Hot answers tagged film
55
I think medium and large format photography is still a world dominated by film. While that fact is starting to change with more recent digital cameras that have extremely high megapixel counts (20mp or more), going to a larger format is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper with film. The benefits of large format are particularly nice for landscape photography, but shine ...
46
Star trails (Google images search) are much easier to photograph using film equipment, for a few reasons:
It won't kill your battery. A digital SLR will expose for an hour if you're lucky before the battery dies, depending on your power setup (extra grip vs no). A film camera can expose indefinitely without using any additional battery usage, which is ...
42
Infrared and ultraviolet photography is much more accessible with film. With digital it is possible, but generally involves modifying the sensor to remove the hot mirror, which is very expensive.
27
There was quite a lot you could do, actually.
Let's start with the basics -- overall exposure and contrast. This is something that anybody who had a darkroom would have done as a matter of course. Photo papers come in different contrast grades, and some black-and-white papers were variable contrast, reacting differently depending on the colour of the light ...
26
In short, reciprocity failure is how we describe film reacting unevenly to exposure. Usually, film's exposure is pretty linear: exposing film at f/2.8 for 1/60s will give you the same negative density as exposing at f/4 for 1/30s or f/2 for 1/125s. When you start to reduce the number of photons hitting your photosensitive material per second, though, things ...
25
The problem is definitely not overexposure; that renders negatives black.
To work out whether it was underexposure or a development problem, there's a fairly straight-forward indicator: Do you see any edge markings (marked red in the example below)?
They'll vary from film to film; not all will have barcodes, but there's usually a name or number at the ...
20
It depends on what you are after from the experience. Are you playing with it just to see what wacko images you can get that are 'different' or 'alternate' to digital? In other words, are you exploring film like you would a Holga, a pinhole, or a lensbaby? then don't bother reading on. If, on the other hand, you are exploring film because you want to ...
19
I don't think we can talk about quality difference anymore. The definite difference, in my opinion, is the need of power of digital cameras. If you are going mountain climbing then a film camera might be more appropriate since mountains still lack power plugs.
Also, film cameras have a very low starting price. If you are a novice it is economically ...
18
One thing that I like better about film photography is, that you can shoot slides and project these in large scale with their original resolution onto a screen, or even just a smooth white wall.
Digital projectors will never give your 12 megapixel camera justice--most digital projectors cannot display anything beyond the "HD" format, which is really only 2 ...
16
You can't restore information that is lost, but if the effect is uniform over the entire image, or at least gradual, you can balance it out to restore the same look as it would originally have.
With the added processing you will of course lose even a little more quality, but that is hardly visible. What you might see is that the limitations of the data gets ...
15
Oh, it may not seem expensive right away, but every time you hear the shutter click it's costing you money. I had it really bad -- I had to start turning tricks (er, shooting weddings -- it's the same thing as far as I'm concerned) to support my habit.
That said, shooting film can be very rewarding. Or, rather, shooting black and white film can be very ...
15
Color film contains several layers, each sensitive to a different color of light (red, green, blue). When exposed to light and developed, these produce magenta, cyan and yellow colors in the negative. The printing process works in a similar way. This is similar to the way digital sensors work, in that there are filters to exclude all but one color of ...
15
The ISO rating of a film is determined by the exposure required to produce a negative (or positive, in the case of slides) with a particular contrast level when the film is developed according to a standard recipe and process (time, temperature, etc.).
Simply put, "push processing" is developing a film for longer than normal; "pull processing" is developing ...
15
Its better to scan the original slide/negative as its better to reproduce from as close to the source as possible meaning quality of reproduction goes down in this order:
The source (whatever it was you actually were shooting)
The slide/negative or digital camera file
A print of the photograph.
It essentially comes down to every stage of recording ...
14
That would really depend on what kind of effect you are going for, and which format you shoot. Some can't stand the more apparent grain that comes with higher speed film, but I think it adds character. Then there is development and printing, etc. I personally find B&W ISO 400 film to suit my taste though, mostly T-Max or Tri-X with a side of Ilford HP5 ...
14
The Orton Effect is an image-processing technique resulting in a high-contrast look with a slightly "glowing" appearance. It started as an analogue technique made from two slide exposures of the same scene - one sharp and one soft - but nowadays it's more commonly done digitally. This photo on Flickr is an example of the result:
A basic recipe for doing ...
