Can we talk about film?

[mollyc]

All that said, the use of medium format is wasted when you past low-res images online. I think this is whey people use cell phones now. If the final image is reduced to one or two megapixels jpg ad vied on a phone screen, the iPhone camera is overkill.

I respectfully disagree with this. Resolution is not the end all/be all of photography. I approach a scene differently depending on which camera I use, even if all my images end up on the internet and not printed. For some, the joy is in the making and the thinking. I mean, let's not forget that a Holga is medium format, and even at full resolution will often fall apart. But the way you hold a camera or frame a scene - those are tactile, thinking processes that just can't be translated with using a phone.

 

[mollyc]

The lab is part of Ilford’s official reselling company here in Taiwan, and it definitely looks like they know their stuff—at least for Harman Phoenix, I’d say they do a better job than what I’m able to do. They did say that they experimented a lot with how to scan Phoenix when it first launched last year, and in the end they found that scanning as a positive + converting in Photoshop produced the best results. (I’m not sure if they use Negative Lab Pro in Photoshop, or if they have their own presets—I’m going back on Monday, and I think I’ll ask them about it.) This was actually the first time I’ve used their processing and scanning service, even though I‘m a regular customer for film and dark room supplies, and a frequent participant in their photo walks around Taipei.

In terms of the photo walk yesterday, about a week earlier they started advertising a medium format camera-only photo walk for a “mystery film”, which of course some of us correctly suspected to be 120 format Phoenix. (I was actually hoping it might have been some of that IMAX format Double-X that Kodak produced for Christopher Nolan to use, and they somehow managed to get their hands on some of it and cut it down to 120 size!) In any case, I brought with me a Hasselblad 503cw to load with the Phoenix, and also my Mamiya Six Automat that I loaded with Kodak Gold 200, since I wanted to compare how the two films perform. After processing and seeing our results, I immediately bought a second roll of Phoenix to load in the Mamiya, since when we looked at our photos, I found that those in our group who used a camera dating from before C41 color film was available had markedly different color performance than more recent cameras such as the Hasselblad 500 or Pentax 67 series. For this third roll, I tried to retrace my morning route and shoot roughly in as many of the same locations as possible so as to do a comparison, although of course the lighting was different in the afternoon. This third roll I then took home to process and scan myself, but after I found digitization using my digital camera produced weird results, I brought out my scanner to do another pass. (I’ve put my Epson V600 scanner away ever since I got the full Valoi 360 camera scanning system, since the scanner’s CCD is starting to have some issues due to age, and camera scanning is simply much faster, especially if you’re shooting as many as five or six rolls each week!)

I’m posting my side-by-side comparisons here. For those who don’t read Chinese, the top two pictures in each set came from rolls developed and scanned by Ilford Taiwan Lab, and the bottom two I developed myself and then scanned twice, once with a camera scanning setup, and once with a flatbed scanner. This is of course not a fully scientific comparison, since the lighting situation, cameras, and lenses were not completely identical, but I think it’s informative nonetheless.

Also, if anyone is ever in Taiwan, do give Ilford Taiwan Lab a visit. It’s located right in the center of Taipei, and there are lots of scenic spots close by, both antique and modern, that are perfect for shooting both b&w and color film.

I’ve only tried Caffenol once, in a workshop maybe about five years ago, and since we used Caffenol that was prepared for us, I haven‘t tried mixing a batch myself. I recently got a friend interested in b&w darkroom, so next time we’re definitely going to give Caffenol a go ourselves—last time we met I told her about how you can develop film with instant coffee, and her eyes immediately lit up!

Your local lab definitely has the process of scanning this film down. Those all look really amazing from the lab. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Some great posts here.

I thought I’d jump in and add that, when ‘scanning’ film with a digital camera/macro lens setup, if done properly you can see the individual film grains - I’m no expert but to me this means we effectively lose no resolution.

Now, how one downsamples the image for sharing does potentially involve degradation, but I would argue that there is simply no comparison between the quality of image a good SLR lens can produce and that of even the newest and best smartphones.

The caveat is that if the viewing media is a smartphone screen, you can’t take full advantage of the visual potential of a traditional film photo.

