I'm new to film photography and need help

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
sciamwow

sciamwow

Reputable
Jan 9, 2015
598
0
5,010
Hey guys. I recently got into photography and I have a Pentax K-50 and like it a lot. I've been interested in getting an old 35mm film camera, so I recently got a Pentax P30t off of eBay for about $20 total ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pentax-P30-35mm-SLR-Film-Camera-Kit-/252294208211?nma=true&si=lCMeWu4jyOaXct6H2ASerf9p7Tk%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 )
I'm looking forward to getting it, but need some advice.

- What film sould I buy? I was thinking ISO 400 since that seems like a good middle ground between lower and higher ISOs.
- I've read around that the P30t only works with "DX coded film." What does this mean and will it impact which film I can buy?
- Will this film work in the camera? http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-UltraMax-Speed-35mm-Exposures/dp/B003ZH40QU/ref=sr_1_3?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1456784256&sr=1-3&keywords=35mm+film
- Any tips on how to know what shutter speed/aperture to set? I'm used to a DSLR and quickly seeing if the picture was too dark or bright and being able to adjust it quickly.
- Any more general advice?

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
Solandri

As someone who learned photography using film, if you're just starting out please please please buy a digital camera. The immediate feedback you get from seeing the picture means you can just tweak some settings and take the picture again. Repeat until you get the picture "just right". With film, you have...
Sort by date Sort by votes
Okay, hold up... Just to make sure I'm clear on this. The Walgreens customer service rep sent me all of their photo options, and this was one:

Photo CD (from negatives, no prints)
$5.99

Is that saying I can save $4.50 by simply inverting the colors of the scans on my own? If so, I'd so do that and be able to control the colors better and such.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Those should be normal color jpgs.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay. I'm just confused then, I'll just stop by one day soon and ask them how it all works. Because these were two of the options the woman gave me:

Photo CD (from negatives, no prints)
$5.99

Photo CD (from film processing, no prints)
$10.48

So I just don't know the terminology I guess
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

Ugh, don't even try that. You can't just invert the colors on a negative scan to get a proper image. Negative film has an orange mask which needs to be removed, otherwise the colors will be all off. Unfortunately, the color of this mask differs with each film brand and type. The big film photo printers either have a database of each film type so they know what color correction is needed to properly invert the negative, or they measure it directly.

If you do decide to do it yourself, you also need to get a scan of an unexposed frame or part of the edge of the filmstrip. That will have the orange mask and nothing more, so you'll know exactly how much color needs to be removed. That works when you scan at home. If the lab is doing the scanning, any color correction they do will screw things up.

This is one of the reasons prints from negatives were always hit and miss. You'd get a fantastic print back from a shot on negative, order reprints, and the color and lighting would be all different in the reprint. The final product depends on the machine doing the printing and often the eye of the operator running the machine. There was a local lab whose developing cost twice as much, but I used them a lot because the machine operator had a great eye for tweaking the prints to make the lighting more dramatic. Towards the end I was shooting slide almost exclusively so that I was in complete control of the end result (only used negatives at weddings - it was hard to find high-ISO slide film which could handle the contrast between a white wedding dress and black tuxedo).

Photo CD (from negatives, no prints)
$5.99

Photo CD (from film processing, no prints)
$10.48

So I just don't know the terminology I guess
Click to expand...
The first one is if your negatives are already developed. You hand them an envelope of negative strips, and they scan it (removing the orange mask and inverting the colors).

The second one is if your negatives are fresh out of the camera. They develop the film, then they scan it (removing the orange mask and inverting the colors).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ah, thank you for that clarification. So I bring my roll of film and they develop it as in the second thing I listed and they invert the colors and all. If I decide that I don't like how they look, I could then take the negatives and do something similar to this?

http://petapixel.com/2012/05/18/how-to-scan-film-negatives-with-a-dslr/

I know it isn't professional, but it would give me complete control over the colors as far as I understand. Or do you think they include scans of the negatives by themselves as well?

One more question, and again forgive my questions that I'm sure will seem stupid even to me in a month... 😀 So I get a new roll of film, put it in the camera, and take all of the pictures. The film must be developed first before being able to take pictures of the negatives like in the link I attached, right? You can't just take out the film after taking pictures and do what that person did, correct? From my understanding you have to use all of those chemicals to keep the film from continuing to react with the light.

Thank you for your help! And sorry for the newbie questions
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Correct. Unless you have a darkroom and a crapload of chemicals (and a bit of experience), you can't do this at home.
The film must be developed.

However...a 'darkroom' could be a bathroom, or a walled off section of your basement.

How to develop film (only b&w. Color is more involved)
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Develop-Film/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

Yes, you could scan it at home. However, scans immediately after developing will almost always be superior (assuming sufficient resolution and color depth) for one simple reason: Dust.

