Analog photography anyone?

acearchie · May 13, 2013

sarge said:
Yeah, the salesperson said she thought they had discontinued it because they couldn't get any for awhile. I normally buy the 16oz bottle and had to purchase a 32oz. Luckily it keeps a long time in the fridge. As for the longevity of film, I think it is totally contingent on the studios in Hollywood to keep it going. With Panasonic and ARRI going digital it remains to be seen whether that holds true.

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Correction: unless you plan on making an early exit, I think film will disappear in your lifetime.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...s-dodd-distribution-digital-exhibition-315688

From experience I would say that film is pretty much dead in the water in high end productions.

I hope it stays alive for photography but for video I think digital has surpassed it on enough levels to make it a better option.

MacCruiskeen said:
I'd guess that of the remaining manufacturers, Ilford is most likely to stick it out to the bitter end. At least for B&W, the chemicals are not really a problem--kits like the ones sold by Photographers' Formulary can be produced and sold on a fairly small scale as long as the raw chemicals are available. Even paper can be made fairly small scale. Film itself is a problem. Making a good-quality film product requires pretty sophisticated industrial equipment and a high degree of quality control (the difference between Ilford and the stuff from eastern europe is noticeable). But there's always the freezer.

Since ilford seems to be opening new factories and introducing new products I think it's safe to say that they are getting to the point where they are becoming the market leader in B&W. I think that if they stick to that there will be enough demand in the future to keep the business sustained as there will always be a niche contingent keen to experiment how the original photographs were made before digital.

farbRausch · May 15, 2013

Hey guys, I currently shot a few rolls of colour negative film for the first time (mainly portra and some ektar). So far I've only shot b/w, because I develop myself at home. Since I am currently on a study-abroad period, I don't have the film scanned, yet(the lab wants 15Euros per roll, which is too much for me). However, I ordered some prints to get an idea about the portra film. To be fully honest, I am little bit disappointed. The prints don't really have this warm 'portra-look', they look more blueish and quite saturated. I tried different lighting situations and overexposed/underexposed here and then. While the underexposed framed came out as I expected(more saturated, intense and contrasty), the normal/overexposed were not, at all. I suspect, this is because how the negative was scanned to digital. To those, who have experience in scanning colour film: How much post processing do you do here? For b/w I usually only need a little sharpening and overall brightness adjustment.

Edge100 · May 15, 2013

farbRausch said:
Hey guys, I currently shot a few rolls of colour negative film for the first time (mainly portra and some ektar). So far I've only shot b/w, because I develop myself at home. Since I am currently on a study-abroad period, I don't have the film scanned, yet(the lab wants 15Euros per roll, which is too much for me). However, I ordered some prints to get an idea about the portra film. To be fully honest, I am little bit disappointed. The prints don't really have this warm 'portra-look', they look more blueish and quite saturated. I tried different lighting situations and overexposed/underexposed here and then. While the underexposed framed came out as I expected(more saturated, intense and contrasty), the normal/overexposed were not, at all. I suspect, this is because how the negative was scanned to digital. To those, who have experience in scanning colour film: How much post processing do you do here? For b/w I usually only need a little sharpening and overall brightness adjustment.

Without knowing anything about how you shot the film, it's hard to say what the issue is.

What kind of light did you shoot in? Portra is a daylight-balanced film, and like most films, will show dramatic colour shifts if you shoot it in warmer (e.g. tungsten) or cooler light.

When you say you "overexposed/underexposed", how did you meter the light? The correct method of exposing negative film is to expose (using an incident meter, if possible) for the emerging shadows, and to allow the highlights to fall where they may. If you're using a reflected light meter, then did you compensate for the reflectivity of the thing you metered?

Scanning colour negative film is not easy, and requires a specialized workflow, unless you're using a mini-lab like a Fuji Frontier. Do you know how the lab developed and scanned the film?

