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.

 

[bunnspecial]

If I can be forgiven for a bit of rambling-(well sometimes that's all I do on here, but a bit more)-

I've been in a self-admitted photography rut since moving to St. Louis in 2020. It's not that I haven't picked up a camera, and in fact in terms of sheer volume I've probably made more exposures in that time than I had in my life up to that point.

The problem I've had is that I haven't ENJOYED what I've been doing as much as I use to. Most of my more recent work has been formal portraiture, candid event type photography, and sometimes a mix of both(in all seriousness, when you're trying to take staged photos that involve a bunch of kids, some of the best of the set can happen in an instant while you're trying to get the kids to cooperate, even if you do finally get the one where they're all looking at the camera and have a halfway decent expression on their faces).

Part of my issue, and this has been getting better, has been that I'm still absolutely in love with the landscape of central and eastern Kentucky, and in particular the rolling hills of the former. I could spend a day photographing the river palisades, driving the back roads, or even wandering around some of the(many) state parks. Here it's all just...flat...and forgive me for saying so but the rivers are ugly. When my wife and I were dating, I took her to a highly recommended restaurant one evening outside Louisville that sits on the banks of the Ohio river-it was a pleasant evening of driving the MG out along River Road and then waiting our table while sitting and watching the Ohio. There's another restaurant(unfortunately recently closed) in my hometown that sits right over a lock and dam on the Kentucky River, and even though the food is(was) good, the view was always the seller. Those are just a few examples, but by contrast the Missisippi River is a muddy mess that you really don't even want to get close to(up a little further north it gets better-I could spend all day with a camera on the river banks in Dubuque, Iowa for example) but that's what we have around here. The Illinois and Missouri rivers are a little nicer to look at, but the land around them at least here is flat and boring.

I've realized I just need to look harder for inspiration, and sometimes opportunity presents even though I don't always have a camera with me that can do things justice. Fall moons over the farmlands here make quite a sight, as do some other things. I really need to just open my eyes too and realize that I work on an historic college campus with 150 year old river limestone buildings-just like the kind that get me so excited in Kentucky.

All of that aside, though, through a couple of different circumstances I've really been shooting a LOT more film lately, and that has me inspired in a sense in the way that I can remember feeling nearly 20 years ago when I first took this on as a hobby. Unfortunately the landscape has changed a bit-as color goes literally NONE of the stocks I used back then are still available totally unchanged. Ektar is one of the best color negative films I've used, but it's also challenging to shoot. Portra is technically better than it ever has been, but back in the day I really only shot Portra when I had a good reason to. I'd been under the impression that the current Portra stocks were really second generations of the 160NC and 400NC, but someone clued me in to Portra 400 really being more like 400VC. It's still not 400UC, but when I shoot those stocks, I've been a LOT happier shooting 400 than 160.

Transparency film has been the other big deal. I tried shooting the reintroduced Fuji RVP-50, but I never could get it to look like the original RVP use to look. Someone clued me in to the fact that RVP-100 has been unchanged since it came on the market, and was designed to be a faster, finer grained version of RVP. I switched to shooting it and was happy, but then the EPA decided we couldn't get RVP-100 anymore in the US, and commercial labs aren't even supposed to process it. I still have a bunuch of it. At least one lab I've used a lot over the years told me "We aren't supposed to do it, but you know when I'm back there loading the machine all I really look at is if the film says E6 on it" with a wink, but that lab's E6 processor is currently down. All the talk of Fuji transparency film is kind of moot, though, because when B&H or whoever gets some in stock, in literally sells out in minutes no matter what the price. E100 is a REALLY good stock and nearly identical to the old E100G, but I always preferred E100GX. An 81A fixes that, but I'd rather just have the color balance in the film I want(and I'd say there's less than zero chance that E100GX ever comes back-it's a small miracle that E100 even exists). It's also always available, even at $20+ a roll, but E6 processing is getting harder to find and more inconsistent.

I've been taking a lot of initiative on my own lately, though. I finally just did it, pulled out a bunch of my old darkroom equipment, and mixed up a pouch of D76 that expired in 2021. I took a-reasonable-gamble that a sealed kept dry pouch would be fine, and it's been fine. With that said, chemistry has doubled in price since I last bought any, and it's reached the point where it was worth investing in raw chemicals to do it myself. I have made a batch of D76 just to try, although I've also mixed some D23 and D96(the latter is a lower contrast developer-so far I've only done it Double-X, a lovely stock I'm only just now using, but want to try it with Tri-X). D23 I don't see a ton of use for, but it's a simple formula and a lot of people swear by it. I was never a big HC110 guy, but it had its uses. I'm not sure I'll buy any more once my current stash of syrup is gone. I've been playing a bit with Diafine, definitely a special purpose developer but one that has its uses.


