I'm gonna venture....

What sort of photography are you interested in doing? This will make a big difference to which film will suit.

If its black and white - I cannot stop my self from shouting about Ilford XP2 Super. End of the day its personal preference but I love using the XP2 :)

Bry
 
Welcome to the light side :D

400ISO film do you want to use colour or black and white?

Colour print film Kodak do Gold or Porta film both of which can be 400ISO, the Prota come in 2 flavours VC and NC (vivid colour and natural colour)
I have used the Porta 400NC and like, very fine grain and neutral colours

Not sure about Fuji not used in years.

Black and White you could go for Kodak BW400CN which uses the same processing as the colour print film again fine grain and not bad tones

Other black and white is Ilford HP5+ or Delta 400 both very nice but I prefer the Delta 400 as it has a finer grain structure to it.

Places like Tesco, Asda, Peak Imaging can dev film but you have to check on that.
 
Oh I want b/w and colour lol, wanna try both (been a while, over a year since I last shot film and about 5 years since I last used colour film). I think I'm likely to be shooting landscapes mostly, with the occasional portait - that's what I seem to be doing alot at the moment.
 
I think that going for 400iso film would be a good idea initially, Nattelie - a bit of extra speed is always handy for people coming over (or back) from digital with older camera's and not having the benefits of Image stabilisation (hey - that's why my favourite film body is the EOS-3 - it'll work with current canon glass and IS works a treat :LOL:)

Unless you're going to get involved in sending films away to pro-lab for processing, stick to film marked C-41 process - this means that high street/supermarket labs will be able to process it. For B&W, theres Kodak BW400CN, Ilford XP2+ and Fuji Neopan 400CN - all of which will be fine at the local Asda/Tesco/Boots labs. As to colour, I'll bow to others on that - if I do shoot colour, it's usually 100iso or slower (and moving more towards slide film at the moment) so I'm not particularly well up on 400 colour film.
 
Nat,

The Ilford XP2 is lovely but there is also the Kodak BW400cn professional B&W film. We are talking about films that have "C41" on them which means that you can get them developed anywhere that you want. I shoot quite a few rolls now and whip them up to Tesco where is costs £2.96 to have the film developed and put onto a disc in one hour. You get handed back all the negatives plus a CD and a 6x4 photo containing all the images.

I would have a look on 7dayshop's web site for cheap film where I recently paid £23.40 for 10 rolls of the BW400cn film. There is not much in it between it and the Ilford XP2 although I think that the Ilford just pips it but both are C41. If you buy any NON C41 films you will need to look at specialist developing or home developing. This is what I am just about to start doing having just acquired some dark room kit :) If you do chose one of these films then you are probably looking at maybe £10 per film.

Oh and if you want pictures from your film then if you do go to Tesco and hand then a film it costs about £8 to develop to pictures BUT if you do as I said above THEN hand them the disc or negatives back and ask them for prints it comes out LESS !!!! Not sure why that is but you end up with your scans and prints for less than £8 :bonk:


EDIT: I started typing this 15 mins before so TheBigYin's reply wasn't there when I started :) Hence the bits of duplication....
 
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Hope you enjoy trying out your new camera Nattelie. I also have a film camera ( Canon AE1) which belonged to my late husband. After reading the answers on here I may have a try at running a film through it.I think I will try black and white.We can compare notes.:)
 
Nat,

Subscribe to the "Show us your film shots" thread for some ideas. If you look back over the past couple of weeks there are about 8-10 pictures of mine on that C41 B&W film (in two lots).
 
cowasaki said:
Nat,

Subscribe to the "Show us your film shots" thread for some ideas. If you look back over the past couple of weeks there are about 8-10 pictures of mine on that C41 B&W film (in two lots).
Click to expand...

It's a great way to loose a couple of hours is that thread :LOL:
 
Nat,

Does Gary want a film camera too? I have 3 rechargeable batteries for you and I have an old film camera here that he can make use of :)
 
For colour negs I like Fuji Reala for scenery even in my shots with hazy sunshine, in Ibiza, it can still produce good results:-

Fuji reala, IIRC a sigma 24mm lens, Canon T70:-

Photo32_32.jpg


Photo33_33.jpg
 
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I'm still sat in bed as it is the last lie in before I go back to work but getting up shortly to go and collect two films that have been developed. One Fuji colour 200 that I have NO IDEA what is on it and one 25 iso Ektar film that I used over the weekend.
 
