Just joined the film club

[innerimager]

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My entire photographic life has been digital, starting 5 years ago with nikon DSLR's. The RD-1 and then M8 brought me closer and closer, and then shooting a few roles with a buddies M5 and looking at just Walgreen scans convinced me, it was time. I will be concentrating on B&W and learning to develop and scan from a close friend and pro around the corner. To stay similar to my M8 functions, I just purchased a brand new M6 TTL 0.85, chrome for $1510, on e-bay from an authorized leica dealer. It looked like $1250-1350 was the price for mint used, I'm happy to pay more for a new camera with a Passport warranty. I definitely wanted the .85 as my noctilux and 75 summilux will be getting the lion's share.

 

So, I'm thrilled to finally be able to learn the basics and mostly to get the look I see possible in film. Get ready for LOT's of questions about film stock, scanning, etc., etc., etc. best....Peter

[charlesh]

Welcome to the club. Although I shoot with a DSLR when work requires digital, I've remained a staunch film user, with Nikons, Mamiyas, Contax, M6, and now the M7. I continue to argue that digital is NOT better than film, just different. Enjoy the process, enjoy the results!!

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[innerimager]

thank you Charles.

[ron110n]

Ah... B&W processing and Traditional Photography.

The possibilities are endless and the results are always unique.

Welcome aboard and don't hesitate to ask if you have questions on your B&W developing or scanning.

There is no such thing as stupid questions.

 

Best,

 

-Ron

 

Creature of Habbits or the Caveman within

[innerimager]

There is no such thing as stupid questions.

Give me a chance, I'll prove that axiom wrong, ;>) best...Peter

[ron110n]

Give me a chance, I'll prove that axiom wrong, ;>) best...Peter

 

You're the man...

Not limited to... and exist in both worlds.

I also shoot digital... "a lot".

 

-Ron

 

Creature of Habbits or the Caveman within

[dfbldwn]

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Ah... B&W processing and Traditional Photography.

Welcome aboard and don't hesitate to ask if you have questions on your B&W developing or scanning.

There is no such thing as stupid questions.

 

Best,

 

-Ron

 

Creature of Habbits or the Caveman within

 

I'd like to exploit your generous offer with a question of my own.

 

What B&W developer would you recommend for someone who shoots, at most, about two rolls of film a month?

 

At my low shooting rate it seems all developers would have passed their expiration date well before I could have exhausted them. I fear its actually more cost effective to pay to get the film processed.

 

But professional processing can produce a wide variety of results.

 

Hope you can help

[Guest Bernd Banken]

Hi David,

 

welcome on board. In December last year I started (again) after more than thirtyfive years shooting just holiday pics b/w developing.

 

Not so many things changed in developing film. Here is a link to a one-time developer:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Acufine-Acu-1-Developer-Concentrate-Solution/dp/B0000ALKCC

 

Enjoy the first opening of a drum and looking at your first roll developed;)

 

Bernd

[Photoskeptic]

Welcome. I had an M6 TTL .085 which I loved. You are very lucky to get a brand new one. You won't regret it. Buy lots of film

[stunsworth]

Rofinal lasts for year (literally) once opened.

 

It has a repeutation for being grainy, but it'd certainly be worth trying on a film such as FP4 or TMax 100.

 

I've had a batch of Xtol last at least a year by mixing up a 5 litre batch and then storing it in 1 litre bottles.

[strick]

- Congrats ;-)

 

Best,

Greg

[mym6is12]

What B&W developer would you recommend for someone who shoots, at most, about two rolls of film a month?

 

Rodinal : shelf life is as close to forever as it gets.

 

Diluted 1+50 for tight grain, high sharpness and great tonality

[ron110n]

What B&W developer would you recommend for someone who shoots, at most, about two rolls of film a month?

 

At my low shooting rate it seems all developers would have passed their expiration date well before I could have exhausted them. I fear its actually more cost effective to pay to get the film processed.

 

But professional processing can produce a wide variety of results.

 

Hi David,

 

Ok I'll let you exploit my generousity... =)

I'm cool with that.

 

Nothing wrong with 2 rolls a month. "I'm only 2 or 3 rolls a month".

Developers (powder pack) are cheap at the price range of $5 to $8.

Once prepared to stock solution, it is about 90% Distilled Water.

 

 

When stored properly, it should last 6 months.

The biggest cause of developer failure is air oxidation.

There are many techniques of reducung the air betwwen the developer and the cap.