 

[Flowstates]

I respectfully disagree with this. Resolution is not the end all/be all of photography. I approach a scene differently depending on which camera I use, even if all my images end up on the internet and not printed. For some, the joy is in the making and the thinking. I mean, let's not forget that a Holga is medium format, and even at full resolution will often fall apart. But the way you hold a camera or frame a scene - those are tactile, thinking processes that just can't be translated with using a phone.

The ergonomics directly impact your interfacing with the apparatus and your subject.

I take very different pictures with a subcompact that can fit in my sleeve and my DSLR, non wisthstanding the reaction of the environnement to those two individual photographers.

 

[piatigorsky]

The lab is part of Ilford’s official reselling company here in Taiwan, and it definitely looks like they know their stuff—at least for Harman Phoenix, I’d say they do a better job than what I’m able to do. They did say that they experimented a lot with how to scan Phoenix when it first launched last year, and in the end they found that scanning as a positive + converting in Photoshop produced the best results. (I’m not sure if they use Negative Lab Pro in Photoshop, or if they have their own presets—I’m going back on Monday, and I think I’ll ask them about it.) This was actually the first time I’ve used their processing and scanning service, even though I‘m a regular customer for film and dark room supplies, and a frequent participant in their photo walks around Taipei.

In terms of the photo walk yesterday, about a week earlier they started advertising a medium format camera-only photo walk for a “mystery film”, which of course some of us correctly suspected to be 120 format Phoenix. (I was actually hoping it might have been some of that IMAX format Double-X that Kodak produced for Christopher Nolan to use, and they somehow managed to get their hands on some of it and cut it down to 120 size!) In any case, I brought with me a Hasselblad 503cw to load with the Phoenix, and also my Mamiya Six Automat that I loaded with Kodak Gold 200, since I wanted to compare how the two films perform. After processing and seeing our results, I immediately bought a second roll of Phoenix to load in the Mamiya, since when we looked at our photos, I found that those in our group who used a camera dating from before C41 color film was available had markedly different color performance than more recent cameras such as the Hasselblad 500 or Pentax 67 series. For this third roll, I tried to retrace my morning route and shoot roughly in as many of the same locations as possible so as to do a comparison, although of course the lighting was different in the afternoon. This third roll I then took home to process and scan myself, but after I found digitization using my digital camera produced weird results, I brought out my scanner to do another pass. (I’ve put my Epson V600 scanner away ever since I got the full Valoi 360 camera scanning system, since the scanner’s CCD is starting to have some issues due to age, and camera scanning is simply much faster, especially if you’re shooting as many as five or six rolls each week!)

I’m posting my side-by-side comparisons here. For those who don’t read Chinese, the top two pictures in each set came from rolls developed and scanned by Ilford Taiwan Lab, and the bottom two I developed myself and then scanned twice, once with a camera scanning setup, and once with a flatbed scanner. This is of course not a fully scientific comparison, since the lighting situation, cameras, and lenses were not completely identical, but I think it’s informative nonetheless.

Also, if anyone is ever in Taiwan, do give Ilford Taiwan Lab a visit. It’s located right in the center of Taipei, and there are lots of scenic spots close by, both antique and modern, that are perfect for shooting both b&w and color film.

I’ve only tried Caffenol once, in a workshop maybe about five years ago, and since we used Caffenol that was prepared for us, I haven‘t tried mixing a batch myself. I recently got a friend interested in b&w darkroom, so next time we’re definitely going to give Caffenol a go ourselves—last time we met I told her about how you can develop film with instant coffee, and her eyes immediately lit up!

Following from the photo walk last Friday, I took the third roll I shot (that I then developed and scanned at home) to the Ilford Taiwan Lab, and asked them to scan it using their process. I've updated my comparison with the new results: to recap, the two pictures in the top row were taken during the photo walk on Friday morning with two different films in two different cameras, and then developed and scanned by the lab; the middle row is the additional roll of Harman Phoenix I shot that afternoon, which I took home to develop and scan myself; and the last row is this last roll but scanned by the lab. It seems like the colors are a bit more muted using their process, but as @mollyc has pointed out, I think the contrast is better than what many might usually expect from this film.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

I thought I’d jump in and add that, when ‘scanning’ film with a digital camera/macro lens setup, if done properly you can see the individual film grains - I’m no expert but to me this means we effectively lose no resolution.