Nattelie

Darren said "but there is also the Kodak BW400cn professional B&W film. We are talking about films that have "C41" on them which means that you can get them developed anywhere that you want.

... If you buy any NON C41 films you will need to look at specialist developing "

all true - but my local Tesco screwed up my first 2 rolls of C-41. So disappointed !!
I suggest you shoot a roll of "snaps" to see how your Tesco does before giving them anything important

this lab was recommended to me......."Club35"....."link"
 
Yardbent said:
Nattelie

Darren said "but there is also the Kodak BW400cn professional B&W film. We are talking about films that have "C41" on them which means that you can get them developed anywhere that you want.

... If you buy any NON C41 films you will need to look at specialist developing "

all true - but my local Tesco screwed up my first 2 rolls of C-41. So disappointed !!
I suggest you shoot a roll of "snaps" to see how your Tesco does before giving them anything important

this lab was recommended to me......."Club35"....."link"
Click to expand...

I do appreciated what you are saying but I think it is more about the person doing the developing that the store! There is a youngish lad in there that uses film himself. If you take B&W film in he develops it separately and then scans it at higher resolution as a B&W image rather than just using the defaults. It is worth speaking to them but yes I have had one problem with them in the past where I got my images back with finger prints all over the scans. Took them back and they cleaned all the negs and re-scanned them.

If there were somewhere else that did processing at a similar price with scanning then I would use them. I have been looking at an Epson V750 but they are not cheap! When I start doing my own developing I will be needing a scanner to post them/share them and at that point I will just need my colour films taking to the developed state at 99p

£500 scanner = 250 films scanned..........

A black and white film would be treble the price scanned to disc from Club35 though.
 
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Darren
I wasn't knocking Tesco...just saying MY local one ruined 2 rolls "regardless" of who ran the machine - over which I have no control

obviously silly to go back for a 3rd attempt

I accept Club35 is not cheap - however I dont develop/scan so it's a service I am willing to pay for, for my occasional films......:D
 
***but my local Tesco screwed up my first 2 rolls of C-41. So disappointed !!
I suggest you shoot a roll of "snaps" to see how your Tesco does before giving them anything important***

Hooray for Tesco as if I couldn't get cheap film and cheap processing for 35mm colour neg film, I would get a Dslr and just use film for medium format.
erm but Tesco have upped the price for dev and scan to CD @ £3 then add film cost, then how many keepers in say 24 exposures and 35mm film users will start dropping out if it gets too expensive.
 
Thank you all for all your info and help. Definately going to have a try in the next few weeks. Not sure about tesco (a bit out the way), there's a lab reasonably close that have been recommended to me, so I'll get them to do the film the first time anyway.

Darren, that would be wonderful, thank you very much. Gary sometimes shoots with me and TBH I'm trying to get my Dad into photography too, so with 2 film SLRs I can show him the basics, without him saying I'm cheating by using digital :LOL: (he's a "show me and let me do" learner) and he can see if he likes proper cameras ;) Let me know if you haven't got my address though.

Sue, I'd love to compare notes and shots :)
 
Are all your Sony lenses full frame? I'm not sure if all Sony lenses are as they only do 2 full frame cameras so I imagine most are APS-C type. What camera is it that you've got?
 
MagicMynx said:
Thank you all for all your info and help. Definately going to have a try in the next few weeks. Not sure about tesco (a bit out the way), there's a lab reasonably close that have been recommended to me, so I'll get them to do the film the first time anyway.

Darren, that would be wonderful, thank you very much. Gary sometimes shoots with me and TBH I'm trying to get my Dad into photography too, so with 2 film SLRs I can show him the basics, without him saying I'm cheating by using digital :LOL: (he's a "show me and let me do" learner) and he can see if he likes proper cameras ;) Let me know if you haven't got my address though.

