The light is changing, time to bring out the analog camera!

Thanks, my friend! I actually have the original manual, along with everything else he purchased nearly 30 years ago. I cannot believe how perfect everything is... like a time capsule.

 

35mm. agfapan apx 100. either agfa fiber base or ilford fiber base paper, i forget. i think the agfa. 8x10. developed and printed by yours truly. always got great tones and detail out of that stuff...

sounds like you got very lucky.

 

That's really cool.

I miss the days of the filed negative carrier. Of course you can do that in Photoshop, but it's just not as cool.

dan c

 

Anyone here remember or use Ilford's XP-1 black & white C-41 processing film?

There was a period of 12 years back in the 80's and early 90's I was a professional photographer. I always preferred shooting black & white, and of course used Plus-X and Tri-X--until XP-1 came along. It printed like a dream. If there were any areas over-exposed, no problem you could still get details out of it. To a lesser degree same with under-exposed areas. Also, it was 400 speed but had virtually no grain so it enlarged wonderfully too. I haven't looked at any of those negatives for years, so maybe they haven't aged well, but I loved working with them at the time. I think it changed to XP-2 right around the time I was getting out of the business, and then it disappeared totally?

 

Oh no, XP-2 is still around and easy to find. Kodak also makes their own C-41 B&W film.

Here's a shot I did on XP-2 with a Holga camera early this year. Not quite a good example of how sharp the film can be...

dan c

 

I see you were using a tripod. Nothing like a Holga lens to capture the sharpest details too.

The Kodak C-41 black and white I've shot has been fairly grainy. For best results I have to use Ilford 100 black and white. Great detail with that.

Does anyone here have any suggestions for a low grain color film? 400 iso would be ideal, but I'm not holding my breath. 100 or 200 would work too.

 

yeah, it really isn't. that must be one i did at school, cause that's their filed negative carrier. i have one at home that's filed much more to my liking, where you can see all the sprocket holes and everything, like below. really, everything at home was much more to my liking -- better light control, better chemistry control, better enlarger and lenses...

i don't really have a particularly preferred medium at the moment, but there was a time i was shooting both film and digital, with the stipulation that i wanted it to be really obvious which was which. i shot in two completely different styles, and tried to make the format as apparent as possible. for film, i shot either really slow film with great tonal ranges, or high speed grainy film, and printed all of them in very traditional ways. the filed carrier helped a lot. for digital, i shot basically at random and in bulk, selected the most interesting, overcompressed and oversharpened, and brought out the digital artifacts as much as possible.

i'll add a digital one for comparison too.

 

low grain = slow film speed. at least in general, at 400 some film is lower grain than others. but i always went to extremes, personally. i liked fuji velvia 50 (when it was still made the way it used to be), but i predominantly shot b+w film.

 

Right. I should have specified a low grain 400 speed film. I get pretty good results with the Ilford 100 black and white, though I'm curious to try something even slower. A low speed color film seems to be a bit elusive, but I did see some reference to 160 speed Kodak pro color films today. I need to investigate more on that front, of course, but the 400 iso films I've used all seem to be too grainy. Not a lot of sharp detail, and pretty well useless for enlargements beyond 5x7.

 

Rookie question, but where should I start? Buy standard 35mm. film from Target and get at it, or perhaps some film more worthy of this particular model?

I'm really interested in starting a new hobby (I've actually thought about this for a long time). I've always wanted to go out and pretend to be a hunter, only instead of shooting an animal (deer, elk, etc.) with a gun, do it with a camera. All the adrenaline and the glory of the kill shot without actually harming anything (I don't hunt).

Thanks for any tips.

 

Any 35mm Kodak or Fuji should work well enough, but do some reading up on film speeds and experiment a little. It might take a bit of time to get a feel for film (it did for me at least) but I enjoy it much more than digital, even though I send all my stuff to a lab rather than develop on my own.

 

Dan, the first thought that came to my mind on seeing this, Robert Frank, The Americans...


I have a Beseler 45H enlarger with negative carriers from 35mm to 4x5 and for glass plates, along with four or five Schneider lenses for it. While I will likely still shoot with my analog cameras (Mamiya C330, Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Pentax Spotmatic II, and Brownie Hawkeye) it will be b/w film then scan. Doubt I'll ever go through the hoops to print on that beautiful piece of equipment again.

 

This is about as good as a 2 minute drill gets

 

That's good to hear XP-2 is still around if I ever decide to start shooting again. Internet ordering wasn't around when I was using it. Even in it's prime era of use around here there seemed to only be a few specialty stores that carried much of it beyond a handful of just the 35mm rolls.

It seems unusual the Kodak version would be that different or grainy, but I have never seen it. IIRC the Ilford was mostly done with dye layers, so there was very little look of any grain--a 400 variable speed film with "grain" closer to Pan-X or Plus-X. Regular Ilford film I was never much of a fan, except their plastic canisters were way nicer looking than Kodak (oooohh pretty colors! ) and you could tell what was inside without popping the lid or making labels.

 

I have a Beseler 45M series enlarger stored at my parents house that sadly hasn't been touched in over 15 years.

