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Any film users out there?
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Jan 3, 2018 14:31:04   #
4X5er
 
Nice images Kiron Kid.

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Jan 3, 2018 14:32:07   #
4X5er
 
Sabrejet, I use an Epson V750-Pro.

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Jan 3, 2018 16:20:56   #
Shutterbug57
 
burkphoto wrote:
I built this rig out of an enlarger negative carrier, a flash bracket, some old magnets, tape, glue, popsicle sticks, the cardboard backing from a legal pad, and scrap wood from the box frame a ping-pong table came in. The light source is a 5000K CFL in a fixture made from a porcelain socket in a 100' 35mm film can. It's diffused with several sheets of translucent paper. It works great. I will probably build a better light box and use milk plexiglass to diffuse multiple lamps, for smoother and brighter illumination. For color work, I'll probably switch to photo grade LED lights for their better spectral output.

One thing I have learned... To maximize sharpness, the emulsion of the film MUST face the camera (as it would in any optical printer). You can flip the images in software.

For negatives, I invert images in Photoshop, or invert the curves in Lightroom. Then I flip the images, rotate them, crop them, and adjust them. I have saved several presets to automate some of this.

The raw files give me plenty of latitude to pull just about anything out of the negative or slide that is there. The tools in Lightroom allow tonal adjustments with a granularity that is not possible in any conventional photo lab. If you print to a high end (such as the Epson SureColor P series) inkjet printer on fine art paper, canvas, or inkjet photo paper, the result is a print that can last five times longer than conventional silver halide prints.

The Lumix does a fine job. It reproduces the film grain sharply, and appears to make just as sharp or sharper image than I made optically with an EL Nikkor enlarger lens, several decades ago, from the same negatives. Using noise reduction and careful sharpening in Lightroom can retain sharpness while subduing the effect of the film grain.

I'm exposing in raw mode at around 1/250 @ f/4, ISO 200. f/4 is definitely the sharpest aperture on my macro lens. I use the camera in electronic shutter mode, for vibrationless, silent operation. I trip the shutter with the Panasonic Image App on my iPhone. So there is NO vibration. It's a mirrorless camera, with an electronic shutter, with a WiFi remote... and the table rests on heavily padded carpet.

One advantage of using Micro 4/3 for this rig is that 1:1 on a Micro 4/3 mirrorless is just 1/4 of a 35mm film frame! So if I want to crop part of a slide or negative, I just slide the camera closer (It's on a makeshift rail).

This was an easy design for me, because I spent 8 years making slides for multi-image slide shows. I had a Bowens Illumitran 3c, a commercial slide duplicator. I also had another rig consisting of an inverted 4x5 Beseler enlarger color head, a "slide compound" that had vernier controls that could move a slide in 1/1000" X,Y increments, and a specially modified Nikon F3 with a pin-registered back and precision viewfinder reticle (composition grid). With both rigs, I used a Bogen 60mm wide angle enlarger lens on a bellows, mounted on the Nikon. My assistant and I copied thousands of slides, and composed hundreds of complex images using multiple exposure techniques.
I built this rig out of an enlarger negative carri... (show quote)


Thanks. Looks like quite the set-up. It has me thinking though.

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Jan 3, 2018 16:36:06   #
rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA
 
billnikon wrote:
Film is dead. Long live digital.


Film may be dead for you. Nothing wrong with that. But for some people, it is very much alive.

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Jan 3, 2018 16:37:48   #
James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)
 
4X5er wrote:
Hello, I'm relatively new to this forum and have enjoyed your banter with one another as well as appreciated the skill level that's out there. I do shoot some digital (Canon 5D MIII). I still prefer to shoot film, predominantly B&W and enjoy working in my darkroom. I was wondering whether there are others on this site that frequently shoot film?


==========

Yep! 4X5 and 8X10 here.

As the film is so very expensive - (And in that I have over 3,000 sheets of photographic print paper (the light sensitive stuff) I have been making use of that for a "film-base" in my holders and develop with Dektol (and other chemicals) to make "paper negative"... (A process that dates back to the beginnings of photography by William Henry Fox Talbot in the late 1830's.) having a really wonderful experience in doing so as well.

ALSO.....

It makes a better digital photographer out of me as the total process is a very S L O W one... The photographer Must Think about everything they do to make the print, and the outcome a successful one.

Attached is one of Positives from a "paper negative".

-0-

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Positive from a DIY "sliding-Box" 8X10 Camera.
Positive from a DIY "sliding-Box" 8X10 Camera....

Me with the "Sliding-Box" 8X10 Camera (Model #1A)
Me with the "Sliding-Box" 8X10 Camera (Model #1A)...

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Jan 3, 2018 16:38:44   #
Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.
 
Film is very much alive.





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Jan 3, 2018 16:39:19   #
Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.
 
James R wrote:
==========

Yep! 4X5 and 8X10 here.

As the film is so very expensive - (And in that I have over 3,000 sheets of photographic print paper (the light sensitive stuff) I have been making use of that for a "film-base" in my holders and develop with Dektol (and other chemicals) to make "paper negative"... (A process that dates back to the beginnings of photography by William Henry Fox Talbot in the late 1830's.) having a really wonderful experience in doing so as well.

ALSO.....

It makes a better digital photographer out of me as the total process is a very S L O W one... The photographer Must Think about everything they do to make the print, and the outcome a successful one.

Attached is one of Positives from a "paper negative".