See the image below. This is what Portra 400 should look like. Scanned on a Plustek OpticFilm 8100 and converted using ColorPerfect in CS6.

Elliot...on Portra 400 by Michael Fraser Photography, on Flickr

secretpact · May 17, 2013

I just developed a roll I took of an indoor party. It's as if the film was bleached yellow. I heard that you're supposed to use tungsten film for indoor white balancing, but tungsten film is very hard to find nowadays.

Edge100 · May 17, 2013

secretpact said:
I just developed a roll I took of an indoor party. It's as if the film was bleached yellow. I heard that you're supposed to use tungsten film for indoor white balancing, but tungsten film is very hard to find nowadays.

You can also use an 80A (blue) filter and compensate by +2 stops.

For indoors under tungsten lighting, I'll generally shoot B&W or just stick to digital.

farbRausch · May 17, 2013

Edge100 said:
Without knowing anything about how you shot the film, it's hard to say what the issue is.

What kind of light did you shoot in? Portra is a daylight-balanced film, and like most films, will show dramatic colour shifts if you shoot it in warmer (e.g. tungsten) or cooler light.

When you say you "overexposed/underexposed", how did you meter the light? The correct method of exposing negative film is to expose (using an incident meter, if possible) for the emerging shadows, and to allow the highlights to fall where they may. If you're using a reflected light meter, then did you compensate for the reflectivity of the thing you metered?

Scanning colour negative film is not easy, and requires a specialized workflow, unless you're using a mini-lab like a Fuji Frontier. Do you know how the lab developed and scanned the film?

See the image below. This is what Portra 400 should look like. Scanned on a Plustek OpticFilm 8100 and converted using ColorPerfect in CS6.

[url=http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8121/8661304580_0a070ea84e_c.jpg]Image[/url]
Elliot...on Portra 400 by Michael Fraser Photography, on Flickr

Thanks for your reply. I shot only during the day, also in different situations(full sun, cloudy). I used my DSLR as a meter. I under-and overexposed some shots by ~+/-1 stop to see what happens.
Your shot has the 'porta-esque' skin tones(nice shot btw). The tones on my prints were much more pale. I'm not giving up, yet. I will shoot a few more rolls(also portra 160) and see what the results will be. Maybe it just takes some time to learn how to shoot colour negative film.

ChrisA · May 17, 2013

secretpact said:
I just developed a roll I took of an indoor party. It's as if the film was bleached yellow. I heard that you're supposed to use tungsten film for indoor white balancing, but tungsten film is very hard to find nowadays.

Yes tungsten film is hard to find but so are tungsten light bulbs. So many now are CFLs, LED or whatever

Color film needs to be (mostly) color corrected in-camera. You can soot daylight film using a flash because the flash is daylight but I'd use a CC filter of some kind if you have fluorescent or tungsten lighting. Filters mostly work.

Edge100 · May 17, 2013

farbRausch said:
Thanks for your reply. I shot only during the day, also in different situations(full sun, cloudy). I used my DSLR as a meter. I under-and overexposed some shots by ~+/-1 stop to see what happens.
Your shot has the 'porta-esque' skin tones(nice shot btw). The tones on my prints were much more pale. I'm not giving up, yet. I will shoot a few more rolls(also portra 160) and see what the results will be. Maybe it just takes some time to learn how to shoot colour negative film.

I'm not a huge fan of the 160; it's super low contrast (intentionally so, to allow for maximal post processing capabilities), and the grain isn't a whole lot finer than Portra 400. It's basically giving up 1 1/3 stops for not much in return. If I'm shooting a slow film, I prefer Ektar (though not for people) or Provia 100.

Colour negative is EASY. Just give it loads of light (remember, caucasian skin is at least 1 stop above mid grey, so you need to compensate appropriately).

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Analog photography anyone?

acearchie

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farbRausch

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Edge100

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secretpact

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Edge100

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ChrisA

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Edge100

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