Dunno why I like this so much. Perfect vehicle, you can just feel that desert sun in the colour film. And a glorious $20 plastic wafer of a camera that does not scratch film. Imagine that - paying $20 for a new camera and it does not scratch film...
The last couple of rolls looked pretty good but after running the conversion in NLP, something was off. I tried fiddling with different tone profiles, adding contrast and adjusting exposure and still my feeling was they weren't quite right, It was time to mix up the last liter bag of the Film Photography Project FPP-76 and I figured some fresh fixer couldn't hurt and maybe some stop bath, too.
The fixer is Ilford Rapid Fixer and I make a 500ml. Use it for about twelve rolls then make a fresh batch. I hadn't given much thought to the stop bath. I'm using Fomacitro indicator stop. You really do learn some stuff when you read the data sheet. I had mixed the stop bath a few months ago and never gave it a second thought. After actually reading the data sheet, way down at the bottom was a note about working solutions. In short it stated working solutions should be stored refrigerated and discarded after thirty days. The old dog is still learning new tricks. Here are a few.
Utility Stump, mostly because there are some chairs on either side so it could be a table, a footstool or a seat:
Row of arborvitae:
Little Free Library with plexiglass:
Me and my sharrow:
Assorted toys, April Hill Park:
Lace Leaf Maple Buds:
Mossy Mailbox Cover:
And I'll finish with the ever popular hydrant:
The negatives look great. These are straight from NLP with no adjustments. It's also my last roll or Tri-X for a bit. There are twenty rolls of HP5+ to get through!
I don't want to start developing my own color film, but my local lab absolutely trashed my negatives. Took me 30-40 minutes per each image to remove all of the scratches.
_jim_ wrote:
I don't want to start developing my own color film, but my local lab absolutely trashed my negatives. Took me 30-40 minutes per each image to remove all of the scratches.
I've been doing my own C-41 for the last year or so. I quite like it - it's easy (same procedure every time), quicker than B&W, and my scanner has ICE so I can not worry about dust and scratches so much. And I've discovered XP2. Very nice film.
_jim_ wrote:
I don't want to start developing my own color film, but my local lab absolutely trashed my negatives. Took me 30-40 minutes per each image to remove all of the scratches.
Developing my own C-41 won't help me with trying to figure out NLP's mercurial nature with color negatives. I should probably do more research. The program does so phenomenally well with black and white...but with color it's all over the place. I should probably get better at color corrections...
But...every once-in-a-while, it does the negative justice (it looks how it looked IRL):
Stranger by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
Kiev 60, Volna-3 80mm f/2.8, Kodak Portra 400 (expired 2019).
_jim_ wrote:
Developing my own C-41 won't help me with trying to figure out NLP's mercurial nature with color negatives. I should probably do more research. The program does so phenomenally well with black and white...but with color it's all over the place. I should probably get better at color corrections...
But...every once-in-a-while, it does the negative justice (it looks how it looked IRL):
I use FilmLab, which is nice because I don't use Photoshop/Lightroom at all. It's a stand-alone program. It gets me 90-95% of the way there, with minor exposure/contrast and white balance adjustments done in DXO Photolab.
_jim_ wrote:
Developing my own C-41 won't help me with trying to figure out NLP's mercurial nature with color negatives. I should probably do more research. The program does so phenomenally well with black and white...but with color it's all over the place. I should probably get better at color corrections...
But...every once-in-a-while, it does the negative justice (it looks how it looked IRL):
Are you taking a white balance reading from a strip of unexposed but developed film before you start the conversion?
I do that and save it as a preset for every film stock I use.
Also cropping out the border so all you have is the image really helps with the colour conversion. When you do that set the border buffer to zero.
I experiment with turning auto WB settings on and off and see how the colour looks. I have noticed if a scene has a lot of blue sky NLP will really try an warm things up, also if there is a lot of green eg a grass field, it will try to compensate for the green. In both those scenarios turning off AWB really helps.
_jim_ wrote:
I don't want to start developing my own color film, but my local lab absolutely trashed my negatives. Took me 30-40 minutes per each image to remove all of the scratches.
Wonderful shots.
Well, if you do you can just shoot Kodak Vision 3, deal with Remjet, and save money on Cinestill packaged stuff.
I would shoot nothing but 50D, 250D and 500T if I had the time and space to keep C41 chemicals around.
You have no idea how much this forum, and this thread among others here, makes me want to go out and shoot (film) everyday. Yes, keep it up! I have some film on the way back from the lab and I'll post stuff from the three rolls all shot with different cameras once it arrives.