13
What DPI do I need to use when scanning a 35mm to get an equivalent of say 8 MegaPixel digital photo
You can calculate the reolution from the megapixels like this:
ppi = sqrt(mp * 1000000 * 3/2) * 25.4 / 36
Which gives you:
6 mp = 2117 ppi
7 mp = 2286 ppi
8 mp = 2444 ppi
9 mp = 2592 ppi
10 mp = 2733 ppi
11 mp = 2866 ppi
12 mp = 2993 ppi
13
The good news - all medium format gear is ridiculously cheap now that everyone switched to digital.
Cheapest hardware is probably 645, Mamiya was always cheapest and is lens compatible right upto their most modern digital models. Although most people used them as eyelevel SLRs you can get a waistlevel finder for $10
My favorite 6x7 was always Mamiya RB67 ...
13
There are film leader extractors (that at least used to be) available. I'd guess even now most decent camera stores should have one around to handle situations like yours. If you want to buy one, it looks like B&H still lists them. I would guess most others do too, though I haven't looked. In this case, it's probably cheaper to buy it locally if you can ...
13
In theory you can get more out of a negative than a print. However, in practice you are more likely to have access to a flat bed scanner that can give a wonderful scan from the print. A good film scanner is much more expensive and slower.
Considerations are similar for larger format film. But the costs go up even more, since the consumer-level film ...
12
Pinhole photography.
The optics of pinhole systems mean that increasing the size of the imaging medium makes enormous gains to the resolution of the image.
In practice, film (or photographic paper, commonly, but still silver-halide) is easily the best choice, and will probably remain so indefinitely.
12
Yes, but not on most standard DSLRs. Most digital cameras have an infrared filter on the sensor to improve the image captures in the visible spectrum.
In order to do take infrared photos it is best to buy a camera designed for that purpose or modify a camera by removing the filter on the sensor.
There is a great overview of digital infrared photography ...
12
Well, if you can't part with them and you won't shoot film (you can share lenses between the *istD and the MZ-6, film isn't dead yet), then I guess you either box 'em up, put them on a shelf, or display them somewhere. However, one consideration for parting with them is there are often volunteer groups teaching poorer kids about photography that are grateful ...
12
The answer is "it depends". With some films, the limitation was the lens for all practical purposes, just as it is with the extreme-resolution DSLRs today. Kodak Technical Pan shot at ISO 16 (yes, 16) could easily resolve 150 line pairs per millimetre, which would give it a Nyquist equivalent of just under 80 MP in the 135 (35mm) format. Kodak's Ektar 25 ...
11
I started with (color) negative film then switched to slide film for one specific reason: I wanted control over my pictures. With negatives, unless you develop and print yourself (which is a convoluted process for color film), when you drop your film at the local shop, you have almost no control over the look of your prints (exposure, contrast). And with ...
11
The manual (linked from the camerapedia page) says it takes a particular kind of 21/4 x 31/2 pack film, which (like I think you guessed) isn't made anymore.
It's hard to say without being able to look at the camera, but I'd suggest there are two main options:
The first is to use 21/4x31/4 sheet film, which should fit. You'd likely have to rig up some sort ...
11
From Beginner's guide to HD video on dpreview.com
Clip limits
One of the main disadvantages with using a stills camera to shoot
movies is the short recording times available for HD video; Nikons
limit a single take to 5 minutes while Canons and European Panasonics
stop after 29 minutes, 59 seconds. This limitation is due to the
different ...
11
All your EF lenses will work. EF-S lenses however will not as they protrude into the body of the camera a little more. They are designed for the smaller sensors (and therefore smaller mirrors) of APS-C digital SLR's, where the smaller mirror flipping up still clears the flange of the lens. A 35mm film SLR (or indeed full frame digital) has a larger mirror ...
11
If we are talking about global colour shifts, Photoshop has lots of tools to change the colours back, like hue shift, white balance and the tool where you can "Drag" one colour on the gamut towards another. and maybe you need some contrast enhancement.
If it is destroyed in a unique spatial pattern, it is much harder. You need to apply correction in a ...
11
Indeed, some cameras do need the leader. Usually they are manually loaded and winded - they use take-up spools with a slot for the leader. Advancing the film is performed by turning the take-up spool, and sprockets alone would not provide grip secure enough. For example, Bronica 135N/135W, Nikkormat EL-W.
When the film has been fully rewound into cassette, ...
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