-0-

-
========== br br Yep! 4X5 and 8X10 here. br br ... (show quote)


👍

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Jan 3, 2018 17:16:31   #
PeterBergh
 
speters wrote:
I too shoot with a 5D MIII, and as you, I do prefer film as well and shoot with it often, I do however do not have a darkroom, so I have to send my film out for developing!


When I was shooting (120 color-transparency E6) film, I used a Jobo processor to develop the film. I loaded the film onto the Jobo rolls using a "dark cloak", so I didn't need a darkroom. You may want to look into that possibility, particularly if you use transparency film.

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Jan 3, 2018 17:36:11   #
speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho
 
PeterBergh wrote:
When I was shooting (120 color-transparency E6) film, I used a Jobo processor to develop the film. I loaded the film onto the Jobo rolls using a "dark cloak", so I didn't need a darkroom. You may want to look into that possibility, particularly if you use transparency film.

Thank you very much for your suggestion, I in fact did that myself and did a very similar thing to develop a lot of movie films myself!

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Jan 3, 2018 18:18:01   #
selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA
 
4X5er wrote:
Hello, I'm relatively new to this forum and have enjoyed your banter with one another as well as appreciated the skill level that's out there. I do shoot some digital (Canon 5D MIII). I still prefer to shoot film, predominantly B&W and enjoy working in my darkroom. I was wondering whether there are others on this site that frequently shoot film?

I use B&W film in several MF cameras as well as a 4x5 Zone VI, all scanned on a V750. I also have several 35mm cameras tht I scan on a Coolscan 9000.

I now do all my color with digital because Cibachrome is no longer an option and color film needs to get mailed out,

I enjoy using all three formats and both film and digital have their place.

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Jan 3, 2018 18:28:59   #
rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA
 
burkphoto wrote:
Here's a different take... Use a digital camera to record raw files of your slides and negatives. Then process them in Lightroom or Photoshop (etc.) to create a final image.

These images were copied from film (two Kodachrome 64 slides and two Ilford B&W negatives — probably FP4 film) using a Lumix GH4 Micro 4/3 camera and a 30mm f/2.8 Lumix macro lens.

Please view in Download mode.

I'd rather use a tool designed to do the job - I'm just an amateur, but I own Plustek 8100ai and Nikon LS-2000 scanners.

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Jan 3, 2018 20:37:37   #
lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA
 
4X5er wrote:
Hello, I'm relatively new to this forum and have enjoyed your banter with one another as well as appreciated the skill level that's out there. I do shoot some digital (Canon 5D MIII). I still prefer to shoot film, predominantly B&W and enjoy working in my darkroom. I was wondering whether there are others on this site that frequently shoot film?


I still consider myself both a digital and film photography but to be honest the film photography is mostly in spirit, and that I still have all the cameras, and enlargers for it. I keep planning on shooting 4x5" B&W with my two large format cameras, but I never seem to want to put the work into it. I better find the time eventually as my wife keeps pushing me and I talked her in to letting me buy yet another view camera lens, a used Schneider Super Angulon 120mm lens on Copal Shutter. I did start a cassette of 35mm color film to test out a used camera and lens I obtained not long ago. I also have to try out James' paper negatives in my 4x5". I have old paper and film still.

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Jan 3, 2018 21:51:20   #
Keith Parris Loc: Texas
 
No - Film is NOT dead. I have heard that some photographers are returning to film because its archival characteristics are preferred over archival potential for digital images. It is amazing how many photographers still use film, how many places process film, and how many film cameras are available. I am the primary administrator for a film only sub-group of a local photography club. Only three or four members of the main group expressed an interest in forming a film only group. Now that the group is up and running, the film only group has 12 members participating in discussions about film and film cameras as well as sharing photographs made on film. It is interesting that Polaroid is back in business. There are a few photographers who are using Tintype and other early photographic processes today.

As for digital photography, I expect that it will continue to develop. A holographic imager similar to the one used by the doctor on Star Trek USS Voyager will probably be in common use 15 to 20 years from today.

I am currently using both film and digital cameras. Most of my photographs are digital, but I enjoy using my film cameras. My film cameras include: Nikon N2020 (35 mm single-lens reflex), Fujifilm GF670 (120 roll film folding rangefinder), and Mamiya RB67 (120 roll film single-lens reflex). My digital camera is a Nikon D750 (full-frame digital single-lens reflex). My film is processed in a local commercial laboratory, and I scan my film into digital images files myself.

Anybody interested in film photography might want to follow or join the discussions in the North Texas Film Photography group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/NorthTexasFilmPhotography/. NO - this is NOT the group that I administer. NTxFP is a much larger group; it has 514 members.

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Jan 3, 2018 22:13:50   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
rehess wrote:
I'd rather use a tool designed to do the job - I'm just an amateur, but I own Plustek 8100ai and Nikon LS-2000 scanners.


If I had one of the old Kodak Bremson HR-500 Plus scanners I used in the portrait film scanning lab I ran from 2000-2005, I'd be happy. That sucker was fast, deadly accurate, and sharp! We had nine of them.

But unfortunately, you needed $50,000 for one scanner, about $12,000 worth of Gigabit network gear to use it, a fast expensive server, two fast PCs, a Bremson "Wheelman" color adjustment tool, a monitor calibrator, and a $40,000 server license for Kodak's DP2 Digital Print Production Software. In other words, you needed a lab...

My little duplicator setup is a prototype, but it works just as well as the expensive gear I used in my 1980s AV lab. It is much faster and sharper than any scanner in the same price range. PLUS, it uses a camera and lens with many other uses.

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Jan 3, 2018 22:19:28   #
Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.
 
Portra 400. Nikon 105 f/2.5 glass. No post processing.



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