Anyone still shoot film?

pbromaghin wrote,on my timestamp of 26/01/2010 5:30 AM:

Does anybody else believe that nothing has been done in the last 30-40
years to improve the image that a camera captures - that all digital
has done is make it easier, more accessible, and expand post-
processing possibilities (no small things in themselves)?

Yes.
But I must admit shooting at 100000ISO must be essential for good photography...

Alan Browne wrote,on my timestamp of 26/01/2010 9:43 AM:


I shot 2 rolls of 120 and 0 rolls of 135 in 2009.

And yet remarkably that doesn't stop you from emitting opinions about shooting
film...

Paul Furman wrote,on my timestamp of 26/01/2010 9:58 AM:


I shot one roll recently for the first time in a decade. Photo CD at
walgreens with kodak gold 200 was pretty crummy looking. Can anyone

Do yourself a favour and shoot decent film, instead of 30 year old emulsions!
You wouldn't shoot a Mavica nowadays, would you?


I could no doubt get it done but assuming that'd be expensive. Maybe I
should try some really nice b&w film, like something that can do stuff
digital can't with dynamic range or resolution. I really don't want to
get a film scanner or get into it too heavily.

Adox CMS 20 on Technidol LC or their own developer.
It'll beat the sweet thingie off any medium format, digital or film.
And it prints with amazing range, same for scanning.
But you have to do your own development and scanning, I doubt
any commercial place would be involved...
Not that hard, the development bit.

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:36:52 -0800 (PST), Annika1980
wrote:

And I've yet to see any film
camera that can make a decent HDR image.

"decent HDR image" is very close to being an oxymoron.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

On 1/25/2010 3:46 PM K W Hart spake thus:

As for your results at the local drugstore, I think you got lucky!
Many times, the person running the machine at the one-hour photo
place (whether it's CVS, Walgreens, WalMart, etc), is a part-timer,
who last week was working the checkout register. If you find a
one-hour store with very low employee turnover, and a processing
machine that gets regular factory maintenance, stick with them!

Here's my saga: up until last year I had just such a lucky combination;
the local Longs store had a photo staff that really knew what they were
doing and actually paid attention to the printing process, and I
consistently got very good results from them on their Frontier. (And
they were cheap.)

Then CVS took over Longs. I tried them out; the first roll I had
processed there, they didn't even print all the exposures (and gave me
doubles of some others). And the results were uniformly ****ty. (They
now use a Kodak system.)

So I tried another roll at Walgreens. The results were even ****tier, at
least part of which seemed to be due to the system they use (forget the
name of it).

Then I started looking around for local (i.e., non-drug-chain)
processors. Ended up with one in downtown Berkeley that makes *optical*
prints (my preference) on a Noritsu processor that are truly spectacular.

The moral of the story is: find a small, dedicated, conscientious photo
lab. It's worth it.


--
You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

Noons wrote:
Paul Furman wrote,on my timestamp of 26/01/2010 9:58 AM:

I shot one roll recently for the first time in a decade. Photo CD at
walgreens with kodak gold 200 was pretty crummy looking. Can anyone

Do yourself a favour and shoot decent film, instead of 30 year old
emulsions!
You wouldn't shoot a Mavica nowadays, would you?

LOL, well I didn't know what to expect. The walgreens brand was cheaper
but the guy said it's actually Fuji, which I used to use for slides, for
the intense greens. I did some b&w developing & enlarging in college but
never got geeky about prints from then (about 1985) till 2000 when I
went digital (almost got a mavica). I could possibly set up a B&W
darkroom. Enlargers & stuff can be got for cheap and yeah, it's not that
difficult. Somehow I really don't want a scanner. If I was going to do
b&w, it would be more fun to make 'real' prints. Though I doubt I'd
really get into it much.


I could no doubt get it done but assuming that'd be expensive. Maybe I
should try some really nice b&w film, like something that can do stuff
digital can't with dynamic range or resolution. I really don't want to
get a film scanner or get into it too heavily.

Adox CMS 20 on Technidol LC or their own developer.
It'll beat the sweet thingie off any medium format, digital or film.
And it prints with amazing range, same for scanning.
But you have to do your own development and scanning, I doubt
any commercial place would be involved...
Not that hard, the development bit.

Thanks. Interesting. But on further thought, I guess the thing for me to
explore is high dynamic range. My 'new' film camera is a real simple
Nikon EM, chosen for it's small size, not really the best for extremely
precise ISO 20 tripod work, more for street shooting & wide open fast
lens craziness. A quick google on that film says very high contrast
also... I don't know if that's really valuable as an alternative to
digital or how that might play into dynamic range.

Or maybe I should be looking at very low dynamic range fast b&w film???
I really don't know what to do with it.

Mail order with a good scan would be nice.

Ultraviolet film?????

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

On 1/25/2010 6:01 PM Paul Furman spake thus:

LOL, well I didn't know what to expect. The walgreens brand was
cheaper but the guy said it's actually Fuji, which I used to use for
slides, for the intense greens.

The last time I bought Walgreens branded film, it turned out to be Agfa.
Not bad. (This was several years ago, though.)


--
You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

I'm doing some math, and I think each shot, with flash, is going to cost
about 4 bucks. Sheesh -- better get it right the first time !!

I pay about 6 bucks a shot when I use my 4x5" field camera, not
counting printing and/or scanning. I could use it with flash bulbs --
I have a couple of dozen M2 and M3B bulbs and a Nikon BC-7 flash to
fire them in, but I've yet to try that.

Today, I picked up from the lab a roll of Velveeta 100 I shot this
weekend with my Pentax 645n. The macro shots look pretty good, but
the landscapes are, alas, simply boring. The 35mm shooting schedule
includes some Ektar 100 and some Agfa APX 100, but with New England
weather you have to be a bit flexible about one's shooting schedule.

--
Mike Benveniste -- (Clarification Required)
Don't succumb to the false authority of a tool or model. There
is no substitute for thinking.

David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 1/25/2010 6:01 PM Paul Furman spake thus:

LOL, well I didn't know what to expect. The walgreens brand was
cheaper but the guy said it's actually Fuji, which I used to use for
slides, for the intense greens.

The last time I bought Walgreens branded film, it turned out to be Agfa.
Not bad. (This was several years ago, though.)

Jumping topics - I think that's the reason to play with film; to shoot
slides and be able to project them, as digital cannot do (yet) (for a
reasonable budget). Forget scanning. That's mostly what I shot over the
years - slides. It would be nice to pull them out again. The chore of
scanning them doesn't sound fun but projecting them does.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Annika1980 wrote,on my timestamp of 26/01/2010 11:36 AM:

But I must admit shooting at 100000ISO must be essential for good photography...

High ISO is only one area where digital has allowed not only
improvements to the image, but also the ability to capture images
previously impossible with film. Digital Infrared is another.

Yaaaaaaaaawwwwnnn........
Obviously, no clue what film is all about and what it does...


Also, the ability to see your results immediately and make adjustments
in the field is not to be overlooked.

Indeed. I use it all the time for close-up and macro photography.
Very convenient. Then, I take a shot with film.


And I've yet to see any film
camera that can make a decent HDR image.

Given that there is not a single digital camera that can do a decent HDR image,
you have a long way to go to find a film one that does it...
Once again, totally confused:
HDR is post-processing, ignoramus.
It has nothing to do with the camera, digital or otherwise...

As for the adjective "decent" being used together with HDR,
I'll let others comment.

Oh wait, hang on: they did!
Ah well...