By far the biggest nuisance I encountered scanning at home was dust. On slides it makes black specks and lines. On negatives, it makes white specks and lines. You blow the film with compressed air, use a camel hair brush, and the scans still have dust. There's a lot of dust in your house, you just can't see it most of the time. Removing dust specs was eating up about half of my time in post-processing (the Photoshop heal brush was a huge help at this when it was first introduced).

In the end, I resorted to buying film scanners with something called digital ICE. It scans the film in infrared first - the color grains in most film are transparent to IR. That produces a scan of just the dust on the film. Then it does the regular scan, and the software edits out the parts obscured by dust and reconstructs it by interpolating neighboring pixels. This is why I don't recommend the cheapo use-a-DSLR-as-a-scanner method. Unless you don't mind dust in your scans.

If the developing lab is doing the scan, there is less time for dust to fall onto the film. In fact some of the developing machines can develop, dry, and scan the film without ever exposing it to air (dust). And I believe all the big film scanners the major developers used had digital ICE or an equivalent technology.

BTW, the color correction he's doing in the link you provided is overly complicated because he's trying to color balance without removing the orange mask. You scan the blank frame (or edge of the film strip). It will scan orange (aqua-green when inverted). You white balance it to white, and apply that white balance to all the negative scans from that roll. That will pull the picture towards colors much closer to what the scene was really like.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

Yeah, that's the quick and dirty way. The proper mathematical way is to sample the orange part at the edge of the film strip, and subtract it from the image. The dedicated film scanning software I have does that (VueScan - got it when it was a hobby project for $12 with free lifetime upgrades. I see now it's $90). But if you're going cheap, the white balance trick mostly works.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Update time!

The camera came in today (packaged very well I might add). If somebody told me this thing was twice as old as me without me knowing what it was, I'd say they were lying. I can hardly find a scratch on the body! The lens has a few scratches here and there and some fungus on the front element (I think), but it even still has the QC sticker on it! It has a little "71" on the QC sticker, so I'm guessing at least the lens is from 1971.

The camera came with 4 rolls of film. 3 Kodak TMAX ISO 100 B/W film (all expired in 8/2000) and one roll of Kodak Gold ISO 200 (expired 1/2002). I've heard the rule that for each decade passed since the expiration date, it's about one stop slower. Do you guys think any of this film is still usable or should I trash it? I don't wanna spend $10 to have it developed only to get awful pictures.

About getting the pictures developed: I called Walgreens today. It's $10.81 to have the pictures developed and put on a CD, and the guy said that the price should be the same for both 24 and 36 exposure rolls. When I asked if they developed B/W film, he said nobody has ever really asked him that but that if it is shot on B/W film, the development process is the same. Is that true?

Okay, last thing (I think... 😛 ). The lens that the camera came with is... Odd. It's a Tokina 28-200. Instead of twisting the lens to zoom and having a smaller twist ring at the end to focus like I am used to, you physically slide the lens forward?? I'm sure it's not broken, but... Is it? It's just so weird. Just getting the right zoom/focus seems VERY finicky and I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing... Can someone clear this up for me? It seems awesome for macro shots, though.
Another thing about the lens is that it won't fit on my K-50. They're both K mount. It looks like on the part of the lens that goes into the body, there's a plastic piece that sticks out (by the little lever that opens the aperture) that goes too far into the body of the K-50 and hits something, keeping it from mounting properly. Anybody have any idea about this? My other lenses fit fine on the P30t.

For $21.38, I feel like I scored (once I get everything working 😀 )Sorry for being so long-winded... And thank you!

For reference: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pentax-P30-35mm-SLR-Film-Camera-Kit-/252294208211?nma=true&si=lCMeWu4jyOaXct6H2ASerf9p7Tk%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

I would trash them. Kodak Gold was the standard consumer grade film. Not worth saving except maybe for posterity. TMAX is pretty good student/professional film, but it's still sold. If you really want to use it, you can buy new rolls.

The rate at which film "ages" depends on the temperature it was stored at. So there's no guarantee any rule of thumb will compensate for a film's age. You'd need several rolls stored in the same conditions, shoot one roll normally, develop it, then compensate on the remaining rolls.

