Film and properties

bartoszwozniak

bartoszwozniak

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Bartosz Wozniak
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Hello everyone. I am fairly new to this film business, however I now have several rolls of film, which I bought of a member here and I need some help here. I don't know about the properties of each film, and I don't know how good each one is. I think that there are probably a fair few people in the same position.

Could anyone please do like a simple tutorial, with the types of film and the properties they have?? It could look something like this (I don't know whether what I am writing is true, its just a guideline for the layout):

Fuji Velvia - Good Saturation, fine grain
Truprint film - Pale colours, not very sharp

etc. etc.

I would be really grateful and I think that this would also be helpful for others.

Thanks!
 
bartoszwozniak said:
Hello everyone. I am fairly new to this film business, however I now have several rolls of film, which I bought of a member here and I need some help here. I don't know about the properties of each film, and I don't know how good each one is. I think that there are probably a fair few people in the same position.

Could anyone please do like a simple tutorial, with the types of film and the properties they have?? It could look something like this (I don't know whether what I am writing is true, its just a guideline for the layout):

Fuji Velvia - Good Saturation, fine grain
Truprint film - Pale colours, not very sharp

etc. etc.

I would be really grateful and I think that this would also be helpful for others.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You do realise this could take a while. It might be easier, and quicker, if you let us know what films you have and we can give you a rough idea of the qualities of those first. (y)
 
Alternatively, decide what subjects you wish to shoot and attack it from that angle? To be honest, your best bet is to look up the manufacturers website, kodak, fuji etc. Both of those have detailed notes about their films and uses etc...
 
Rob.Richards said:
Alternatively, decide what subjects you wish to shoot and attack it from that angle? To be honest, your best bet is to look up the manufacturers website, kodak, fuji etc. Both of those have detailed notes about their films and uses etc...
Click to expand...

To be honest Rob, the manufacturers blurb reads broadly quite the same.
 
Well, I think that I wouldn't mind waiting for a complete list of all films, it is not a rush.

In the meantime, on monday (when I receive the rest of my film) I will post up a list of those, so that you can give me a rough idea about them first.

Thanks
 
Well it's a personal thing about different makes of film, and although we could probably agree on some...... others we wont. And I don't know if there is any proof but I think some combos of:- "lens + film + scanner/scanning" work better than others.....for example I like Konica Hexanon lens + Fuji Reala + Epson scanner, and have noticed in "general" Canon FD lenses give a colder result (but I suppose it could be OK with a film I don't use).
So Films I like best:-

Fuji Reala and superia 200asa
Fuji 800asa
Kodak Ultramax 400asa
 
I'm of the "suck it and see" school, simply because of the points raised above by Mr X. Film is an odd thing, it is different things to different people, it's subjective nature makes it a reall toughie to pin down to specifics. When you throw in all the other factors like lens, temperature, time of day, lattitude, film age and storage conditions, etc. you are never going to get an objective answer. It's part of the fun though - and adds to the sense of excitement waiting to open the tank or pick up your prints.

One can give a general idea of what film can be like - for example I rather like the fuji negative colour film, preferring it's bright and full clours... and yet fujichrome slide film is too ott for me. That is based on my - purely subjective - idea of what nice colours are though, and if you are in the muted-is-best camp you're gonna hate Fuji film totally!

Arthur
 
Thinking about it I wonder if the slide film thing is simply because slides are/were usually shown on crappy white sheets rather than modern 93% reflectivity ones that *really* show off an image? Dunno.
 
Ambermile said:
...One can give a general idea of what film can be like - for example I rather like the fuji negative colour film, preferring it's bright and full clours... and yet fujichrome slide film is too ott for me...
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree on that asessment. I also found Fuji's colour neg films much better for me than tranny film - and I even preferred the 'consumer' brands over the 'Professional' versions, mostly because unless you used the same Pro-lab, one that practiced proper sensitometric analysis, any advantages in using pro-films were wiped out by variations in chemistry.
 
***When you throw in all the other factors like lens, temperature, time of day, lattitude, film age and storage conditions, etc. you are never going to get an objective answer**

...and KA you forgot:- when you add in alterations in Photoshop and grain reducing programs, what is the truth. Anyway no matter what you use it's always the end result that counts and whom do you want to please with your shots.
 
I am really new to film and have only used 3 different types so far so some kind of film review thread might be useful for me.

The three i've used are the Ilford B&W C41 process and Kodak BW400 CN Black & White (C41) plus Fuji Superia 400
 
cowasaki said:
I am really new to film and have only used 3 different types so far so some kind of film review thread might be useful for me.

The three i've used are the Ilford B&W C41 process and Kodak BW400 CN Black & White (C41) plus Fuji Superia 400
Click to expand...

Well you could try Kodak Ultramax 400asa next.

Any decent camera with a Vivitar/Kiron 70-150mm zoom (you can still get cheap off ebay) with ultramax film, should give a decent shot like this:-

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/viv70-150.jpg
 
Dug some Kodak Gold 200asa out of fridge well it's been there for a year, dunno before that as it was 6 years out of date, Tesco dev and scan, touch up and sharpening in Photoshop for these shots:-

Meyer 50mm Oreston, Pentax S3
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/Photo19_16.jpg

Vivitar 28mm close focus, with added feature of a leaning house:-
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/Photo24_21.jpg

In previous shot in the distance was a film crew with a giant looking DSLR:-
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/Photo25_22.jpg
 
One thing i've noticed is it has to do a lot with how the scanner renders the negative. When I got this CD done at tesco's from my negatives, I was so shocked. It's like they had been bleached or had some sickening HDR applied to them. Luckily I have a scanner, but that usually renders the image pretty dark.

t8J7v.jpg


I wish I had a darkroom, I think that way you get the truest results.
 
paleblue said:
One thing i've noticed is it has to do a lot with how the scanner renders the negative. When I got this CD done at tesco's from my negatives, I was so shocked. It's like they had been bleached or had some sickening HDR applied to them. Luckily I have a scanner, but that usually renders the image pretty dark.

