Talk to me about Film. (and) Headsup on Autumn Challenge

[F.Gordon]

Talk to me about Film

I'm going Bi. I've decided to swing both ways. Want to shoot infrared film and I really need to start learning more about color. My recent landscape post snap which I liked, I found I didn't like, because I didn't address the "warmth" and "color" of the snap. Does that make sense? I'm hoping that going Bi will make be better at both... and I'll enjoy both. :P

1. Which Film? Film seems to be like lenses. A bit subjective. Are there "good" films that most will agree are decent? And what are the "bad" films?
2. Digitizing. Processing and Printing. Got that. But digitizing. My local Wolf Camera chain store says they can digitize film at 8 meg. Is this a decent size? Seems decent enough for the web and if they process the entire roll they do it fairly cheap.

Headsup on the Autumn Challenge

Will start an entry thread next week. I'm being sucked into the work hole again. A work hole is like a worm hole but you don't get to travel to different times and dimensions. Not sure when it'll be next week.. but it will be next week.

Thanks. Will check back in late today.
:hi:

[DS1]

1. I'm partial to Fuji for its vibrant color

and 8 meg - not sure what you mean by that. When I scan slides at 4000 dpi to 16bit color the images are typically over a 100 megs each in tiff format.

[BamaGirl]

2. I prefer Fuji too, and Ilford for b&w.

The only Kodak I'll use is Portra NC or the occassional Tmax. I scan my own for web stuff, and take anything I want enlarged or copied to the lab.

Infrared is tricky. I keep meaning to give it a shot, but haven't got around to it yet. Good luck. ;)

[CC]

3. Do you know what you started?

I started reading on infrared after your shopped pics. Then one of the instructors at work brought in his infrared photos that he took with a D-70. Seems it is one of the best dslrs for doing infrared. Since I have one I got a Hoya infrared R72 filter. Now waiting for a sunny day that I am not working in the caves so I can try it. Though he said to look into Tiffon if I like infrared for the 77mm lens as they are about half the price of a Hoya, unless I can get a deal on it like I did this one. He has some beautiful photos that go for about $100. for an 8x10. I have really got to start cornering these adjuncts and getting more info from them.
Though I did find a free photoshop action set that does a decent job at shopped infrared but after seeing the real pics I want to do it in camera. Now if you have an extra grand laying around you can get a D70 and send it to a place that will remove a filter on the ccd and turn it into an infrared camera all the time.
And I am still searching and reading.:rofl:

[ConsAreLiars]

4. Film choice is subjective and depends on shooting conditions.

I like Velvia because I shoot mostly in overcast and/or Pacific Northwest forest lighting using a tripod, since the colors get wiped out in flatter contrast, less punchy films. Velvia looks artificially intense under bright lights, although for some styles of photography that is a good thing. But it would be a silly choice for handheld action (or forest) photos or indoor pet pix. Negative film has a wider contrast range, so you will lose less detail in the dark/bright extremes, but you can't see a "true" version of what is on the film since so much varies with processing. So -- it depends.

The 8MB digitizing offered by Wolf is good enough for a lot of things, but not for making larger prints. The 8MB size can be achieved in a number of ways (before or after compression), so it is unclear what it actually means. Generally speaking, each pixel in a digital file is represented by 24 bits of data, 8 bits for each of the three primaries, or 3 Bytes (one Byte equals 8 bits). So you would have 2.67 million pixels of data, or roughly speaking, a bit more than 1300x1950 pixels of image data to work with. At 300 pixels per inch (the usual standard for good quality small prints) this gets you a 5" X 7" print. But on a computer screen, this yields VERY LARGE image.