Long time ago I do the same technique as our colleage Steve Unsworth's

liter bottle distribution, then each time I open a liter, I add glass marbles till the developer fill to the rim of the bottle.

 

Now a few months ago I found this Arista Air Evac Bottle.

That eliminated the marbles and at $6.99, I can't complain.

 

 

Freestyle Photographic Supplies Arista Air-Evac Bottle 2 Liter

 

Now here's a Tmax RS Developer tip.

Just this weekend I bought this Tmax RS Developer.

It says in the instruction to prep 1.9 liters of water to the temp that it says in the box. I forgot...

 

Add the liquid bottle and stir.

Add the replenisher pocket and stir.

Top it up with water to make one gallon???

No...

 

That is 21 % of water, and I will just add that each time I develop.

But why???

The 79% solution that I made fit's exactly in my Arista Air Evac Bottle.

 

Here's the math...

 

Tmax RS Stock

 

1 gal = 3,785.41 ml.

 

Distilled H20 = 1900 ml.

Tmax RS = 772 ml.

Tmax Repl. = 15 ml.

 

Total = 2687 ml.

 

Diffrence = 1098.41 ml.

 

Dilution = 2.7:1.1

 

1 35mm = 290 ml. (Paterson Tank) = 71% Tmax Rs : 29% H2O

 

 

But what is the result???

A picture speaks a thousand words and you'll be the judge.

 

Sorry I only have, mostly friends and family as a sample.

But I hope you like the beautiful smile of Southern California.

These are my colleages at work durring our break or tea time on the other side of the pond.

 

Hope this helps,

 

-Ron

 

M3, Noct, Tmax 400, Tmax RS Developer Stock Sol. @ 24C / 5 min. (lightly cropped)

 

OMG!!! I didn't know that Andreas is counting those smiley face as an image...

[Guest flatfour]

Congratulations. You'll enjoy using film I am sure. I would however suggest you use a halfway house before you do your own processing by getting your film - (chromogenic is easiest B&W) processed by a lab or shop. You can then scan and print as per digital. I say this simply because you tend to be more careful how you take a picture with film and you don't want to muck it up by the sort of mistakes we have all made when first home developing. Anyway good luck.

[Gary Haigh]

If it helps, I use Rodinal 1:50 also and on Tri X. Yes it is grainy but I like the grain and I only make smallish prints as a rule but go up to about 11"X14" for exhibitions.

 

The light in South Australia can is often very contrasty so with this combination I have a chance of avoiding washed out highlights and lifeless black shadows.

 

Have fun with the particular beauty of film.

 

Best wishes,

Gary Haigh.

[andit]

Hi Peter,

 

I can also only join everyone else here and say welcome... Strangely enough, I actually thought about this just the other - if there are people out there who have never shot film. This is not a bad thing, it just sadly reminds me that I'm getting older. I still have those words in my ear when my niece said to me "what are those big black cd's?". It was only then that I realised she had been born after the LP's had disappeared and had no way of knowing what they were.

 

In photography it's just the same way. For me, and I'm sure for a number of other people on this forum, when you speak about photography you immediately equate that to film - not to pixels and sensors and all that stuff. I know that I certainly always compare a digital image to how that would have come out on film. The only reason that I switched to digital, as I'm sure many did, was for the instant results. In the past you had to use Polaroids or Polaroid backs to get that (does Polaroid still make "instant film"?).

 

Anyway, welcome and enjoy. A word of caution though - when you get bitten by this bug, it bites HARD. You're going to end up with C41, E6, Ektachrome, Ilford B&W and many other good things before you know it - not to mention different film formats (135mm, 120 Roll Film etc).

 

Just out of interest, when you expose film, it is actually different than exposing for digital. Since films have different exposure latitudes, Colour Reversal has the smallest range (1.5 to 2 Stops), Negative film has about 5 stops and Ilford B&W film has up to 9 stops. What this basically means is the following, if you're shooting colour reversal film, meter for the highlights, and when you're shooting negative film, meter for the shadows. Negative film handles overexposure (hot spots) much better than reversal film. When your scene exceeds the latitudes of the film, start looking at using neutral graduated filters to try and balance the scene - like I said, when the bug hits you, it hits HARD.

 

Hope this has been of some help to you.

 

Andreas

[dfbldwn]

@ron110n

Thanks for some very good tips. The marbles and Air-Evac bottle are fine ideas, along with not mixing water until you need working solution to actually develop film.