Sue, I'd love to compare notes and shots :)
Click to expand...

Will dig it out :)
 
s162216 said:
Are all your Sony lenses full frame? I'm not sure if all Sony lenses are as they only do 2 full frame cameras so I imagine most are APS-C type. What camera is it that you've got?
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erm....erm..... :thinking:

it's a sony alpha 350 if that helps... :LOL:

cowasaki said:
Will dig it out :)
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Thank you very much. It's really appriciated.
 
If its a Alpha 350 which has a 'cropped' (i.e non 36 x 24mm ) sized sensor commonly called an APS-C sensor then the lenses are unlikely to be suitable, with APS-C the imaging circle doesn't have to be as big as the sensor is smaller.
If used on a 35mm camera then as the imaging circle is smaller there will massive vignetting, making them unsuitable. Find your lenses on Sony's site, search for 'full frame' lenses and have a look for your ones.
 
Unless you got Minolta lenses of course... and there won't be *massive* vignetting, it must be taken account of though.
 
s162216 said:
If its a Alpha 350 which has a 'cropped' (i.e non 36 x 24mm ) sized sensor commonly called an APS-C sensor then the lenses are unlikely to be suitable, with APS-C the imaging circle doesn't have to be as big as the sensor is smaller.
If used on a 35mm camera then as the imaging circle is smaller there will massive vignetting, making them unsuitable. Find your lenses on Sony's site, search for 'full frame' lenses and have a look for your ones.
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Ok, thanks. I'll still knock off a roll of film with the lenses I have ATM and if I'm honest I really like vignetting at the moment.
It'll be fun and a better way to spend a few quid than on shoes :LOL:
 
I tried to find an example of an APS-C lens on a full frame sensor, this is about the closest I could find. Basically it seems that long focal lengths are necessary so to minimise vignetting.

http://curtisjudd.blogspot.com/2010/01/dx-lens-fx-body.html

What camera is it you've got? If you have a Dynax/Maxxum 3/4/5/7/9 then try getting a 28 - 80mm f3.5 - 5.6(D) which are relatively inexpensive on ebay. If you have anything in the Dynax Xi or Si series or 7000i etc then some good inexpensive choices are the 35 - 70mm f3.5 - 4.5 and the 28 - 80mm f4 - 5.6 or 28 - 80mm f3.5 - 5.6. These are slightly cheaper as they don't support the ADI flash metering that was not on the above cameras. All of these are quite inexpensive on ebay as they were kit lenses but are of exceptional quality and are quite sharp.
 
As an experiement I fitted my sigma 10-20 to the EOS-3. This is a pretty extreme example, but even looking through the viewfinder you can see a little vignetting at 20mm. By the time you get to 15mm, the image circle is smaller than the height of the viewfinder. At 10mm it's like looking down a gunbarrel.
 
s162216 said:
I tried to find an example of an APS-C lens on a full frame sensor, this is about the closest I could find. Basically it seems that long focal lengths are necessary so to minimise vignetting.

http://curtisjudd.blogspot.com/2010/01/dx-lens-fx-body.html

What camera is it you've got? If you have a Dynax/Maxxum 3/4/5/7/9 then try getting a 28 - 80mm f3.5 - 5.6(D) which are relatively inexpensive on ebay. If you have anything in the Dynax Xi or Si series or 7000i etc then some good inexpensive choices are the 35 - 70mm f3.5 - 4.5 and the 28 - 80mm f4 - 5.6 or 28 - 80mm f3.5 - 5.6. These are slightly cheaper as they don't support the ADI flash metering that was not on the above cameras. All of these are quite inexpensive on ebay as they were kit lenses but are of exceptional quality and are quite sharp.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
TBH that's fine, it's going to be mostly landscapes that I do, probably.

The camera i have is a Minolta Dynax 404si
 
Okie dokie... I got some film. ISO200 (cause it was cheap and I thought I'd use that to knock a couple of rolls off, even if it does mean shooting in daylight probably, or using longer shutter speeds.

So, now I have to find a manual online, suss it out and play.

Wish me luck!!
 
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