Help me shoot film!

Stephen Devine

Stephen Devine

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Stephen
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Hi all,

Normally a poster in the Sony Megathread and Sports Forum, so hope I'm welcome here. My girlfriend gifted to me a Canon F1 a few years ago, it wasn't in the best of shape but I got it refurbished and it's in perfect mechanical order now. The issue is though the output to my eye is complete rubbish. I'm very used to shooting manual and manually focusing etc (I use some old glass on my new cameras) so I really don't believe its user error. I've upload two shots from the latest roll of Kodak Ultramax which I had developed and scanned on a Canon 9000F. I haven't edited these shots except for the last one. Surely the camera should be outputting better quality? They were shot using a Canon FD 35-105 3.5. I've put the glass on my Sony A7Riii and it seems fine.

I made sure exposure was correct using the built-in meter etc. I love shooting film but it is massively disheartening to get results like this.

Happy to buy another body, probably have less than 1k to spend so not sure where to start.


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Couple of housekeeping questions just to make sure... was the ultramax in date? Had it been left in sunlight etc etc. Did you have it dev'd and scanned by a lab etc?
 
VirtualAdept said:
Couple of housekeeping questions just to make sure... was the ultramax in date? Had it been left in sunlight etc etc. Did you have it dev'd and scanned by a lab etc?
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In date fresh from box. Had not been kept in sun etc. Had them developed by a lav and then scanned them myself using a Canon 9000F and VueScan software.
 
Check the camera meter against your digital camera. Certain types of meter can deteriorate with age and some are sensitive to battery voltage and need specific batteries.

Alternatively call them Lomography and feel the love :)
 
sirch said:
Check the camera meter against you digital camera. Certain types of meter can deteriorate with age and some are sensitive to battery voltage and need specific batteries.

Alternatively call them Lomography and feel the love :)
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Love the second part of that :LOL:. Have actually ordered a replacement battery so will try that when it arrives. The one that was in it died not too long after I shot this roll.
 
Do you have any old negatives that you know produced good prints that you could try scanning with your Canon 9000F? If so, perhaps give them a try and see if it's the scanning that's the problem?

If they scan OK, then compare them to the negatives from the roll you've just shot. Do those negs look noticeably lighter or darker than the 'good' ones?

Let us know once you've checked the above. You should definitely be getting better results from a Canon F1 and Canon zoom than that; here's a shot I took with a Canon A1 and FD 35-70 f/4 zoom on Kodak Ektar 100 print film. So something has definitely gone wrong somewhere along the line with your shots, as you should be getting similar results, if perhaps not quite as sharp with your lens and film combination.

 
H'mm some of your shots look like camera shake or the glow when some lenses are used wide open...anyway you say mechanically the camera is ok so the next thing to check is to look at the negs.....do they look thin or dense? this will tell you roughly if the exposure is correct. Maybe you could take a digi shot of of some of the negs.
If the negs look ok, and the camera mechanically is ok and you have checked the lens on your digi, and the film is fresh then all is left is development or the scanner. Well I'd be surprised if it was a cockup in dev, so it just leaves your scanner\scanning. And sending it to a place like filmdev and cost £4 for dev and low scan postage extra to send the film\films and you are pleased with the results then when they send your negs back you can rescan them to see if it was the scanner causing the problem.
And you have less than £1k to spend o_O:eek: some of us are getting excellent results with camera and lens for less than £20 as whether you put the lens on a £5 camera body or £500 camera body, the results would be the same in test shots.
 
Yes, don't for goodness sake spend a grand on a film camera set-up until you know exactly what you're buying and looking for... and even then! As Brian says, most of us are shooting 35mm film with camera bodies that have cost less than £150 and often less than £100. As for lenses... your profile says you have some Canon EF lenses? If so, that opens up a world of cheap to cheapish 35mm film EOS SLRs, so let us know if that sounds interesting and we can suggest some models and give you an idea of what sort of price is reasonable to pay.
 
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A quick picture of a negative strip might help with diagnosis. Just hold the strip with a well lit piece of paper behind it, a phone camera shot is good enough. What we will be looking for is clues from comparing the edge markings and the exposed frames about over/under exposure. You might also want to look at some of them with a magnifying glass to see if you can see any more detail than the scan is giving you. Film forensics .......

@excalibur2 can type faster than me ....
 
Get the negatives printed properly on potographic paper using an enlarger. That will show you if it's a scan issue.
 
Mr Badger said:
Do you have any old negatives that you know produced good prints that you could try scanning with your Canon 9000F? If so, perhaps give them a try and see if it's the scanning that's the problem?

If they scan OK, then compare them to the negatives from the roll you've just shot. Do those negs look noticeably lighter or darker than the 'good' ones?
Click to expand...

