(results) First roll of film in years

jonbeeza

jonbeeza

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Just picked up my photos from film, last one I took in was about ten years ago. Just looking through them now and they look digital, the daffodils in the background look a luminous glowing yellow, the colours just look false as does the whole image!

I compared them to some photos that I took years ago, and the older pictures look lovely, and the colours and the whole image looks real and alive. While the new photos from film look artificial, the colours look false while the image just looks like a compuer scan.

It's obvious the new photos have been done digitally :|

I don't have a scanner, so I can't scan them to show!
 
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First question, which film did you use? High saturation films such as Ektar are not supposed to show colours naturally hence why their high saturation films for landscapes generally. If you want dead natural colours then use a film like Portra 400 or 160.

Apart from some labs, all film stuff these days is processed, scanned and then printed with a laser or LEDSs. It works out better in the end as things such as brightness, contrast, colour casts etc can be easily sorted out compared to in the past where it involved careful and time consuming 'grading' by the person printing.

Where did you get them done as sadly it depends on the lab operator, at Jessops, Boots etc most just leave it on auto or the operator completely screws the scan up as they don't know what their doing. This can give the false digital look which I think your describing. I did get a similar experience with Jessops when I used them once or twice as it looked. I currently use a pro lab (Club 35 in London) for the reason that I know they will correct my negs to give balanced, natural result.
 
s162216 said:
First question, which film did you use? High saturation films such as Ektar are not supposed to show colours naturally hence why their high saturation films for landscapes generally. If you want dead natural colours then use a film like Portra 400 or 160.

Where did you get them done as sadly it depends on the lab operator
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I used Fujicolor 24 C200, and I took them into Max Speilman. This was done as a test roll really, just to check the camera was still working after all these years. The camera seems to be working fine, just the results look like digital pictures.

The photos look like poor quality digital images, and nothing like the film images I took on the same film camera years ago!
 
Save your sanity, get your own scanner. My results from jessops and boots were horrific when put on CD, over saturated, too much contrast, blown whites, far too much black, over sharpened and only 1280x720 resolution.

My very affordable Epson 4490 on the other hand has served me beautifully!
 
jonbeeza said:
I used Fujicolor 24 C200, and I took them into Max Speilman. This was done as a test roll really, just to check the camera was still working after all these years. The camera seems to be working fine, just the results look like digital pictures.

The photos look like poor quality digital images, and nothing like the film images I took on the same film camera years ago!
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And that's the point - the shots are printed from a digital scan of the negative, and therefore arguably ARE digital pictures. If that scan is over-sharpened, and over saturated by a operator who's got the system cranked up to make shots from a disposable camera compete with the over-saturated look of cheap digital cameras that the general public are expecting to get, then your shots WILL look like like nasty examples of digital images.

The whole idea of scanning stuff yourself is to get a reasonably accurate digital rendering of the shot, which matches your "mental image" of what the shot should be, when rendered on the particular type of film you're using.
 
I noticed the crap print syndrome appearing with the last few colour films I shot. They didn't look right at all when they came back from Jessops.

I'd do another roll and send it to somewhere like Peak Imaging to compare.
 
Save yourself some hassle, buy a scanner if you're going to carry on using film.

Getting a lab to do it is letting a trained chimp decide what looks good, and chances are they own a superzoom with 18megapixels or an iphone for their own needs and wouldn't know what white balance was if it burned out their retinas.
 
Definitely a little harsh on some of the pro-labs out there, however I'd say it's probably a fair first approximation to make when using a Max Speilman shed :LOL:
 
jonbeeza said:
But the issue is with the way the photos are printed, I am not saving them to pc.
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Since nobody has responded to this yet, the issues here are one and the same. You can't make a good print of a rubbish scan. While these labs may not exactly 'excel' at scanning it's rather hard with the equipment they have to completely mess up developing. So what you have when using this service is some scans/prints that you aren't happy with, and some negs that are the original picture, as pure and meddle free as possible.

If you're not happy then you have two options. 1) Take them back and tell the lab. Either ask for your money back or ask for them to be scanned again, specifying which settings you would prefer or 2) Scan them yourself, save the hassle.
 
I suppose these print places have just changed the way they produce photos. I started using my film camera again, in the hopes of taking photos with the lovely film look.

But it seems pointless to take in film, only to come out with digital images. Or As suggested scan negatives myself, which again will result in a digital image.


Or I could simply say I want the film processed in the traditional way, without any digital conversion. I suppose it will cost more though.
 
I'm not sure i know of any labs that specify purely traditional editing and printing. I think the only way to be sure would be to do it yourself, but the enlarger, paper, chemicals and the whole proper darkroom setup would cost a lot.

Scanning negatives does result in a digital image, yes. But it's not the same as just taking an picture on a digital camera. As long as your scanner is half decent then it can capture a lot of the benefits of film, the colours... all the other stuff i'm not going to go into in an attempt to avoid a flame war :p
 
Hi,

Westminster Studio's still use the entirely traditional way but be prepared to pay more than compared a standard pro lab for indivdually corrected images. It'll be very difficult for where you used to not do it the 'traditional' way as the newer minilabs operate on doing it with scanning, not actually exposing the paper through the negative:

http://www.westminsterstudios.com/prices.htm

To be honest theres no real difference between a digital scan and the actual negative really, as the scan really is effectively the negative your just adjusting the colours, contrast etc before you print it out on the silver-halide paper. Don't take this one set as an example of what a modern film lab is like, use a 'proper' lab like suggested with staff who know what their doing and don't stick it on auto. My choice would be my usual colour neg lab, Club 35 in London as they've always done lovely prints for me and their processing quality is top knotch.
 
So in short there is no real benefit to using film! Well if the end result is digital style printing, may as well start off with a digital image in the beginning! Not unless I use one of the above style labs that is! Thanks for the info fellas..
 
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jonbeeza said:
So in short there is no real benefit to using film! Well if the end result is digital style printing, may as well start of with a digital image in the beginning! Not unless I use one of the above style labs that is! Thanks for the info fellas..
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There is benefit in using film! It's just that (IMO) DSLRs can now pretty much match and often exceed 35mm film, film comes into it's element when you use medium or large format.
 
Film looks different to digital, whilst with digital highlights just 'blow' and thats it, with film the highlights blow more gradually and rather than ugly 'noise' you get grain which looks much nicer in comparison.

Like I said, before jumping to any immediate conclusions first try a different lab, perhaps the best way would be to send in the negatives for a complete set of reprints to see the difference?

Remember that with the digital printing your doing almost exactly the same as you would the 'traditional way', I think that you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a traditional colour print and a digital print.

Remember that a negative has a hugh amount of lattitide and colour variety so its up to the individual as to how to print it, its exactly like how motion picture films are edited for release prints: using the traditional way the camera negative would be 'graded' for colour etc for each individual frame at the contact printing stage. Or with the 'modern' method, the negative is scanned and 'graded' digitally before being outputted by a laser etc onto film for printing. Either way you can 90% of the time get the same result by either method except for 'extreme' looks like bleach bypassing every print (which gets its distictive look because of the retained silver, watch '1984' with Richard Burton to see what I mean or Minority Report to see a less extreme version where the internegative was bleach bypassed) or where its simply not possible to get the distict colour look with the traditional method (like with 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' which was the first digitally graded film released.
 
s162216 said:
Film looks different to digital, whilst with digital highlights just 'blow' and thats it, with film the highlights blow more gradually and rather than ugly 'noise' you get grain which looks much nicer in comparison.

Like I said, before jumping to any immediate conclusions first try a different lab, perhaps the best way would be to send in the negatives for a complete set of reprints to see the difference?

Remember that with the digital printing your doing almost exactly the same as you would the 'traditional way', I think that you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a traditional colour print and a digital print.

Remember that a negative has a hugh amount of lattitide and colour variety so its up to the individual as to how to print it, its exactly like how motion picture films are edited for release prints: using the traditional way the camera negative would be 'graded' for colour etc for each individual frame at the contact printing stage. Or with the 'modern' method, the negative is scanned and 'graded' digitally before being outputted by a laser etc onto film for printing. Either way you can 90% of the time get the same result by either method except for 'extreme' looks like bleach bypassing every print (which gets its distictive look because of the retained silver, watch '1984' with Richard Burton to see what I mean or Minority Report to see a less extreme version where the internegative was bleach bypassed) or where its simply not possible to get the distict colour look with the traditional method (like with 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' which was the first digitally graded film released.
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Thank you for all that info, I will have a look around for another lab. I will try a few and see how I get on, I will ask lab first and see what they reckon they can do (y)
 
TBH, mail order is pretty much the only way these days that you can get quality film developing and printing done. Take a look in the film processing in the UK thread at the top of the F&C page to get some ideas of where you could try.

As I mentioned above, my choice would be Club 35 as their prices are very reasonable (£6.60 35mm dev + 6"x4" print, freepost address to deliver to), they have a rapid turnaround and most importantly in your case, their prints are very nicely balanced and of excellent quality.
 
s162216 said:
TBH, mail order is pretty much the only way these days that you can get quality film developing and printing done. Take a look in the film processing in the UK thread at the top of the F&C page to get some ideas of where you could try.

As I mentioned above, my choice would be Club 35 as their prices are very reasonable (£6.60 35mm dev + 6"x4" print, freepost address to deliver to), they have a rapid turnaround and most importantly in your case, their prints are very nicely balanced and of excellent quality.
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Ok brill, I will have a read a read through your suggestions, and I will see about getting more film sorted (y) thanks
 
Yeh scanning does bring them into the digital domain, but the results can still be authentic and it's useful for finding the best of the bunch that can then be sent off to be wet printed (which is pretty darn expensive these days!)

as an example, here's a lab scan and a home scan using an uncoated lens from the sixties. Both have had some sharpening but the colours should show you what sort of difference you can expect! This was at a decent private lab too.
I'll let you guess which one the lab did.


 
jonbeeza said:
So in short there is no real benefit to using film!
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I think thats far from true, why not scan/print yourself? I scan black & white negatives & can't complain with the traditional feel of them being spot on.

Everyone has made fair suggestions about using a 'proper' lab to print from your negatives but it can, of course, be rather costly. May I suggest you test a different film? When I worked in Jessops last summer, we'd hand out that C200 film for free everytime you processed a film with us. It's awful! Perhaps look into changing the film before giving up on it all completely?
 
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jonbeeza said:
So in short there is no real benefit to using film! Well if the end result is digital style printing, may as well start off with a digital image in the beginning!
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Appreciated that the end result is effectively a digital version of a physical negative but the film that I scan at home on a canoscann 8800F which i believe aren't too expensive ( mine cost me about £80 i think but it's a few years back!) definetly have a different appearance to those shot dogitally.

In addition, there is the whole feel of shooting and developing your own film.

Final decission is yours but I would perhaps wait a little while and allow your initail dissapointment to subside and then see if you feel any different.
 
jonbeeza said:
But the issue is with the way the photos are printed, I am not saving them to pc.
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If I lived local to you Jon, I would have gladly scanned and printed for you.

Maybe there is a TP member living in your area who could help out if the lab results continue to let you down.
 
jonbeeza said:
Just picked up my photos from film, last one I took in was about ten years ago. Just looking through them now and they look digital, the daffodils in the background look a luminous glowing yellow, the colours just look false as does the whole image!

I compared them to some photos that I took years ago, and the older pictures look lovely, and the colours and the whole image looks real and alive. While the new photos from film look artificial, the colours look false while the image just looks like a compuer scan.

It's obvious the new photos have been done digitally :|

I don't have a scanner, so I can't scan them to show!
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Maybe you should have your shots scanned to CD? For me (and probably for other photographers) many prints are a waste of money as I'm lucky if 20% of my shots are keepers.....once you get a scanner you can upload the best shots to get prints or if you get a good scan on a CD you upload straight from there, and I got 200 prints of my better shots for about £5:-

photos.jpg
 
We send our films to Peak Imaging and you still get that "film effect" on a scanned image. The colours are different (better in my opinion) from digital and there almost seems to be some sort of tangible warmth to the image. Despite the fact that it's been scanned and "made digital", unless something has gone seriously wrong the grainy, colour rich effect of film should still be there.

I still view most of my pictures on a computer and only print a select few, despite changing primarily to film from digital.

It also depends on what roll you use of course. We have personally found Fujicolor 200 and 400 to be very good, whereas Kodak 200 and 400 (the stuff in the yellow box) tends to be a bit naff and turns out with a green cast. Ilford's black and white offerings in ISO 400 impressed me hugely as well, and I've just got a 5 pack of Ektar to burn through.... watch this space.


s162216 said:
Film looks different to digital, whilst with digital highlights just 'blow' and thats it, with film the highlights blow more gradually and rather than ugly 'noise' you get grain which looks much nicer in comparison.
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Film also doesn't bias to one colour in the image (a la the white balance debacle of digital) and I've found film is generally much more resilient to, say, a scene lit heavily by one colour of light source. Film also has a hell of a lot of dynamic range, maybe not on paper but I've certainly taken images which I just know would have blown parts on digital and on the film they either didn't blow as much or at all. Points of light don't turn out an ugly blobby mess on film for instance (probably due to reciprocity failure) unless you do something stupid like leave the shutter open for 5x as long as you intended.

In other words, it's more forgiving, and I think it's a lot like uncompressed analogue music; you either love, understand and appreciate it or you have no time for it anymore.
 
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Sorry for the poor images, I don't have a scanner so I can't scan and show them, I simply laid them out on the floor and simply took a snap of them!




The first image is what I took on my old Nikon F60 film camera about ten years ago. Although you can't really see in this image but the sky does show pretty ok, and it is not blown out. The photo bottom right just shows a grey sky, had this been on a digital, it would have been all blown out!!!

old_films.jpg


The image below is taken with the same type of film, and the same camera. Just that this was taken the other week. A difference of about ten years.



films_new.jpg


The image below was taken with my digital camera

digital.jpg


I do prefer the old film pics, but maybe it's just me being fussy

The photos do look better than they do here, just that I was in a rush taking photos of the photos :)
 
jonbeeza said:
That's where I got the idea of photo of a photo (y)
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(y) ....and also any decent old or new doc copy scanner can scan a print, I used to scan my 8X10 prints with an old Epson scanner on win 98, until I got a neg/pos film scanner and the quality was VG.
 
excalibur2 said:
(y) ....and also any decent old or new doc copy scanner can scan a print, I used to scan my 8X10 prints with an old Epson scanner on win 98, until I got a neg/pos film scanner and the quality was VG.
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I have just bought myself a brand new lens, the next thing on my shopping list is a scanner and a flash. I think I would rather buy a flash first, as I just may be able to track an un used scanner down. Just a case of where :thinking:
 
The ones with the white border around them look very cold indeed, colour temperature is a way out. What film was it?

Edit: sorry, I see you used Fujicolor 200, odd as we've gotten great results with it ... must have been the place you took them to get done.

Have you considered trying Peak Imaging? Not the cheapest but we are always pleased.
 
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jonbeeza said:
I have just bought myself a brand new lens, the next thing on my shopping list is a scanner and a flash. I think I would rather buy a flash first, as I just may be able to track an un used scanner down. Just a case of where :thinking:
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Well my next upgrade from a paper copy scanner was a Epson 2480 photo S/H for £8.....scanned about 1000 negs and pos with it and the results were good. I still use it for paper copying now that I have my V750.
But for a long time I've settled for Tesco then Adsa....dev and scanned to CD for £2.98 done in 40mins (with Asda) while you shop and then I touch up in Photoshop, which is good enough for a 24" computer screen, but if I need better resolution for cropping or for larger prints, I would use the V750.
 
trencheel303 said:
The ones with the white border around them look very cold indeed, colour temperature is a way out. What film was it?

Edit: sorry, I see you used Fujicolor 200, odd as we've gotten great results with it ... must have been the place you took them to get done.

Have you considered trying Peak Imaging? Not the cheapest but we are always pleased.
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The ones below were done at Max Spielmann in Leigh Lancs about ten years ago.


old_films.jpg








While the ones below were also done at Max Spielmann, but these were done last week in Aigburth Liverpool branch.



films_new.jpg


The latest photos I did from film are above, and these are certainly not of the same quality as the film I did years ago. The colour has a strange blue grey cast on them, they simply look like poor digital scans :thinking:

As I said I used the same type of film and on the very same camera, taken by the same person ( me) the only difference is ten years :shrug:
 
excalibur2 said:
Well my next upgrade from a paper copy scanner was a Epson 2480 photo S/H for £8.....scanned about 1000 negs and pos with it and the results were good. I still use it for paper copying now that I have my V750.
But for a long time I've settled for Tesco then Adsa....dev and scanned to CD for £2.98 done in 40mins (with Asda) while you shop and then I touch up in Photoshop, which is good enough for a 24" computer screen, but if I need better resolution for cropping or for larger prints, I would use the V750.
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Thanks for the info (y)
 
jonbeeza said:
The latest photos I did from film are above, and these are certainly not of the same quality as the film I did years ago. The colour has a strange blue grey cast on them, they simply look like poor digital scans :thinking:

As I said I used the same type of film and on the very same camera, taken by the same person ( me) the only difference is ten years :shrug:
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Like has been said above, the one variable that can't control is that it depends on who is printing them as to the final result, even 10 years around 2000 ago it was becoming mostly automated and the 'modern' scan and print method was becoming widespread in labs. Theres no comparison really as the person 10 years ago was likely just more on the ball and adjusted the scan or print much better than the person who did your recent prints.

Forget the recent ones and just move onto a better, more consistent lab. If you really want to, get the negs reprinted at another lab as that will settle any problems hopefully. Peak Imaging are good (but bloody expensive in comparison to most places who do just as good a job), but take a look through the 'Film Developing in the UK' thread and just choose another lab. I've made a few suggestions as have several others. Just move on.
 
Have a go with them! (y)

Looking at their website they give a quite good impression and they clearly offer professional services like exhibition printing and E-6 (slide) developing so I would have high hopes!
 
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