I wish I had a darkroom, I think that way you get the truest results.
Click to expand...

I would have gone back and complained and asked them to do them again. I had to last time and the results were totally different!! Tescos uses a Nikon professional scanner but they have options and the quality of the scan depends on the quality of the care given by the operator! The first set I had done of my last prints she couldn't even be bothered to wear gloves and I had finger prints on two and dust on all the others. The replacement scans were vastly superior as I stood there watching her whilst she sorted them!
 
paleblue said:
One thing i've noticed is it has to do a lot with how the scanner renders the negative. When I got this CD done at tesco's from my negatives, I was so shocked. It's like they had been bleached or had some sickening HDR applied to them. Luckily I have a scanner, but that usually renders the image pretty dark.

t8J7v.jpg


I wish I had a darkroom, I think that way you get the truest results.
Click to expand...

Your shot was easily corrected in Photoshop.......in my Tesco the scan is so good the only difference scanning with my V750 (for most shots) is I can enlarge more without pixel breakup. But quite a few of my Tesco scans are covered in dust spots, but I get a good deal because of complaining once that they wouldn't just do development only (when other Tescos would) and in compensation to avoid me confronting the manager do a mini contact sheet free with CD, all for £1.98.......so I don't want to rock the boat.
 
excalibur2 said:
Your shot was easily corrected in Photoshop.......in my Tesco the scan is so good the only difference scanning with my V750 (for most shots) is I can enlarge more without pixel breakup. But quite a few of my Tesco scans are covered in dust spots, but I get a good deal because of complaining once that they wouldn't just do development only (when other Tescos would) and in compensation to avoid me confronting the manager do a mini contact sheet free with CD, all for £1.98.......so I don't want to rock the boat.
Click to expand...

Just as an aside, I was talking with a mate who used to run a minilab machine, and he said that getting white spotting on the negatives was usually because they were in a hard water area, and using tap water to run the machine on, rather than the recomended distilled water. His remedy - a bottle of distilled water with a drop of photoflow or similar, dunk the negs in, and hang to dry. I think we speculated that this might be the case before - I vaguely remember some shots from an aero museum you posted... looks like we may have been right :shrug:
 
TheBigYin said:
Just as an aside, I was talking with a mate who used to run a minilab machine, and he said that getting white spotting on the negatives was usually because they were in a hard water area, and using tap water to run the machine on, rather than the recomended distilled water. His remedy - a bottle of distilled water with a drop of photoflow or similar, dunk the negs in, and hang to dry. I think we speculated that this might be the case before - I vaguely remember some shots from an aero museum you posted... looks like we may have been right :shrug:
Click to expand...

Yes you remembered correctly and that was Morrison (neg done for £1) and the machine was used only occasionally, but this branch of tesco the negs don't seem so bad, it's the scanning that's the problem as some shots on the CD have hairs on them as well as spots.
For example:- a comparison between a Helios and Meyer lens on the same film:-

Helios 58mm
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/Photo16_15-1.jpg

Meyer 50mm
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/Photo17_16.jpg
 
:LOL: Was the operator wearing a mohair jumper or something... See what you mean about it being hairs in there.
 
Just a quick bump for this thread, does anyone have experience with Kodak slide film that isn't Kodachrome? Gazillions of people seem to be using Fuji's lineup but I never hear or see anything about E100VS or E100G.

Thus far my personal experiences with print film are as follows:

1. Kodak Ektar - I'm really undecided on this, the colour rendition just wasn't all that appealing to me (better scans may change my opinion). Seems to work best at box speed.

2. Fuji Pro 160s - I really really like the rendition of this, the way it deals with colour and contrast are very satisfying to me eye. Shot this at box speed and 125 (admittedly not a great difference) with no problems.

3. Kodak Portra NC - If you want very subtle colours this is probably the film for you. It's supposed portrait film but worked well when I was using it for landscape, the colours are arguably more accurate than I found with the 160s but perhaps not quite so pleasing to the eye. I don't know how well this performs at box speed but at 100 it did perfectly well with a bit of a saturation boost.

I've got a couple of rolls of Reala to try and I will try to remember to report my findings here when I have the results.
 
I've used Kodak Elite Chrome 100, I really like it but it is quite blue.

4368789256_c551a7d492.jpg


4368769866_e76fa7c000.jpg


Shot on an OM2n up in Scotland last year. I think I needed to be a little be more careful with my exposure.
 
Wow, those are great, it's nice to see something a little different. The second is particularly helpful, I really like the way the colours turned out. I also put both images through ColorPerfect (fantastic software) to see what it could do, I hope you don't mind. 1 2.
 
Mr_T said:
Wow, those are great, it's nice to see something a little different. The second is particularly helpful, I really like the way the colours turned out. I also put both images through ColorPerfect (fantastic software) to see what it could do, I hope you don't mind. 1 2.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've not seen ColorPerfect before, I'll check it out.
 
I've not found very much use for ColorPerfect until today to be honest but the other plugin ColorNeg is absolutely brilliant. They're not free but you only need to buy them once, I thought it was a waste of time until I found out just how hard it is to correct certain colour casts. I'd almost go as far to say that I'd be wary of shooting print film if it wasn't for this bit of software.

Eep, I've made this sound like a bit of an advert, for the record I do not work for this company I just like what they do.
 
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