 

Thanks! I also love that book. He was such a cynical fellow, wasn't he.

I had a great second-hand Beseler 23c system with the standard condenser head for years, along with a few Nikkor lenses, the carriers, trays, etc. I got really tired of dragging that stuff around when I moved. Since I was lived in small apartments I was never able to set it up again, so it got sold. I can't even remember when.

There was something so cool about locking yourself up and printing in to the wee hours. At least until I started doing it as a profession...then it absolutely sucked and I welcomed the arrival of digital with open arms!

dan c

 

Even when I was still using film on a daily basis (just over 10 years ago) 400 neg had matured to the point that it was hardly any different than standard 100.

Back then there were also some 'high end' color neg films in the 50-100 range that were sharper yet, but for the most part basic Fuji and Kodak 400 was pretty stunning. Fuji 800 was also very popular then as well, still blowing our minds that a film that fast could look so incredible.

I don't think film has advanced much since then. Now that I'm playing with it again there are obviously much fewer choices. Most of the super-sharp low speed color neg seems to be gone, except for maybe Fuji Reala. I want to stock up on that before it too is gone.

One more thing, Fuji color neg has a reputation of being better for scanning than Kodak. Something about how the light reflects back from the grain...I dunno. I heard that some years ago so it very well could be moot by now.

dan c

 

Here's a thread I just found after a Google search.

Looks like someone here still does a lot of work with color neg, so there might be some good info here.

http://photo.net/film-and-processing-forum/00HGED

dan c

 

ah, ok, out comes the famous question in photography when someone asks about gear: "what are you using it for?"

the kodak color films around iso 160 tend to be very good with skin tones, portraits and such. for landscapes, people tend to like slides for punchier colors unless the scene has a lot of dynamic range. in which case, well, i'm not really sure what they use.

i've used both the fuji and kodak daylight films in 400. i did like the fuji better, but beyond that, i can't really say you should definitely get it. agfa made some decent color, but i always liked their black and white far, far more. and they don't exist anymore, so.

film choice is very subjective, depends on taste and goals and such. the best advice i can give you is to go down to the store, pick up a roll or two of everything they've got, and give 'em all a go on something unimportant.

go buy a small number of basically any kind of film you can get developed. i can't recommend c-41 b+w (personal distaste for it), but pick something you can get done at a lab first. that means color print film, not slides, not b+w. potentially the most satisfying results will come from doing all your own chemistry, but that's a degree of complication you're likely not totally prepared for right off the bat. first you need to learn the camera, and any film will do.

take your first roll, and use it to learn how to properly setup and load the camera. if you mess it up, and pull too much out, don't worry. just feed it back in and keep going. as long as you didn't pull it all out, it's fine -- your first few pictures just won't turn out. that's okay, this first roll is just to make sure you know how to work the camera, and most importantly, to check for light leaks.

a camera that's that old and untouched might have had some deterioration in its light seals. it may look mint, the in the 70's and 80's, light seals were generally made with a kind of foam that just falls apart after 20 years, given the right conditions. if that's happened, your pictures will be foggy/hazy, or have weird streaks in them. it's not a huge problem, most camera shops will replace the seals pretty inexpensively.

try not to shoot anything terribly important with your first few rolls. just practice, with no pressure. you're lucky if they turn out -- no problems with the camera, and you loaded everything right. also, don't get discouraged if you kind of suck at it. the secret most of us photographers aren't sharing is that 99% of all pictures taken are pretty worthless, even ours. 1 good shot in a roll is doing great. just shoot, and shoot some more.

a great suggestion. even if the camera has automatic functions (i forget offhand if the a1 does), you'll want to do it manually for a while. it means more missed shots, yes, but you'll quickly learn basics of aperture and shutter speed, and the relationship between them in making the correct exposure. you also might want to get a little notebook, and write down your exposure data: shot #, f/stop, shutter speed, iso, and any notes or a brief description. it'll help you figure out what you did right or wrong when you're looking at the pictures later.

also, the ansel adams trilogy, the camera, the negative, and the print. you should be able to find each for about 5 bucks used, and they're very good reads. but they can get a little complicated.

oh man, the 23c. you can't give those things away anymore. we had a lab full of 'em at school. personally, i prefer diffuser/dichro heads, not condensors. different contrast ratio.

speaking of slow and sharp film, i have a bulk roll of technpan. my photoprof gave it to me a few years ago. no idea if it's still good. got the (powdered) developer too. i'll find something to use it on eventually.

 

An essential step . That's one of the great things about digital, having all the info recorded on the shot.

 

Thanks for all the information, arachnophilia and Steve. Much apprciated!

 

yeah. in some regards, learning on digital is much, much easier for precisely that reason. in other regards, you're more tempted to shoot automatically, and you're a bit more removed from the basic process. nothing wrong with that if you know what you're doing, but it's good to learn the basics the hard way first.

no prob. let us know how it's going and if you have any questions or problems.

 

I just joined the forum solely so a reply to this (old!) post would be possible.

Ere, do you still have the 45H? If so, might you be interested in selling it? Thanks in advance for your reply.