Nightski wrote:
I decided if I'm going to hang out on a forum that has so many people that "shot film", I should get with it and do some work in that area so I have some experience to draw from when looking at the film shots people have posted. I have shot up a roll and have had it developed. Now I have a few questions.
When I had my film developed I got a CD with the pictures and the negatives. Do you get more detail if you scan the negatives yourself? Is scanning the negatives like getting a RAW file on a digital?
Has anyone compared the light metering on their digital to the light metering on a SLR camera of the same brand? Is the way that the light metering works pretty much the same?
Is 35mm the same as full frame? Do you get bigger prints from a full frame camera, or does that depend on how many megapixels it is?
Do you get more out of your film if you develop it yourself?
I actually found a Walgreens that does the "wet" processing so I can get negatives. I was informed that all Walgreens are going "dry" though, and there will come a day where I can only get my pictures on a CD. Does anyone have a favorite online place to get their pics developed?
I have viewed my pictures on the CD, but I don't know how to scan my negatives yet. It seems like they get a little pixelated if i zoom way in ... is this because the files on the CD are small?
One more question My settings aren't listed in lightroom on my film pics ... how the heck am I suppose to remember what my settings were? I mean, I know I used 400 film, so thats' my ISO, but how do I know what my shutter speed and aperture were set at?
I decided if I'm going to hang out on a forum that... (
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Congratulations! So what camera did you get?
>> Do you get more detail if you scan the negatives yourself? Is scanning the negatives like getting a RAW file on a digital?
Probably. The negative is the equivalent of a raw file, you can process it / scan it so many different ways. For top quality results you probably want a specialist processing shop, not the local drug store who just deal in snapshots and will supply you with JPEGS on a CD set at whatever level of detail they choose to give you. If they don't give you the negatives back then there is probably no point in using film for someone like yourself.
>> Has anyone compared the light metering on their digital to the light metering on a SLR camera of the same brand? Is the way that the light metering works pretty much the same?
It can be. I had (still have) a Canon T90, and it's meeting, shutter priority, and aperture priority modes are very similar to modern Canon Digital cameras, even the P&S types. That is one reason that I stuck with Canon, all the controls and user interface are familiar and the T90 was introduced in 1986, just before Canon switched to the EOS autofocus system.
>> Is 35mm the same as full frame? Do you get bigger prints from a full frame camera, or does that depend on how many megapixels it is?
35mm and full frame sensors are the same size. Bigger prints depend upon all sorts of quality variables, not just megapixels, but noise (grain with film), lens quality and so on.
>> One more question My settings aren't listed in lightroom on my film pics ... how the heck am I suppose to remember what my settings were? I mean, I know I used 400 film, so thats' my ISO, but how do I know what my shutter speed and aperture were set at?
You mean that film doesn't have EXIF metadata magically imprinted on the negatives? Rats!
I think you might need to resort to a notebook and pencil for each exposure. Then, once you have the negatives digitized you could manually edit the EXIF data with something like EXIFtool. It's a little bit like using old manual focus lenses on a modern DSLR. If the lens has a chip, then the camera can record the data it has - shutter speed, ISO, max aperture, focal length etc., but not anything that isn't instrumented such as actual focal length on a zoom lens or the actual aperture value used because there is no automated system to collect that data. It's laborious, but I think it's what Ansel Adams used to have to do....
Good luck, it would be great to get updates on your experiences with this project....