About getting the pictures developed: I called Walgreens today. It's $10.81 to have the pictures developed and put on a CD, and the guy said that the price should be the same for both 24 and 36 exposure rolls. When I asked if they developed B/W film, he said nobody has ever really asked him that but that if it is shot on B/W film, the development process is the same. Is that true?
Click to expand...
Generally no. B&W film needs different developing chemistry. I know Agfa (or maybe it was Ilford) spent a lot of money coming up with a B&W film which could be developed with the color film process. But then they got steamrolled by the digital revolution and it was rendered moot. (B&W in digital = Photoshop desaturate. Though it's worth pointing out that different B&W films had different spectral sensitivity. So for example some would show reds as a brighter or darker shade of gray. You can find PS plugins which simulate the different B&W films starting with a color image, though I hear some of the films were slightly more exotic responding slightly to UV or IR light.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-41_process

Your other questions are probably best answered in a Pentax camera forum.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm not sure I would trust film sold by Amazon. For all I know, they could be storing it in a sweltering warehouse. Part of the way they reduce costs is they don't pre-allocate warehouse space. So there's no section of their warehouse devoted to toasters, or MP3 players, or batteries. They have computers directing robots to put new inventory into whatever space is available. And when someone orders it, the computer has the robot pick it out of that space.

Big photo stores like B&H and Adorama store film in refrigerated storage prior to sale.. That helps keep the film stable and guarantees the expiration date. The expiration date is meaningless if the film has been stored in a hot garage for a few weeks. Their prices are usually competitive with Amazon as well. I would hope whoever is in charge of film at Amazon knew this, and got Amazon to dedicate refrigerator space for their film stock. But I can't find anything online confirming that this is the case. And film sales are probably like 0.001% of Amazon's total sales. (It's even worse when the item is sold by someone else but fulfilled by Amazon. That means the seller ships the stuff to Amazon, who ships it out when it's ordered. You have no way of knowing how the film was stored prior to being sent to Amazon.)

The main thing I can see in favor of Amazon is their 2-day shipping if you have Prime. Film spending a week in a tractor trailer baking in the sun while traveling cross-country to arrive at your house is going to suffer too. (I should be clear a short stint this isn't going to destroy the film. But it will introduce enough variance that if you're trying to generate consistent results, or comparing different films side by side, it will make a difference. One of the reasons I usually paid the few extra bucks to buy film from one of the local professional photo stores back in the day.)

You can start to see why digital is better. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks man. I understand. I already ordered a pack of 4 Fujifilm 400 speed film that should come in tomorrow through Prime. If it doesn't work, oh well, it's $10 😀 We'll see how it goes
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay, small question again:

The film came in on Saturday and yesterday I got to take some pictures with my girlfriend. I took a few pictures on the film camera and then put my DSLR on ISO 400 and the same aperture and shutter speed as the film camera, but the picture on my DSLR came out too bright. Will the DSLR and film camera with the same settings come out exactly the same? If so, I'll take a practice shot on my DSLR first to make sure it all looks okay. Also, is it better to have the image too dark or too bright on film? If it's better to have it too dark, I may set it to auto and then bump it up one notch past what it tells me to.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Also, is it fine to leave the film in the camera while I'm not taking pictures? I plan on not taking any more with it for another week or so. I just didn't know if it was okay to keep it stored in there. And should I try to keep the camera in a relatively cool place?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ha ha. It is fine to leave the film in the camera. Just be aware that accidentally opening the back of the camera while the film is in there will expose it and you could lose all your pictures (my parents lost all their honeymoon photos because of this and an uncle who was a little too curious about how their camera worked). I know Canon cameras would completely unwind the film roll when you first loaded it, then roll them back into the canister as you took pictures (basically using the film roll backwards). That way you'd only lose one photo at most if you accidentally opened it, because the rest of the exposed films would already be in the canister. I dunno if any other manufacturer did that.

ISO isn't an exact science. Well, actually it is an exact science, it's just that manufacturing film or camera sensors to a certain ISO sensitivity isn't an exact science. Even most digital cameras are off in their ISO ratings by about 5%-10% (usually they're overstated, making the camera sound more low-light capable than it really is). Same thing goes for lens aperture too - usually it's slightly exaggerated by about 1/3 or 1/4 stop on the bigger lenses when wide open.

The dynamic range of the film will also be different than the digital sensor. So while the photos should be similar, don't expect them to be identical.

As I said before, negatives can withstand a lot of overexposure - about 4 stops if I recall, but underexposed details are lost. Slides are the opposite - overexposed details are lost, while underexposed details can usually be recovered (with more noise/grain). In that respect, slides behave like DSLR sensors.
Edit: http://petapixel.com/2015/08/10/how-much-can-you-overexpose-negative-film-have-a-look/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Ohh, I got that backwards. I thought film was like DSLR sensors where it is better to underexpose than to overexpose. Thank you for the clarification!
So if I need to load film and I'm somewhere that I can't really get out of the light, I'll just try to hunch over and block as much as I can. You're awesome, thank you!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Alright, update again. I dropped the film off at Walgreens by my school this morning and picked it up after school. I'm pretty happy with how everything came out, it has a really cool look compared to digital. However, from Walgreens the prints are sort of low-res (1215x1800) and I wanted to try to fix that. I tried to scan the negatives with my DSLR by using an iPad as a light source with a piece of translucent plastic bag to block out the pixels and the film on top. It looks... Okay. I tried inverting it and fooling with the colors and I just couldn't get it to look as good as it does from Walgreens. Any input on that?