Ok so I've scanned some negatives of old photos from the 90s and they are being produced perfectly by the scanner. That leads to the job of digitizing all of those photos but that is for another day, so based on that I don't think its the scanner.

excalibur2 said:
H'mm some of your shots look like camera shake or the glow when some lenses are used wide open...anyway you say mechanically the camera is ok so the next thing to check is to look at the negs.....do they look thin or dense? this will tell you roughly if the exposure is correct. Maybe you could take a digi shot of of some of the negs.
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dmb said:
A quick picture of a negative strip might help with diagnosis. Just hold the strip with a well lit piece of paper behind it, a phone camera shot is good enough. What we will be looking for is clues from comparing the edge markings and the exposed frames about over/under exposure. You might also want to look at some of them with a magnifying glass to see if you can see any more detail than the scan is giving you. Film forensics .......
Click to expand...

Ok so I'm not sure if the following is quite what you were asking for, but here goes!

IMG_9529-2.jpg
IMG_1844-2.jpg

For me, the big thing is not the exposure but just the lack of detail that seems to be present in each and every one of them. So I've been closing examining the camera and I wonder does anything in the following picture potentially have an impact? Looks like it has a few creases? If there is any other part of the camera you'd like to see photos of just let me know.

IMG_0333.jpg
 
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I take on board the price issue too. As I say I have some FD glass including a new 28mm 2.8 which I'm loving shooting on my A7Riii and would love to shoot some film with. Maybe I could pick up a reasonable price A1 or similar?
 
A very quick scan of a negative which has not been stored well and was taken in the late 80s with a cheap camera gets this quality!

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Let's try and sort your F1 issue out first. From what I can see, some of those negs you posted photos of look quite 'thin' (underexposed), add to that a bit of camera shake and you may well have gone some way to identifying the problem. Mind you, I'm not seeing anything very sharp in that scan photo above, but it might be the cheap camera it was taken with?

What about frame number 22 on that negative strip, how did that scan?
 
I would just start from scratch, but don't buy another body yet. Get a fresh batch of film (7dayshop has some cheap Fuji Superia multipacks right now). Shoot a roll using more than one lens (take off any UV filters), with some shots at infinity and others at closer distances with careful focusing. Keep the shutter speed high throughout to eliminate camera shake, and make sure some shots are at middle apertures (should be no problem in daylight with 400 ISO film). Check your exposure readings against another camera, smartphone lightmeter app or a Sunny 16 chart. Take some notes so you know what worked. Send to filmdev.co.uk for development and scanning.
 
As @Mr Badger noted perhaps a bit of underexposure. Are you using 1.35 V cells or newer 1.4/1.5 ones with or without voltage controlling diodes?. Though colour neg will stand some variation in exposure. I recall the F1-n had interchangable focus screens as well as different view finders and it was possible for the focus screens to not seat properly - that could affect sharpness. Worth looking though viewfinder at a distant object and checking that lens reads infinity when in focus.
 
Ok I've rescanned the first image in this thread, using the Canon software and a few different settings. It looks a lot better to me and I have had to downres it signficantly to allow it to be uploaded here.

A before and after:

Before:
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After:
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That looks a bit more encouraging. :) Let us know how you go on, I hope this (plus a bit of underexposure) has been the issue.

You'll have to work on your dust management though, I handle negs very carefully by the edge and once they're in the scanner neg holder I blow any dust off them with a rocket blower. I then blow any dust off the scanner glass with the rocket blower, and give the negs another quick air dusting before closing the scanner lid. Even then, I still need to clone out the occasional dust strand.

Anyway, best of luck and if things are looking promising then perhaps get your next roll of film developed and scanned by Filmdev or AG Photolab (medium res scan) and see how that looks. As for colour neg film, if all is well, then perhaps try some Kodak Gold 200 now that summer is here. I find it's a good compromise between 'cheap' film and top quality but expensive stuff like Ektar 100. Check out the prices for it at 7 Day Shop, as they do some good deals on 5 and 6 packs of Gold 200 (when it's in stock).
 
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Don't let him tempt you with those other camera makes. ;) Here's one standard scanned with the same model scanner (Epson V600) from a Canon A1 with Canon 50mm f1.8 on Kodachrome 64 (sadly long since unobtainable and undevelopable) taken in 1983. Anyway, enough with the highest up the wall stuff, let's get that F1 sorted for you if we can.

 
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Once the new battery arrives I’ll try another roll. I’ll be more conscious of trying to expose correctly, might even use a light meter for a few shots. I do think there is internal scratches etc on the camera and it’s far from mint so will never be crisp but in a way I like that.

Anyway onwards and upwards. I’ll keep the thread updated with some progress.
 
Didn't mean to spoil your fun :)
I'm just a bit concerned with the apparent lack of detail in your scans. I've done nothing special with the two I posted and the cameras used were of the same vintage, well, maybe not the F4, but the Tamron 28 is not an outstanding lens - good but not the equal of my Distagon.
 
kendo1 said:
Didn't mean to spoil your fun :)
I'm just a bit concerned with the apparent lack of detail in your scans. I've done nothing special with the two I posted and the cameras used were of the same vintage, well, maybe not the F4, but the Tamron 28 is not an outstanding lens - good but not the equal of my Distagon.
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No issue man. I do think it’s the pictures which lack detail but I could of course be wrong. The way I haven’t started to scan half way through the thread seems to have improved things. As a few have suggested I’ll get them developed and printed next time to know for sure. What I would say is that there seems to be a defective/lack of clarity in the camera.

Other scans of old negatives I have done using the scanner have turned out just as their printed versions.
 
kendo1 said:
Didn't mean to spoil your fun :)
I'm just a bit concerned with the apparent lack of detail in your scans. I've done nothing special with the two I posted and the cameras used were of the same vintage, well, maybe not the F4, but the Tamron 28 is not an outstanding lens - good but not the equal of my Distagon.
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You're right, Stephen should be able to get close to, or equal, the examples we've posted above if he shoots a fine grain film in good light (which is arguably more critical for film than for modern digital), exposes the shot well and scans it using the right settings.

In the meantime, as others have suggested above, I'd be inclined to check the camera meter and take some comparison shots using a sperate light meter (phone app or camera set to the same ISO, etc.) and bracket three or four shots (keeping careful notes as to which shots are taken at which shutter speeds!) to check the cameras shutter speeds aren't noticeably fast or slow, use a good quality finer grained film (200 or 100 ISO) on a nice sunny day to do this, and send the film to one of the labs suggested above and have a medium res scan done (a good balance between price and quality) and see how the results look.
 
*Stupid question alert*
When I look through the view finder it is far from clear, like I can see a clear focus in half of the middle focusing circle but the rest of the image I’m looking at is horrible dull/hazy.

I’ve looked through other 35mm view finders over the years and it’s like looking through by a7riii.

The more I think about it, I do my best thinking at night, the more I think this is indicative of the problem.
 
Doesn't sound right if only the centre circle is clear and the rest is really hazy. Have you tried the camera with another lens? Although, do be aware that the smaller the f/stop of the lens, the more likely that one of the two split prism centre focus semi-circles will be dark/black. It's just the way things were in the late 70s/early 80s when that camera was made.

Edit... didn't see your post above before posting this!
 
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Stephen Devine said:
It’s the same no matter the lens btw.
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Sounds like there might be a focus screen issue, a filthy or misaligned mirror (don't try to clean this yourself as you could damage the silvering), corroded prism mirror, etc. However, this wouldn't make your photos hazy as the mirror flips out of the way when the photo is taken, but it could well affect your ability to focus properly.
 
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dmb said:
As @Mr BadgerI recall the F1-n had interchangable focus screens as well as different view finders and it was possible for the focus screens to not seat properly - that could affect sharpness. Worth looking though viewfinder at a distant object and checking that lens reads infinity when in focus.
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that was what first crossed my mind - if the focus screen hadn't been put back exactly right, then things look perfectly in focus when you look in the viewfinder, but on the film... not so much. Also worth checking that there's no dioptre adapters fitted to the viewfinder.

Stephen Devine said:
*Stupid question alert*
When I look through the view finder it is far from clear, like I can see a clear focus in half of the middle focusing circle but the rest of the image I’m looking at is horrible dull/hazy.
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That's definitely not right, the F1n had one of the brightest, clearest viewfinders around at the time - my money is on the person who's refurbed the camera has tried to clean the focusing screen and knackered it. The micro-ground glass can be ruined by the use of the wrong cleaning fluids.

actually, thinking about it, A F1 screen is made up (from memory) of 3 bits - the focussing screen itself, a thin beam splitter glass that sends a portion of the light coming onto the screen to the lightmeter, and a magnifier lens. If the screens been munged up, especially around the beam-splitter bit, that might explain the problems with metering as well.

If I were you, I'd be looking for a replacement NOS Type-E focusing screen... Or, as they're not cheap, a friend nearby who was prepared to test your screen in their "known good" camera for you, to see if it WAS the screen causing the issues.

swapping focus screens -
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQbGkvZF6A

when he refits the focusing screen to the first camera, you hear the screen "click" as he presses it down into place... that's the clue that the screen is properly seated.

oh - and the second camera, DON'T remove the screen quite as violently as he does... ;)
 
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Oh boy! I was being an idiot! Full explanation to come when I get a chance. Took the camera apart and checked every piece, let's just say I wasn't using the lens I thought I was!
 
The photos look out of focus to me. For a first test I'd just load the camera with a dummy film if you have one, take the lens off and make sure that the pressure plate is holding the film flat across the gate.

The second test I would do is with a real film loaded. Turn the lens to the infinity mark without trying to focus it yourself via the screen and take a shot of something in the far distance at about f5.6 or smaller aperture. If the shot appears in focus after development, then you have got problems with your through the lens focusing.

As far as the light metering goes, check whether the camera needs a 1.35 volt battery. There were several different models of F1, some of which might be fussy about the voltage. If it is important, then try using a hearing aid battery for a short term fix and if successful, buy one of the MR9 adapters from the Small Battery Company.

For another test on a live film, take the same shot 3 times, bracketing the the exposure, by a stop either way from the indicated reading.
 
Stephen Devine said:
Oh boy! I was being an idiot! Full explanation to come when I get a chance. Took the camera apart and checked every piece, let's just say I wasn't using the lens I thought I was!
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...don't say you jammed a non Canon FD mount lens on the camera :eek:;)
 
Sounds like we may be in for a confession as to some sort of muppetry here? :whistle: ;)
 
I’m surprised any light could get in at all, or I was even able to focus as much as I did!

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