Analog film photography and cameras

A negative just reversed should look flat…

Ok ok. I was thinking that it should be more contrasty because my enlargements are but then actually I dial in a whack of magenta(?) filter in my enlarger.

Edit: your version looks a lot better. More farting around in Lightroom then.

If you do enlargements the paper adds the contrast. I would recommend to save the file as
a 16bit Tif in Lightroom and do the rest in Photoshop. Lightroom doesn't know you
work on a negative and a lot of settings will be backward and not work properly.

You also need to expose to the right and keep it 16 bit, if there are 1000 levels in the first stop (highlights) then there’s only 25 in the last (shadows) so as soon as you start pulling the file around you bet noise and banding.

Those values are just as an example but the tonal separation will diminish as you move through the histogram to the shadows.

i "scan" the same way and just do what @sohi said, i think it's an advantage of using digital camera + macro lens that you can work with the negs like this

i also have to cover the rest of my light source to get decent results with my current setup, but it did't make a big difference with the camera/lens i was using previously so results may vary?

this neg was scanned badly to begin with but it's a lot better just after setting the black/white points

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Seriously nice shots

Freecycling a Zorki 4K body with issues
Happy to post at cost
Collect either Herne Hill / Chancery Lane
No lens included
This would perhaps suit someone with a working 4K for reference!
Shutter fires and rangefinder patch is ok and appears to couple well with a 50mm lens
The base is missing one screw attachment but does close.
There are no markings on the shutter speed dial.
Not tested by me with film but am told it works and has no light leaks.
PM if interested
Pix to follow

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I've also been excluding as much light as possible, including room lighting, but equally problematic is the light box bouncing back from the phone front etc.

I'm convinced that background light can be reflected from the surface of the negative - especially from 'black' areas - possibly reducing the image contrast, and fooling the camera meter.

Keep in mind that my approach is very much a lash-up that owes more to wishful thinking than optical physics.

Yeah, this is correct I as far as I'm aware

Negs have a shiny side and a less shiny side and the shiny side is the one that is the right way round, as seen from the macro lens.
You can apparently get slightly better results by shooting the other side (back side) and flipping it, or even better by blocking all extraneous light with a just the right length tube that goes from the lens to the neg, but... it's an extra step/more money spent in the process of sharing my photos with people on the internet, so I don't.
I reckon you are all cool enough to get the intent.

@shinkuu_kiss @MrE @sohi and @Mr_Smyth, thank you all for the pointers/advice.

Sat today and made up a mask, there may be further itterations but this one includes a bit of aluminium extrusion for my neg holder to sit on.

I took 3 bracketed exposures of 3 negs (I'd forgotten which side of the exposure you had said to goto @Mr_Smyth) and imported them into LR and inverted them. The one exposed to the right looked much better immediately and with a little tweak to take the tone curve from a straight line to S shaped I'm really liking the results. I guess I can save that S shaped curve now and use that to do my -ve/+ve flip.

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Here’s my new set up.

It’s just struck me that when I was looking at light boxes I rejected quite a few based on their small size and the inconsistency of the light across their surface but now I’ve blacked out most of the one I bought so it doesn’t really matter what size it is or how consistent the light is!

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Camera set to aperture priority and between f2.8 and about f4.

stopping down to f5.6 or f8 should also improve things 👍

Oh yeah that was the other change, I connected up the remote release and stopped the lens right down.

Some Velvia 50 shot on the XA.

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Unknown storage, expired film. £25 posted for the lot.

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Love the ferry shot @mi7rennie 🙌

On another note: I picked up yet another camera on the flea market. After some inspection and cleaning it seemed to be alright. I did the regular hacking and bodging to make a modern battery work with it. Currently shooting a cheap Kentmere 400 test roll.

Now to my actual question: This camera still had a banned mercury battery installed. Empty and luckily undamaged but how do I dispose of it properly?

P.S.: Pardon my dirty desk mat. I cleaned it afterwards.

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Definitely don’t put the battery in your bin. I’d expect your local recycling centre to take batteries (go on your council website to find where that is). Failing that just the used battery boxes as found in many supermarkets would be ok.

Kodak Portra 400 (SMC Pentax 30mm)

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Thought the first two looked like the road to Applecross from Tornapress?!

Cracking shots :-)

how do I fix light leaks? camera is a 43y old canon AE1

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Most probably by replacing the light seals (the foamy stuff along the edges of the back door of your camera).
You can use black tape (ideally something thick like this) and tape around the gaps from the outside after you've put in your next roll of film for a quick and dirty fix.

Kodak Portra 400 (SMC Pentax 30mm)

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/397686/#comment17460769

Slightly related to analogue. this stuff is all going freecycle, anyone keen before it goes to recycling?

Kodak Portra 800 (SMC Pentax 30mm)

..did any of you get a Pentax 17?

Saw a couple of reviews / image sets by now, and gotta say I'm really impressed - haf frame it might be, but that lens is super sharp, and most pics I've seen look really really nice 👍

I considered but what a stupid fucking camera, why did they make a half frame?! If it was full frame I'd have bought.

With a nicer rangefinder and focus accuracy, better lens too.

Its a missed opportunity.