Here are some of the pictures. The ones that have no film visible are the ones scanned at Walgreens. I kinda opened the back (in a semi-dark room) after my first day of trying out the camera to check if the film was going as it should, so I think I messed up a few as you can see...

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B3DgghGW2VAkTzJjbDB1RWVtMnc

So any thoughts? I'm thinking about using thedarkroom.com next time, but with the base of $11 + $4 for higher resolution scans + $6 for shipping comes out to $20 to get it developed as opposed to $10 at Walgreens (which is also cheaper). I'd like to be able to use the DSLR trick to save some money and be able to have a little bit of the edge of the film in the shot as well, but I just can't seem to get the colors right.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I named one "Getting closer..." I think that one is pretty good, but just needs to be brighter.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
An iPad is probably not the best choice for a light source. It is not white. it looks white, but it's not. The light it produces is from color filters which only let through light at 3 specific wavelengths. If you were to look at its spectrum, it would be 3 narrow peaks with little light at in-between wavelengths.

If the object you're viewing (e.g. the film grains on the negative) responds to different wavelengths than those 3 peaks, their color will not be the same. Use a broad-spectrum source light like sunlight, or a high-CRI LED/CCFL bulb. Worst case, use an incandescent or halogen bulb (they are sufficiently close to blackbody radiation, even if the color temp is too low). The light in scanners is specially designed with this in mind to be high-CRI.

As I said, inverting and white balancing is the quick and dirty way. It will give you something sort of close to what it should be. The proper mathematical way is to measure the orange mask, subtract it from the image, then invert it. I actually tried this once in PS and it was a major PITA (not to mention I lost a lot of bit depth from the subtraction because my scanner was only 8-bit). That experience got me to just pay the money for a real negative scanner. You might still be able to find software out there which does this properly. I know VueScan does it, but the price has gone up a lot since I got it, and I'm not sure if it'll work with images from a DSLR (it's designed for flatbed and film scanners).

And you can't just link files in your Google Drive. That URL only works for you. You have to make it public, then post the shareable link.

4" x 6" @ 300 dpi = 1200x1800 pixels, so that seems about right for the prints. You're saying the digital scans they gave you are also that low res? That's unusual. Guess you shouldn't print larger than 4x6 at Walgreens. Negatives contain a *lot* more detail than the 2MP they're scanning at. If you're seriously going to do this a lot, you may want to invest in a film scanner (or flatbed scanner with a film scanning accessory). It will also capture in full RGB, not the pseudo-RGB created by a DSLR's Bayer filter (each 4 pixels actually only contain 1R, 2G, 1B, or about 1/3rd the color resolution of a scanner). And I'll bet it comes with software for removing the orange mask before inverting (I never tried the included software, always used VueScan).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for all that info! And yeah, the scans that it came with it were 1200x1800, so kinda blocky when looking at it on my monitor. I only got the CD and no prints because prints would be much cheaper through Shutterfly

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3DgghGW2VAkTzJjbDB1RWVtMnc&usp=sharing

See if that link works. I made it to where anyone with the link could view it, but for some reason I guess the settings changed.

By flatbed scanner do you mean the ones built into printers sometimes? We have one of those where you pick up the lid, put the paper down, and the light goes back and forth over it. There are accessories for that for scanning film?

Again, thanks for the information! I might, if I feel okay with spending the extra cash, pay $20 to get higher res scans from thedarkroom.com
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

Yeah. But I don't think any multifunction printer has a film scanning accessory. It's a device you plug into the scanner and substitutes for the lid. It has a light inside, which lights up the slide/negative from the back (it shuts down the scanner's regular light). Basically lets you scan transmissive media like slides and negatives, instead of reflective media like books and paper.

The cheaper ones just use a reflective mirror or white surface and rely on the scanner's original light source. But that means the light you're scanning has gone through the slide/negative twice, and you have to do extra processing to undo it. Or maybe the scanner undoes it for you. I dunno, I've never used those cheap ones.

http://petapixel.com/2011/07/14/how-to-scan-film-using-your-ordinary-flatbed-scanner/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Scan-Photo-Negatives-Using-a-Scanner/
http://howtoscan.ca/scanning-tips/scanning-slides-negatives-flatbed.html

Edit: Yes the new photo link worked. You can test it yourself by signing out of your Google account and trying to view the link yourself. (Or just open a new Chrome incognito window and paste the URL there.)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom