systems of ethical rules, the first commandment<br /> is<br>

<strong>I. Do no harm.</strong><br>

Always keep the original slide/image. If the pessimists are right, and digital is ephemeral, then the original may have survived well enough to be re-scanned. If the realists are right and entropy will engulf everything, it couldn't hurt.</p>

<p><strong>II. Copy the image.</strong><br>

What you want for archival work is to reproduce the surviving image as close to the real, existing slide as you can. If the film is magenta-hued, the archival copy should be also. If it’s grainy, so also, etc. You are, of course allowed to do <strong><em>non-intrusive</em></strong> cleaning of any dust on the image.<br /><br /><br>

Turn off as much of the “dust reduction” and the like as you can in your copying workflow. At the best, dust reduction will be neutral, but at its worst, you are achieving “dust free” by blurring the image. Dust cleaning can be done automatically or manually later to copies, not to the "archival" image from the scanner.<br /><br />Ditto for color correction and other such processes. <br /><br /><br>

This is, of course, in reference to evidential images. If you are scanning images of the family puppy (Hi, Begheera), turn on all the automatic crap you can find if you can stand the results.</p>

<p><strong>III. Scan once, scan high.</strong><br>

The reason I have "completed" my scans more than once, is because I tried to save time and effort by making only small copies of the originals. <strong><br /></strong><br>

If the images are archival, START by scanning as high resolution and quality as you can. It will save time in the long run, believe me.</p>

<p><strong>Subtotal</strong><br>

I emphasize that I'm talking about evidential imagery, not your personal snapshots. The problem I'm addressing is that of people not approaching digitization of older images in a systematic way, mixing up different levels of the work flow. The key here is to keep "interpretation" of the image separate from the "archiving" of the original image as it came from the camera and medium.</p>

<p>That's probably enough for this post. I can surely run to at least seven more commandments. but this is enough for argument.</p>

I have a question for you, JDMvW. I apologise if you've already answered this elsewhere.

I have been making gelatin silver prints for three years. I scan negatives in advance of printing sessions rather than making contact sheets. Bizarrely, it is only recently that I have started making direct comparisons between digital scans of silver prints and digital negative scans. Much to my disappointment, the negative scans are vastly superior; the silver print scans are muddy by comparison. I'm now in a process of elimination, working to find the nub of my problem. I suspect that enlarger alignment is the main fault, but suspect that there may be others. My question is this: are negative scans made with my Epson Perfection V550 Photo scanner inherently better than any silver print that I could make from the same negative?

I remember that OM cameras were used by some notable outdoor/adventure photographers, including naturalist David Attenborough and mountaineers Chris Bonington and Allen Steck. On the back cover of his book Life on Earth, Attenborough had a black OM-1 in his hand.

 

Here are a few more: Well known or famous Photographers who use(d) an OM | The Olympus OM Crew , aka The Cult of Zuiko | Flickr

OK, it's a pretty short list, then. I like that; I tend to favour the underdog.

I'll probably end up with an OM-1 also before all is said and done.

My brother worked as a photojournalist from the early '80s to the mid-'90s. He used all Nikon kit (not strictly pro, though, he preferred the FM2n with an MD-12 motor drive). I only ever remember him praising one other camera, and that was the Olympus OM (either the OM1 or 2, I can't remember). I suppose it was inevitable that I would eventually want to see what appealed to him about this camera system and I bought an OM1n. I think it's a great camera and I love the fact that it is part of a system. I like the looks, the compactness and the results, which I can't fault.

If this isn't a pro camera, I'm a banana.

"My best lens is a tripod." This has seemed like wisdom to me for many years (and VR lenses may make it less important.) But an interesting experiment reinforced it, and I'll tell you about it once I chase those kids off my lawn.

 

Way back in prehistory, hundreds of years before the dawn of time, the "internet" was text only--no graphics or websites, no mouse clicks, just typing. There were people from the military and universities on it in those days, and almost nobody else--until the AOL people got a gateway in. Mostly there were mailing lists at first (beermaking, pet dogs, astronomy) and then "usenet," which was a little like discussion websites, though text only.

 

SO: there was a usenet group with a name like 'alt.camera.medium-format,' with several dozen participants. And one of them, an academic somewhere, set up a really interesting set of tests. He shot subjects (fountains, gardens, buildings) in the same lighting at the same time, with three different cameras and somewhat different settings (you statisticians out there probably know what's coming.) He used, for each set, an inexpensive TLR, a medium-level MF camera, and an expensive MF SLR. He tried all three in different settings wide open, medium apertures, and stopped down, and he tried a number of the series with and without tripods.

 

He cut up the slide film to the same size image (so we didn't know if it was 645 or 6x6 or whatever) and arranged each piece in groups, in pages in a sort of binder. Each series was the different cameras under same conditions and aperture. And each series was pseudo-randomized. You looked at Series B-12 and decided whether shot 1, 2, or 3 was the best.

 

You'd do the grading--any light you wanted, any loupe, etc--and mail the binder to the next person on the list, and your scoring sheet to Prof. Whomever at Midwest Something State. He compiled the results--in those days most statistics was done on paper, not on a computer. The results were interesting: the better cameras ranked better by a statistically significant amount, in order, shot wide open. At medium apertures the grading was nearly random: The Yashica-C got almost as many votes as the 500c/m or maybe even more. No statistical significance. (I don't remember the stopped down results.)\

 

But one group of comparisons showed dramatic differences: the tripod vs. no-tripod scoring. Tripod slides won by large margins against handheld slides even with medium apertures and fast shutter speeds, and that was true for all three cameras. IIRC, that was the biggest differential between groups in the entire test project.

So I try to use a tripod, or at least a monopod, any time I can. Ed Ingold said, more or less:, "Why shoot medium format handheld?" Implying, you see, that you lost some of the quality you paid for with MF. May be entirely different with digital (I've got several DSLRs but no VR lenses) but I still try to use a tripod any time I can. And this is behind "the best lens I own is a tripod."

 

OK, long boring ramble by an old man; maybe someone found it interesting, maybe not. Now you kids get off my lawn! ;-)

Thank you, Ken. Very interesting.

This whole exploration has opened my eyes to the issue of camera shake. I'd been relying on the old chestnut that if the shutter speed is the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens, I don't have to worry, ie with a 50mm lens, 1/60 sec and faster is safe. I have, nonetheless, read some writers on photography who have questioned this wisdom, most notably Barry Thornton in his book 'Edge of Darkness', which is really a quest for sharpness in photographic images.

I'm now remembering a shot of a beach scene I took with the Mamiya C220F fitted with a 100mm lens, which I liked and uploaded to Flickr. The more I looked at it, the more I realised that it was too muddy to pass muster. I took it down without thinking any further what the problem was. I'm in no doubt now that it was camera shake.

I like the idea that the tripod is the best lens in my collection; it suggests that achieving sharp images is about getting the simple things right and doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

"The best lens I own is a tripod."

When I first read this I thought: 'Ken, you're just being a killjoy.' Now I'm thinking it's sound advice.

I agree with the RF/leaf shutter sentiments. If the interchangeable lens Mamiya 6 isn't an alternative, then consider a Zeiss Super Ikonta 532/16. The lens won't be interchangeable but it shoots 6x6, does hand held incredibly well, and folds up to fit into a jacket pocket. A TLR with interchangeable lenses is a bit too bulky to tote around. A fixed lens TLR would be a second to the 532/16 but even the smallest 6x6 TLR is still bulky enough that you either are wearing it all the time or carrying it in a bag or with its case..

I've now got three medium format options for my portrait work: the Hasselblad 503CW with a CF Sonnar 150mm f4 T*, a Mamiya C220F with Super 180mm f4.5 and a Mamiya Universal Press with a 100mm f3.5. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the one that serves me best is the C220F. I've used it a lot and am very happy with the results. I like the fact that I can get in really close, even with a 100mm lens. That said, I've used it almost exclusively on a tripod. I went away on holiday for a few days last week and thought long and hard about which camera to take with me. Much as I'd have liked to shoot medium format, I ended up taking the most compact 35mm camera I've got (Olympus OM1n) for two main reasons: we were travelling by train, so had limited capacity for luggage; we were staying in people's houses and I didn't want the photography to get in the way.

I love the results I get with the Mamiya Universal, but it is a very large and ugly camera. I'm quite a shy photographer (maybe this will pass with time), so the MU does not get the use it deserves.

I've looked into both the Zeiss Super Ikonta and the Mamiya 6 folder and much as I am attracted to these cameras' greater portability, something is holding me back from shelling out on them.