What I’ve found is, you can scan a 35mm slide at 45mp and turn every grain into a pixel, but looking at round grains spaced out on emulsion is not like looking at square pixels touching on their edges. When you look at a pointillist painting, your eye sees the overall image, but it also picks up the texture created by the soft round edged points and empty spaces between them. To capture the actual look and feel of a 35mm slide in order to see the overall image, a modern 45mpx sensor contains enough pixels to give you that, but more importantly, pulling 16bit color data in a bracketed set of -1exp, 0, +1exp, covers the dynamic range of an ektachrome slide. The color capacity of a current camera sensor (and equally importantly, a modern macro lens) absolutely runs circles around flatbeds and even the old blad drum scanner I tried out, which both do have their own “lenses”. But to truly capture the look & feel of the original slide image, the addition of pixel shift to a current sensor bumps that resolution up to fully render the softness of the film grain. So if you're going to crop a portion of a slide image to use in a comp, you don’t have to worry about it looking like you enlarged a crappy jpeg, it’ll look like a portion of the film image it is.

I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on flatbeds, drum scanners, and med format digital backs with a variety of speciality lenses and constructed various focusing rail contraptions over the years working out a process to pull the most information possible out of a slide/neg, bc my company has a huge archive of several hundred thousand images from the 1930s onward to convert, so the consequences of doing it poorly translates to years of wasted time. Since the time its going to take to do them is the same whether I end up with high or low quality files, I might as well build a high quality library, and then only export low res copies as needed in seconds. To do the opposite would mean spending the same amount of time, getting worse images, and then every time someone wants a better one for printing or use in a comp, the original has to be pulled from storage, cleaned, rescanned & developed over again in larger format, making everything a time wasting mess of low res with some random hi res duplicates throughout, generally irritating my throbbing sense of OCD.

As displays get higher and higher resolution, higher resolution scans are appreciated. I‘m not going to scan this entire library a second time ten years from now when we get some crazy high resolution or floor to ceiling displays.

 

[Flowstates]

What I’ve found is, you can scan a 35mm slide at 45mp and turn every grain into a pixel, but looking at round grains spaced out on emulsion is not like looking at square pixels touching on their edges. When you look at a pointillist painting, your eye sees the overall image, but it also picks up the texture created by the soft round edged points and empty spaces between them. To capture the actual look and feel of a 35mm slide in order to see the overall image, a modern 45mpx sensor contains enough pixels to give you that, but more importantly, pulling 16bit color data in a bracketed set of -1exp, 0, +1exp, covers the dynamic range of an ektachrome slide. The color capacity of a current camera sensor (and equally importantly, a modern macro lens) absolutely runs circles around flatbeds and even the old blad drum scanner I tried out, which both do have their own “lenses”. But to truly capture the look & feel of the original slide image, the addition of pixel shift to a current sensor bumps that resolution up to fully render the softness of the film grain. So if you're going to crop a portion of a slide image to use in a comp, you don’t have to worry about it looking like you enlarged a crappy jpeg, it’ll look like a portion of the film image it is.

I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on flatbeds, drum scanners, and med format digital backs with a variety of speciality lenses and constructed various focusing rail contraptions over the years working out a process to pull the most information possible out of a slide/neg, bc my company has a huge archive of several hundred thousand images from the 1930s onward to convert, so the consequences of doing it poorly translates to years of wasted time. Since the time its going to take to do them is the same whether I end up with high or low quality files, I might as well build a high quality library, and then only export low res copies as needed in seconds. To do the opposite would mean spending the same amount of time, getting worse images, and then every time someone wants a better one for printing or use in a comp, the original has to be pulled from storage, cleaned, rescanned & developed over again in larger format, making everything a time wasting mess of low res with some random hi res duplicates throughout, generally irritating my throbbing sense of OCD.