With that said, I've developed a dozen rolls in the past two weeks-some have gone great, some not so much, and I'm WAY behind on scanning but I've been having fun. Nothing like having film hanging in the shower again...when my wife isn't home

I've been going a few other directions, though. A few years ago, I had bought a few 100ft rolls of Rollei 400 Pro in 70mm type 2 perf-this film is actually Agfa Aviphot 200, and it's better know commercially packaged as Rollei 400 IR. It does have extended red sensitivity and can be used an an IR film with an R72 film(EI roughly of 6 when shot with one...the IR sensitivity is there but it's not strong). The extended red sensitivity gives it an interesting look for normal pictoral use, or with a hot mirror filter it looks more like a regular pan film-I've not seen a need to do that other than just as an experiment.

In any case, even though I had the film, I was at a loss as to what to do with it. I bought a Hasselblad A70 back, but never went further-I didn't have a good way to load cartridges, and didn't have a clue how I was going to process the stuff once I'd shot it.

A few months ago, I discovered the small company Mercury Works, which specializes in shooting 70mm-and also 65mm-film. They had a lot of the answers I was looking for, and I bought a bulk loader, long roll processing tank, and a bunch of other things from them.

Finally, after several years of sitting on this film, I had some loaded in a camera...

Even more exciting, though, is shooting 65mm Kodak Vision stocks in these backs, which Mercury Works has solutions to do. I'm planning on buying from them also a 70mm insert for my more recently acquired Pentax 645N...

70mm makes an interesting experience. On a hand wound Hasselblad body, the proportions are definitely...well weird to put it mildly. If I may borrow a slightly crude line from a 2000s Country Music song, I've refered to cameras with a 70mm back as having a "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk".

A lot of people associate these 70mm backs with the motor drive Hasselblad bodies, and for good reason. For one, almost without fail, when you mention shooting 70mm film, someone will say "Moon Cameras", which of course were modified Hasselblad 500ELs. I think a lot don't realize that was pretty extensive commercial use of 70mm film, and that Kodak even offered a few emulsions pre-loaded in cartridges for it. Most use was high volume portrait studios, a lot of whom would have been using a motorized body(whether Hasselblad or others) on a tripod anyway. It has a lot of real-world advantages, including that the "standard" 15 feet of film is ~70 exposures on 6x6, and on some thin base films you can cram well over 100 exposure in. That's compared to 12 for 120, or 24 for 220(good luck on that these days, short of Shanghai film or your own old stashes of it). I've been loading my cartridges with about 6 feet of film, or about 30 exposures. It's oddly freeing to not have to be as strategic as you are with 120 film. Also, with the way 70mm feeds, only about 4" of film at a time is actually out of the cartridge and the rest is light tight. That means if you want to make a mid-roll cut(say to change development or whatever, or even to change film) you just make 1-2 exposure you don't care about to get the ones you do care into the cartridge, pull the insert out of the back, cut it mid-roll, and drop an empty take-up cartridge in.

As I mentioned, Mercury Works has worked on solutions to shoot 65mm in most cameras capable of taking 70mm film. Hasselblads-and a lot of other 70mm capable cameras-measured advance by the perforations on the film. This is actually somewhat better than the normal way 120 film is advanced. The normal still camera called for "Type 2" perforations, which are actually the same what's on 35mm film(6 perfs/inch). This was-and actually still is-used in some very limited applications for aerial surveilance, so there are a lot of older 70mm type 2 films meant for this out there(most have extended red sensitivity). There's also an uncommon type 1 perf(used in some purpose built studio portrait cameras) and unperforated. Thanks to the way most 70mm backs are made, it's actually really straight forward to change the sprocket wheel to a rubber wheel that lets you use other types of perforations or unperforated film.

With a bit of creativity, which again Mercury Works has done, and also thanks to 3D printing, you can use 65mm film in a lot of backs meant for 70mm. Why does that matter? 65mm is "IMax format" film, and also has been used for a lot of big budget/high profile feature movies. Oppenheimer was the most recent one I'm aware of. That means that, if you are willing to buy enough, you can call up Kodak and get fresh Vision3 65mm stocks. Unfortunately, other cinema stocks aren't available. Kodak actually special-made Double-X for Oppenheimer, but they've said that will be a "never again" deal. Mercury Works was able to get the short ends and leftovers of Double-X from Oppenheimer, but they aren't selling it.

