A Journey into Film

[Keith (M)]

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This can be easily solved buy purchasing another camera.

Indeed - b&w in my M7, colour in my MP  

But then there is my single camera solution - a Hasselblad 500C and two film backs...

[chrism]

Mark, it is nice to see how another film Leica shooter is emerging with great progress.

 

Developing at home is the way! Even C-41 is not what difficult or to be more correct different from BW. Some C-41 kits are developer and Blix only, just like developer and fix for BW film.

 

If you have some little space, I recommend to get small, simple  darkroom enlarger and try 8x10 prints. The difference from scans is worth it. Especially if grain is concern. Here is very big difference between scans and wet prints. Scans brings grain up, wet prints are less grainy from traditional enlarger a.k.a with condenser head.

 

The Tri-X is the holly grain film. People like to use it because of the grain. But I'm not. To get less grain rate HP5+ as ISO200 film. Delta 100 is very flat film, IMO. Kodak 100 TMAX is more pricey but it is not flat film and if you will rate it as 50, it will looks next to digital (no grain and great contrast). 

 

Best regards, Kostya. 

 

Kostya,

When you rate HP5+ at 200, do you develop it in standard times or do you shorten them as you are pulling it? I would expect to develop for 1/3 less time for one stop pull.

[schattenundlicht]

[...]So far with the scanning I am not doing any corrections in SilverFast just scanning at 300 ppi for an A2 print which puts the scanner at the limit of 7200.I then take the scan to LR for global corrections and PS for spot and scratch removal and other local adjustments. I know SF has spot/scratch correction but I quite enjoy doing it in PS and think I get better results. I may well look into SF more and decide that I should be doing more corrections pre-scan but for the time being I feel more comfortable in LR/PS. [...]

The auto scratch-/dust- removal functions on most software work best with color slide film, as the best algorithms are based on the differential between visible / infrared scans (with scanners thusly equipped, of course). For b/w film ICE and similiar technologies are useless, to my knowledge. I also tend to stick to PS for dust/ scratch removal in b/w. With color slides, differential scans, however, can even, to some extent, eliminate fungus/mould marks, that I unfortunately had to deal with after a water ingress into our basement.

 

Mathias

[leica dream]

I experimented with going back to film early in 2017 (see thread about that) and had the lab scan it for me but although they had provided excellent D & P service in years gone by their scanning was really appalling. My experiment was wound up but I still have not discounted trying again. At the time I used a couple of old (1950's) film cameras but perhaps one day I shall be able to afford a good secondhand film camera which might encourage me again.Maybe something like a good R would get me going but budgets need attention.

Richard