 

Your "Here's the Math" is an excellent presentation. You even included specifying 290mL volume for a Paterson tank.

 

I also liked the smiles on your colleagues' faces. They must like your Leica a lot... or perhaps they think you're kind of fun too.

 

@stunsworth

Thanks Steve, always a privilege to get your response.

 

Your work with Tri-X and Xtol, shown here on the forum, convinced me that was the way to go a long time ago. Further research indicated Kodak really wants you to make 5L at one time, and not try to make 290mL working solution. I anticipated storage and oxidation issues, given my low film consumption.

 

So I thank you, mym6is12 and Gary Haigh for mentioning Rodinal.

 

@innerimager Sincerest apologies if I inadvertently hijacked your thread. For your two lenses, the .85 is a good choice. If it helps, for the past year I've been setting exposure manually on my M7, rather than setting the speed dial to AUTO position. So, thinking I wanted an aperture priority camera, I ended up using it the same way I set exposure on my M6 Classic... the pictures just look better. The meter and display in your camera allow even finer exposure adjustments using the aperture ring on your lens, than my M6 Classic. So, congratulations!

[DavidStone]

I'd like to exploit your generous offer with a question of my own.

 

What B&W developer would you recommend for someone who shoots, at most, about two rolls of film a month?

 

At my low shooting rate it seems all developers would have passed their expiration date well before I could have exhausted them. I fear its actually more cost effective to pay to get the film processed.

 

But professional processing can produce a wide variety of results.

 

Hope you can help

I normally use Ilford XP2, but when I occasionally need to develop a film I use D23 (as recommended by Ansel Adams, no less). 7.5 grams of Metol and 100 grams of sodium sulphite makes one litre of dev. Or just reduce proportionally if you need less. Digital scales are quite cheap and can weigh a few grams very accurately. Take about three-quarters of the water, warm, and dissolve a pinch of the sulphite. Then dissolve the Metol (the sulphite stops the Metol from oxidising). Then the rest of the sulphite. Then make up to the final quantity with cold water. The dry chemicals last forever and you have fresh dev. every time. And really excellent results. If your local water is hard you might need to use distilled or de-ionised water - filtered rainwater is good too. For just the occasional film, I've found this to be the perfect answer. And it's not a compromise - if you ever pass through Denmark I can show you some big prints from Leica lenses, and Ilford films developed in D23.

 

David

[innerimager]

Continued thanks for all the support and advise. And certainly no problem "hijacking" the thread, the very nature of my newbie status makes any information relevant and useful.

 

Responding to a few different folks- I guess I realized from the moment I got serious 5 years ago about photography, (1st time in my then 50 year old life, my answer to mid life crisis) that the digital world sat on a foundation I needed to learn about. My first read was "The Negative" and while I found the zone system the way into understanding exposure in general, I was attracted to B&W processing and printing immediately. But my real connection to photography was through music, specifically what I had learned in digital recording. After many years in this field, photoshop made a lot of sense. So starting with digital files was just fine.

 

I now have come to appreciate, as the thread says, "scan and print" as a very viable option, allowing most of what I've been learning in the digital darkroom and printing to my epson 4000 to continue. I am very, very lucky to have a dear friend, a really superb professional who is deeply into B&W development, with an extensive darkroom, right around the corner. He's so happy to see a photographer go in this direction he's offering lot's of training and time. Hell, if some of the "never shot film" folks don't learn, the implications are unacceptable! It's my duty, and pleasure do do this. ;>) best...Peter

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[robsteve]

I am with Steve on using Xtol. In the 5litre kit it is cheap enough to throw it out when it expired.

 

Somebody on the Leica Users group used to mix the 5l batch and put it in 25 200ml brown bottles he would buy from a drug store. The smaller glass bottles ensure it stays fresh. I took this approach, but used 150ml chemical bottles that came from Agfa E6 kits that I used. I needed at least 100ml of solution per film, so I tended to process three films at once and use two bottles.

 

One note with Xtol is not to use less than 100ml per film, especially with films like Tmax 400. This can limit your dilution ability by the size of the tank. Jobo roller processing reduces the capacity of the tank even further because the tank is on its side and holds half as much chemistry compared to doing it vertically and by hand. I could only do three rolls in a five roll tank when diluting the chemistry. I think I diluted 1:1, which came to 600ml of liquid for three rolls.

 

Robert