Zenit 12XP

bass_junkie83

bass_junkie83

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Name
Dave
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I have just been given one of these cameras, complete with the original 50mm lens. The camera previously belonged to my other halfs now deceased grandfather, and has now been passed to me so that it stayes in the hands of someone who appreciates photography.

At the same time, I have just got a 20d for the missus as she wants to get into photography herslef, so I thought it would be nice to get to grips with using a film camera so that we can actually go out and use it, purely for sentimental reasons.

It all seems to be fully working, just need to get a new battery for the light meter. But any info or general advice before I dive in would be great. I have not picked up a film camera since I was a kid, and back then I was only using cheap fully auto film compacts.

Is the light meter on these much cop, or is it best off to be avoided and use first principles?
What films should I use, just as a general all rounder while I get to grips with it, and where should I look to get it developed?
 
Thank you.
Will that film be suitable to be developed on the high street?
 
If you're looking for something that can be dropped into any minilab setup - you'd need C41 black and white film - either Ilford XP2, Fuji Neopan 400CN or Kodak BW400CN.

They also have the advantage of being 400 ISO films, so a couple of stops quicker - handy at this time of year :)
 
Thank you. I will get some film and start playing. :D

What is the best way to digitise the images? Have the images printed at a reasonable size and just scan them?
 
Get scans of the negatives. A lot of highstreet places will do it for you and they should be big enough for internet sharing. Use one of the online companies (there is a sticky at the top of this forum) and you can get bigger scans from your files. Either that or get a scanner capable of scanning negatives and do it yourself.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Thank you. I will get some film and start playing. :D

What is the best way to digitise the images? Have the images printed at a reasonable size and just scan them?
Click to expand...

Get one of these, £30 on ebay the speed is amazing and I have scanned in all my 1960/70s slides and b+w negs, AND printed to A3,.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5693522.htm?cmpid=GG05X&_$ja=kw:agfaphoto+afs3|cgn:confused:canners%7c%7cAgfaphoto+afs3+negative+slide+scanner%7c%7c5693522|cgid:2130060077|tsid:13542|cn:NB%7c%7cS%7c%7cPPCPM%7c%7cProduct%7c%7cPrinters+and+fax+machines|cid:68850797|lid:29432149157|mt:Exact|nw:search|crid:8778534797

Agfa scanner
 
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Jeremy, your link doesn't work mate

Andy
 
If you are only going to shoot C-41 films i'd just stick to colour negative for now, assuming you are going to digitize in some way using colour gives you the option of converting to black and white in post.

A general all rounder, some would recommend getting some cheap stuff like fuji superia 200 but having used it i'd just skip and get some better stuff like Kodak Ektar 100 or Kodak Portra 400, can get both of these on 7dayshop.

Kodak Ektar 100 is fine grain, higher saturation but slightly lower contrast, superb latitude i shot some in a box camera recently and must have done some shots that were 4 stops under exposed and still got useable images. It's the closest thing to Kodachrome now Kodachrome is dead.

Kodak Portra 400 (there's a 160 version as well), has a much more neutral colour palette and renders colours very realistically, and owing much to its name is excellent for portrait shots. It also has (probably) the widest latitude of any film, people have shot this stuff at ISO 3200 and higher and stuff get useable images, this makes it excellent for newbies to film as it's very forgiving with exposure.

As for the camera, it's well... basically junk in term of monetary value, i've bought Zenit bodies with a lens for less than it cost me to buy and develop a roll of Velvia. Still capable of producing good images, built like a tank, light meter should be accurate enough for negative films, i've shoot slide film in a Praktica MTL3 body before using only the in built meter and still got good shots. Should be fun anyway, using these kind of cameras usually is.
 
Very helpful, thank you. The Kodak Portra sounds ideal, especially for this time of year while it's a bit grim out.

I'll also look into picking up one of those scanners too.

Not fussed about the monetry value of the camera at all, it's purely sentimental so I wouldn't consider shifting it no matter what it's worth. :)


Regarding the film, when you say people have shot up to 3200 iso on a 400iso film. I understand that on the camera there is a dial to set the speed of the film you are using, I take it from what you say you don't strictly always have to have this matched exactly to the film you are using?
 
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Thats because their different film formats - 135 (commonly referred as 35mm which the Zenit takes) and 120 film which is used in medium format cameras and has a much larger negative area which means that the quality is higher but you get less exposures per roll, it doesn't come in a cartridge like 135 film, it has backing paper on it and is wound onto a spool in the camera and then wound back onto the original spool and processed when your finished with it.

This is the one you want:

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=110866
 
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Thank ypu so much, i'm such a
dunce.gif
 
Although you can shoot it at 3200, I would stick with a max of 1600 with it as theres only a slight increase in grain. It is a good idea to shoot at box speed most of the time, but with modern colour negative films like this you have the option of about + or - 2 stops of exposure.

Overexposure rather than underexposure tends to work best with negative film (although that almost doesn't apply with this film)as you can darken it in printing/scanning - slide film on the other hand is like digital, as it has a much narrower latitude (about + or - 1/2 a stop) you should always try to preserve highlight detail as they blow out fairly easily and are unrecoverable whilst the projector can simply blast through the shadows.
 
Yeah sorry should have explained that. What i mean is that they shoot the film like it was ISO 3200 (3 stops under exposed for ISO 400). So if normally the exposure was f/4 @ 1/30th (low light) you'd go for f/4 @ 1/250th, this is really only done for reducing blur as handheld at 1/30th would be hard.

To be honest i've never shot a film at anything other than the intended ISO speed, never felt the need.

Here's a shot from Ektar 100 (converted to B&W in post), that had to be 3-4 stops under-exposed and it still looks fine, i could have boosted the shadows more if i wanted but it would have ruined the look i was going for.


Under The Bridge by Morinaka_2010, on Flickr
 
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