As displays get higher and higher resolution, higher resolution scans are appreciated. I‘m not going to scan this entire library a second time ten years from now when we get some crazy high resolution or floor to ceiling displays.

Did your organisation consider upscaling ?

I know that it has been used in the archival circles to address degradation / obsolescence / augment older medium.

 

[bunnspecial]

I've only done limited DSLR "scanning", but at the end of the day I still find myself more comfortable with my Nikon scanners(for 35mm and medium format at least).

Yes they are slow and take some work, but I find ultimately that I can pull more detail out of them(especially with multi-sample scanning, really getting hands on with analogue gain, and some other settings) and appreciate what tools like ICE can do.

There's no contest on speed, though, especially given that a DSLR scan can be done in under a minute and often it takes me a couple of minutes just to optimize the parameters for a scanning a particular frame and then several more minutes to actually make the scan.

Still, though, I'm not giving up my scanners any time soon.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Did your organisation consider upscaling ?

I know that it has been used in the archival circles to address degradation / obsolescence / augment older medium.

Yeah we experimented with that as well. If a user wants to upscale an image for their specific use case someday they can do that and they'll have a whole library of high resolution originals choose from to start with, but building a whole library of upscaled images means a whole library of destructively edited originals that only look as good 5, 15, or 25 years from now as the algorithm was able to perform in 2024, just a couple years into the ability to do it. So no part of that is the direction we want to go. There's no substitute for a high resolution, full color depth scan of an original when that original medium has the texture of film. That's the first thing to be misinterpreted and inconsistently destroyed by Ai.

 

[piatigorsky]

Following from the photo walk last Friday, I took the third roll I shot (that I then developed and scanned at home) to the Ilford Taiwan Lab, and asked them to scan it using their process. I've updated my comparison with the new results: to recap, the two pictures in the top row were taken during the photo walk on Friday morning with two different films in two different cameras, and then developed and scanned by the lab; the middle row is the additional roll of Harman Phoenix I shot that afternoon, which I took home to develop and scan myself; and the last row is this last roll but scanned by the lab. It seems like the colors are a bit more muted using their process, but as @mollyc has pointed out, I think the contrast is better than what many might usually expect from this film.

Final followup to the 120 Harman Phoenix launch day photo walk. I went back to pick up the roll I developed but had the lab rescan for me, and I asked the technician about their settings. Turns out, they scan the film as a positive image using a Noritsu HS-1800 film scanner, then go to Photoshop and simply invert the colors using the default settings. No other adjustments are done, except if the result is really wildly out of whack, then they might adjust the levels a bit.

I guess the good results they get out of this have to do with the scanner they use, since I've tried doing the same with my Epson V600, but the end product did not look right at all.

 

[bunnspecial]

FWIW, I had my first roll of Phoenix, loaded in my F5 for months and finally shot last month, developed last week.

This is a lab scan(I didn't request it...they did it) and I don't think their scan is great. I'm HOPING I can coax something better out of it. I just got the film back in the mail today...the lab also cut it into strips of 4 despite my explicit "Do Not Cut" instructions(I have an uncut roll adapter for my Coolscan IV, and even long before getting that I always cut myself into strips of 6 so one roll fits a single Printfile page), so I'm a bit unhappy with them. Unfortunately, this lab is one of the few places that will even touch Velvia 100(which is on the EPA naughty list, and technically commercial labs aren't even supposed to process existing stock), so I sent them a bunch of E6 and figured I'd throw C41 in the box. The E6 isn't back yet.

In any case, here's one frame of Phoenix. We'll see what a proper scan can do with this. As mentioned, shot in my F5 with the Nikon 35-70 f/2.8D.

Somehow or another I'd missed that the film was dropping in 120, but see B&H has it in stock. I'm going to have to order some. I'm actually meeting up with a friend this week to get his camera collection for consignment, and I'm keeping his Hasselblad kit(500C, 500EL/M, 80mm C, 80mm C T*, 250mm Sonnar, and several accessories) along with a few others as my consignment fee. I have a 40mm Distagon on the way too from a different source. I need to get my own Hassy kit out and use it, but I'm honored to get to own and use my good friend's kit.