A couple of readings:
http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/
http://www.normankoren.com/pixels_images.html

And for those in the Boulder CO area:
http://www.normankoren.com/Boulder.html

And my preferred image processing software: http://www.dl-c.com/

[regnaD kciN]

5. You make an important point...

The digitizing (from Wolf or whomever) is likely going to have at least as much of an effect on your results as whichever filmstock you settle on. Not only in terms of resolution, compression, etc., but also in tonal balance. I've sent off film to labs to be digitized and burned to a CD, and the resulting images looked nothing like what I sent off. I've recently been scanning my old slides using an Epson 4490 (supposedly one of the best flatbeds with film-scanning capability) and find I have to take each scan into Photoshop and play with the color balance controls (particularly the magenta/green slider) to get anything close to the tonal balance of the slide it came from -- and that's with me taking the time to carefully compare each slide to the display on a calibrated monitor. Will a photo lab be that careful? Or will they just put it on an unattended batch scanning machine? I'm not saying that you can't get good results from such a lab, but that the tonal "look" of the resulting images will be at least as much the result of the digitizer as the emulsion. If you wanted to be ultra-careful, I suppose you'd narrow your choices down to two or three filmstocks, shoot a roll of each, send them each to Wolf, and see which resulting digitized images look the best to you.

[ET Awful]

6. I can highly recommend two books regarding color correction

and image editing in Photoshop (assuming you use Photoshop for your editing that is). . . .

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764536958/002-8981801-2390407?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321356780/002-8981801-2390407?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

The first one is great, the second is better. :)

[F.Gordon]

7. Instead of replying to each post..........

Fuji sounds like the way to go. Thanks all.

While I've come up with different ways to digitally create a faux infrared effect.. I'd like to do the real thing. I know it's difficult to shoot but I've been reading and learnin'.

The other reason I want to go bi? Film is full frame. My DSLR uses a 1.6 crop which basically means a 100mm lens becomes a 160mm lens. It's easy to adjust to the long shots but I get screwed on wide angle. My 14mm prime becomes roughly a 22mm lens. On film it is a true 14mm. ConsAreLiars posted a great link on this.

I only want to digitize for the web. I'm not looking to do prints off the digital file. I'll give Wolf a try and see how it goes.

Color? I've looked at the Spyder thing. I know that it's a problem for me with my monitor. What I'll usually do is a print on my Oki digitial printer, which is pretty darn good, and compare the colors. I don't do this often because while the Oki is a good printer I don't recommend it for anyone. It uses 4 cartridges and each cart' costs about $150 to replace.

ET'? I've read a bit about using LAB. I know that this is the way to go but I've not gotten to the point to spring for PS CS. Thanks for the Book links. Will maybe start with the book and see if I can convince myself to use PS CS.

Starting shooting film yesterday. Will experiment for a month or two to "fine tune" the film stock and what I'm sure will be 100 other things that come up....

ConsAreLiars.... thanks for all the great links. Appreciate it.

[Xithras]

8. A couple of notes about Fuji film...

First, not all Fuji film is created equally, and their naming conventions can be a bit confusing. The Fuji film you'll see most often is Fuji X-Tra, which is complete and utter garbage...it's the "cheap" film that they make for Walmart and the drugstores. It's grainy, it's color is beyond terrible, and it ALWAYS oversaturates.

The minimum Fuji negative film to shoot with is Superia 100. It has a fourth color layer that really makes the greens pop, and allows the other layers to be better balanced to acheive more accurate reproductions. Be aware, however, that Fuji also makes a Superia XTra, which is a more mass produced version of their Superia fim. It isn't quite as high quality as the regular Superia, but it's a lot better than the straight X-Tra (I use it to shoot birthdays and other events where I want decent photos but can't justify using the more expensive film).

If you really want good landscape photos using negative film, look at Fuji Superia Reala 100 or Fuji Pro 160C (the new name for Fuji Pro NPC). The Reala is cheaper, but it will deliver the equivalent of a 12 megapixel image from a 35mm SLR...it's great stuff. The Pro160 is actually slightly grainier than the Reala, but it's color fidelity is incomperable. Which film to use depends on the desired effect on your photos.

Of course, if you really want high quality photo's, switch to slide film and shoot them in Velvia 50. If handling slides weren't such a pain in the ass, it's all I'd shoot!

Honestly, you're probably better off looking at them yourself to decide which one you want. Head over to Photosig.com, click the photo's tab, and select the "View Photo's By Film" link. You can then choose the film you want to use and see what kind of quality other people have pulled out of it.