So, I've been stocking up on both fresh and expired 65 and 70mm film. Here's some recently acquired

I have some Kodak VPS and a few other B&W stocks out in the freezer, some fresh some expired, along with some Vison3 50D. Also on the way to me(after bouncing around the world) are a few 100ft rolls of Kodak Plus-X Aero film.

And just through some opportunites and hunting, my Hasselblad collection has grown just a bit...

(I'm still struggling to find a real use for the 350mm, but if any Hasselblad shooters want an unusual lens to play with, they are one of the less expensive lenses you can buy for the system).

So, anyway, I've actually been getting out and shooting a lot lately, I'm just working through developing and scanning.

In all this rambling too, I'll mention that Cinema film really calls for ECN-2 processing, although it can be processed in C-41 as long as the Rem-jet backing is removed first. I'm hoping this week to mix a batch of ECN-2 chemistry-it's in a fun/weird spot of there not being a great non-Blix commercial kit, but Kodak has actually published the formulae for it. I'm waiting on CD3 and a few other chemicals to arrrive, and then it should be game on...

 

[MajorFubar]

I love film photography. It's what I grew up with. In particular slide photograph and seeing images crossfaded on a big screen. It was one of my dad's hobbiese and I loved it. My difficulty these days is the expense. £33 in the UK for a roll of Fuji slide film (36 exposures), plus another £14+ shipping for developing. That's kissing goodbye to fifty quid just for 36 slides. That's £1.38 a shot.

 

[piatigorsky]

In all this rambling too, I'll mention that Cinema film really calls for ECN-2 processing, although it can be processed in C-41 as long as the Rem-jet backing is removed first. I'm hoping this week to mix a batch of ECN-2 chemistry-it's in a fun/weird spot of there not being a great non-Blix commercial kit, but Kodak has actually published the formulae for it. I'm waiting on CD3 and a few other chemicals to arrrive, and then it should be game on...

Might add my two cents. I've been processing my cinema film in the same Cinestill CS41 chemistry (dev+blix) that I use for my regular color negatives. Everyone says that if you do process cinema film in C41 chemistry, you should use a separate batch of developer just for the cinema film, because even if an alkaline bath is used beforehand to remove the remjet, there will always still be some residue left on the film that could contaminate the developer. I've been doing something that might not be for the faint of heart: after a baking soda bath to remove most of the remjet, I go into my completely dark and windowless bathroom, take the film out of the developing tank, put it in a basin of warm water, use a set of sponges to wipe the entire length of the film five times, and then spool the film back into the developing tank—all in the dark of course. Five was the the magic number I settled on after experimenting, to ensure that the remjet is indeed fully removed. Since I began doing this, I've never had a problem with remjet residue in the developer, the film always ends up completely clean, and I've never scratched the emulsion—this might just be good luck, or maybe it's because I've always been extra careful. The only problem is I often have to wash my bathroom floor afterward because there will be black spots all over the place, which sort of confirms that what I've been doing in the dark is indeed working.

Also, I'd really like to mix my own b&w developer, since I already mix all the other baths by myself, but metol is basically impossible to find in the chemistry shops here in Taiwan. Of course there's caffenol…

 

[mollyc]

So Kodak is going to stop selling cinema film to resellers other than Cinestill. Maybe you already know this. But the little repackaging companies selling respooled stuff won't be able to anymore.

And I love caffenol!

 

[piatigorsky]

Unfortunately the price of powered vitamin C here is so high, unless you're ordering 50kg vats directly from the factory, it's at least 10 times cheaper to just buy a bottle of HC-110. Otherwise I'd do processing with caffenol more often as well, right now it's more like a party trick: hey, see what I can do with all this edible stuff!

 

[mollyc]

Unfortunately the price of powered vitamin C here is so high, unless you're ordering 50kg vats directly from the factory, it's at least 10 times cheaper to just buy a bottle of HC-110. Otherwise I'd do processing with caffenol more often as well, right now it's more like a party trick: hey, see what I can do with all this edible stuff!

I don't know the price difference, but I buy vitamin C tablets and just crush them. I couldn't find powdered anywhere the day I wanted to develop and I was too impatient to wait to order (at the time, I actually had real developer in transit already). I suppose the tablets have some sort of binder in them, but I haven't had any issues.