 

[bunnspecial]

Some large format just joined here, including my first 8x10

The 8x10 is the left most camera, and is a probably early 1900s Century with the triple-extension bed. Unfortunately it needs a replacement ground glass.

The Graflex SLR I still need to date-I'm not super sharp on these. It seems to work but of course there's a lot going on in this. I have to admit that I could get use to SLR/waist level viewing in 4x5 as opposed to ground glass.

The Korona III on the right is a Mahogony and apparently Seal leather? beauty in 4x5., and also as best as I can tell is from the 1900-1910 range. It has a fairly modern Synchro-Compur shutter with a coated Schneider Xenar 135mm(modern as in probably 50s or 60s) although unfortunately the shutter is badly gummed up and in need of service.

I still am excited to shoot all of these, though, at least once I take out a loan to buy some 8x10 film!

 

[bunnspecial]

Seems I was totally wrong on the above-it's a 5x7 Conley brand camera, not an 8x10 Century(although I do have a rough project 8x10 Kodak Century from this same bunch). Still, though, it's a really interesting camera, and quite striking in person.

Also loaded this one yesterday and been shooting it-this is similar to my own personal Hasselblad, but is a lot nicer than mine and the metering knob is a nice touch. This came from its original owner

 

[mollyc]

I realized I never posted my July grids, and just finished up my August ones today.



July

Nikon F100 | Kodak Gold

Pentax 17 | Portra 400

Leica M3 | Kodak Gold

August

Leica M3 | Kodak Gold

Pentax 17 | Ilford Delta 400 (some, probably most, of these are actually September, but I didn't recall the dates)

Leica M3 | Portra 400 | Total experiment to shoot at a concert, but it came out better than I expected! Especially with this lens, which is really hazy. A modern lens would have worked a lot better, but happy I tried.

 

[bunnspecial]

I spent an hour wandering around town today with my old faithful 500C, the more recently acquired one, a 250mm Sonnar that came with it, and another separate recent acquisition, a 40mm Distagon. I shot one roll in each camera-a roll of Gold 200 and a roll Fuji Pro 400H. This will be my first time shooting this generation of Kodak Gold in any format, so I'm excited to see what it looks like(I also have a roll loaded in a Century Graphic, which should be interesting).

Shooting with these two lenses was challenging. I love wide angles, but the 40mm Distagon has a few interesting quirks. For one, it's just big and unwieldy. I have a feeling it might handle better on a motor body(my 50mm Distagon has lived on my 500EL/M for a few years now, and the 40mm makes the 50mm look tiny) but for now just had it on a manual advance. For another, this is an interesting focal length in 6x6-it works out to being about 25mm on 35mm depending on how you measure(I prefer comparing horizontal angle of view), but composing in square this wide is...interesting. I have had a nearly identical 250mm Sonnar as long as I've had my first 500C, but rarely use it. It's a nice handling lens(it reminds me a lot of the Nikon 200mm f/4) and actually for an f/5.6 lens is surpringly easy to focus even on the original 500C ground glass(I have a Rick Oleson Britescreen in my other 500C as well as my 500EL/M-I will see if I put one in this one). The 250mm is well known for causing small but noticeable viewfinder cut-off in older cameras-in fact it didn't get solved until the gliding mirror of the 503CX sometime in the 90s I think.

In any case, I'll post back with scans once I have this developed.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

I just picked up a Brownie at an estate sale - at Target Six-16. It's in quite good shape, just needs some cleaning (and I did find one original 616 spool in it, I think I can use that as the take-up spool?). There were a pile of old bellows cameras there for cheap, but I know nothing about those.

A Brownie is not something I'd shoot often with, but I'll probably get one of the 120 film adapters so I can try a roll of B&W in it and home-develop. Just to say I've done it. Only 6 photos per 120 roll though, according to the internet!

 

[mollyc]

I just picked up a Brownie at an estate sale - at Target Six-16. It's in quite good shape, just needs some cleaning (and I did find one original 616 spool in it, I think I can use that as the take-up spool?). There were a pile of old bellows cameras there for cheap, but I know nothing about those.

A Brownie is not something I'd shoot often with, but I'll probably get one of the 120 film adapters so I can try a roll of B&W in it and home-develop. Just to say I've done it. Only 6 photos per 120 roll though, according to the internet!

I sent my grandfather's folding Kodak camera from 1928 (not a brownie, but it made me remember) in for a CLA and they deemed it unrepairable (the bellows are literally in 100 pieces). So they sent me a substitute of some sort that I could use as a stand-in for a comparable experience. I've never even unwrapped it because I was so disappointed my original one couldn't be fixed.

Maybe it's time to throw some film in it.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

I sent my grandfather's folding Kodak camera from 1928 (not a brownie, but it made me remember) in for a CLA and they deemed it unrepairable (the bellows are literally in 100 pieces). So they sent me a substitute of some sort that I could use as a stand-in for a comparable experience. I've never even unwrapped it because I was so disappointed my original one couldn't be fixed.

Maybe it's time to throw some film in it.

I'd love to see what you get from that. Years ago I inherited a similar old camera with a disintegrating bellows - From what I see on the internet people do make replacement bellows for a variety of models, but that's a project and I feel like I already have too many cameras!

The Brownie is cheap and stupidly simple (and historically significant) so I thought what the heck. But I'm trying not to accumulate any more cameras....though I do want to pick up an affordable but useable 120 camera eventually.

 

[bunnspecial]

I just picked up a Brownie at an estate sale - at Target Six-16. It's in quite good shape, just needs some cleaning (and I did find one original 616 spool in it, I think I can use that as the take-up spool?). There were a pile of old bellows cameras there for cheap, but I know nothing about those.

A Brownie is not something I'd shoot often with, but I'll probably get one of the 120 film adapters so I can try a roll of B&W in it and home-develop. Just to say I've done it. Only 6 photos per 120 roll though, according to the internet!

6 frames on a roll sounds about right. A 116 frame is I think 4 1/2" long? A roll of 120 is ~30" long, so 6 should be safe allowing for appropriate frame spacing. I'm guessing you use the 6x6 marks on the backing paper(center row) and shoot every other frame number? I know I've had a 116 camera in my hands in the last couple of days but can't seem to locate it now-I seem to remember the ruby window being in the center?

"Bellows camera" is a pretty broad category, and can mean anything from a folding Brownie to a view camera, and a lot in between. There are a lot of 30s-50s folders that do take 120-pretty early on the German companies(namely Zeiss and Agfa) settled on that as their format of choice, and I suspect that(and then later F&H/Rollei and Hasselblad also using it) was what made 120 the roll film format that ended up staying around even to the present while the others slowly died off. In any case, if you're looking for one, IMO the ones to watch for are the ones branded Zeiss-Ikon Super Ikonta. The "Super Ikonta" branding(also "Super Ikomat" which was used in some markets for some reason) indicates a coupled rangefinder, so focusing is easy. A while back I had a Super Ikonta 532/16 that I foolishly sold(wish I'd kept it). That one is sort of the "Cadillac" model-it's 120 6x6 format with automatic frame spacing(albeit only 11 frames for safety, even though there's plenty of room for a 12th frame). Mine was a postwar model with a coated 80mm f/2.8 Tessar in a Synchro-Compur shutter(the same shutter used on a lot of postwar Rolleicord/Rolleiflex models and in "C" type Hasselblad lenses-offers both M and X sync as well as a built-in self timer) and lots of other goodies.

Sitting on my desk now is another I really want to shoot, but I have a lot in my way before I can do so. I have a Kodak 1A Autographic Deluxe, which is a 120 format camera. This particular one has a a Wollensak shutter with times from 1 second to 1/300-far more than the 2-4 speeds a lot of Kodak shutters offer. Even better, it has a Taylor-Hobson-Cooke Anastagmat lens, a 3-element triplet type lens, which is a big step up both in quality(from literally one of the best and oldest lens makers in the world) from the single element Meniscus lens on a lot of Kodaks. The shutter is pretty well gummed up, which is fixable(I have it partially disassembled and at least have been getting it to cock and complete a cycle) but the bellows have some corner pinholes that may need creativity to fix.