Analog film photography and cameras

MrSmyth, please do post. As I know for a fact that you would have forgotten more about film/analogue photography than many of us had ever learned anyway.

kboy, my only reason for attempting to keep film and digital photography threads separate, is that film photography is a dying art, and needs to be kept alive by enthusiasts. Digital photography needs no such effort, as it is the new established and accepted format. If the two are mixed, then the likelihood is that the digital conversations would drown the film ones.......and film needs as much exposure (excuse the pun) as possible.

Everything is digital on a computer screen.

Needs the raptor meme thing. I don't know how to do that...

just making a point to let it slip for once and let the joy of photography be more important than choice of technology. But if you wanna talk selenium seagulls, i'm all ears since it'll teach me something new.

and film needs as much exposure (excuse the pun) as possible.

certainly, good point

(i liked the pun)

new age fun with a vintage feel

ftfy

Understand the difference between the two, scanner cams sort of bridge the gap.

So, back to analogue? Heres a bunch of glass plate negs that I contact printed (never attempted contact before, found difficult to get the right areas at the right exposures as you can't see what your doing until you've done it!), first three are in Rodinol 1+15 used as a print developer on slightly expired multigrade paper, last one is in cafenol.

Anyone hazard a guess at the uniform? I figure this is the son of >>>

This happy smiling chappy in drawing room. Again anyone want to guess the tags on his jacket, I've never been good trying to decipher military stuff.

Family in the park, I know I've seen a similar bit of wall in Newcastle, possibly in Jesmond Dene. Big mess thanks to hands damp with rodinol on the paper before it was exposed, techincally a fail, but I like it.

test strips trying to get exposure/ dev time/ contrast right. Cafenol expires very quickly so dev times change by the minute!

Mother/nanny with kids, again think I know where this is (mill hill near Whitburn/Boldon village maybe?) and scanner has made a mess, shame as that area was really well detailed.

I reckon the lot are from the one family (medium sized lower/middle class) in outskirts of Newcastle around 1910-1920?

prints all look MUCH better in real life, crappy flatbed scanner has made things look odd :/

ftfy
"new age fun with a vintage feel"

Understand the difference between the two, scanner cams sort of bridge the gap.

pls explain further?

I guess by "analogue spirit" I meant the DIY making things, making a mess, figuring out how things work -spirit, which is a bit unfair... that's neither digital nor analogue. but the image from a scanner back is as digital as a sensor, isn't it? discrete data, ones and zeros, that kind of thing.

amazing images, where did you find the plates? I like that you recognise the places. reminds me a bit of http://www.sutcliffe-gallery.co.uk/ got a book in Barter Books when I was touristing round those parts a couple of years ago.

MrSmyth, please do post. As I know for a fact that you would have forgotten more about film/analogue photography than many of us had ever learned anyway.

i'll post something when its ready.

kboy, my only reason for attempting to keep film and digital photography threads separate, is that film photography is a dying art, and needs to be kept alive by enthusiasts. Digital photography needs no such effort, as it is the new established and accepted format. If the two are mixed, then the likelihood is that the digital conversations would drown the film ones.......and film needs as much exposure (excuse the pun) as possible.

do keep them separate. though the analogue thread gets more traffic.

was musing on the "digital needs no such effort". today i have been processing/stitching/retouching some landscapes i shot last week in Spain, been on the computer most of the day and have 3 images finished.
i guess i could have shot some colour neg on an XA and sent them off to Truprint :-)

pls explain further?

Sorry, was trying to make reference to the youtube hipster song, but failed :/

Everyone has a different reason why they shoot film rather than turn to digital, I started in digital, then my interests turned to film, partly as I enjoy it, partly as I find it takes me LESS time to produce the images I want (yes, LESS!) and also because I like old things in general.
I'm mid 20s, should be eyeing up sports cars and clubs right? wrong, trying to work out how I can get my hands on a 1900-1930 narrowboat with hit & miss diesel engine for little cash to live/ travel/bum around on, shooting in an out of date photographic format and tell the time according to a dented pocket watch from 1865. maybe I should admit myself?

There are about 30plate from that box, all seem to have been shot fairly close together (I wonder if that family were visited by someone with a camera, or borrowed one hence only the brief amateur snapshot of their lives).
Found them in a charity shop for a few pound, though I've come across thousands over the past few years, but I generally steer past them as I only have so much room here. Household/antique/clearance auction houses are the place to find this sort of stuff before 'antique' dealers slap their mark up on them.
In London camden market (not the locks bit?) where the horse stables were there is a selection of junk shops, one of them run by a middle aged woman dressed in victoriana, she has PILES, and last time I was there only asking a few quid, she had no idea what they were as unbelievable as that sounds.

^^

I think GA2G was referring to the digital thread itself not requiring such effort, not digital photography as an activity. New cameras and technologies alone are going to keep that thread alive. This one relies on enthusiasts picking up old cameras at car boots, messing about with chemicals, experimenting with expired film, etc, etc. Oh, and then bastardising them for our viewing pleasure. And possibly using Truprint... :)

MrSmyth, please do post. As I know for a fact that you would have forgotten more about film/analogue photography than many of us had ever learned anyway.

kboy, my only reason for attempting to keep film and digital photography threads separate, is that film photography is a dying art, and needs to be kept alive by enthusiasts. Digital photography needs no such effort, as it is the new established and accepted format. If the two are mixed, then the likelihood is that the digital conversations would drown the film ones.......and film needs as much exposure (excuse the pun) as possible.

See what your saying about film/analogue being a dying art but IMO the only way to stop it dying is to break the film v digital divide and get everyone working together.
Not saying it exists here but in many places I think there's an ethos of "I'm a film photographer so I'm better than you coz you use digital" and conversely, "I'm a digital photographer, I'm modern, I don't have to bother buying film/paper etc"

mechanical vandal, most digital users wouldn't want to work together with film users. They feel (quite rightly) that the medium they use is up-to-date, and that analogue/film photography is less user-friendly, and in some ways "old hat". Therefore its up to film enthusiasts to show that film is still a very attractive option. Thats just my opinion, and I am certain that you won't value it.

Brickman, that second print is Stephen Fry with a pussy on his lap. No wonder he's smiling - the delicious irony.

Let's pretend it IS Stephen Fry, as its funnier that way.

mechanical vandal, most digital users wouldn't want to work together with film users. They feel (quite rightly) that the medium they use is up-to-date, and that analogue/film photography is less user-friendly, and in some ways "old hat". Therefore its up to film enthusiasts to show that film is still a very attractive option. Thats just my opinion, and I am certain that you won't value it.

Just because I haven't in the past doesnt mean I never will.

I just think there's a big crossover of people using iPhones and apps etc and the lomo crowd there's people doing both but the two disciplines never meet. It's mostly hipsters I guess and yeah, uncle bob with his 60d would prob have no interest in film.

Thread seems to have gone quiet after all that digi/analogue commotion, so here are some shots from a minolta AL 35mm rangefinder from the mid 60s. Rokkor 40mm f/2 lens & portra 160NC (gone pink from being left in the hot Moroccan sun!).

street pap winnar - minolta AL - Essaouira, Morroco - 160NC
Took about 10minutes until someone interesting walked past this archway. Essoaouira was one of my favourite places in Morocco, 'Cat City', people were very friendly and there were very few tourists compared to other regions which was nice. Stayed within the Medina for about 3days just relaxing and wondering the streets, felt very 'safe' compared to even somewhere like muswell hill!

fishing boats and people - minolta AL - Essaouira, Morroco - 160NC

Newcastle monument busker - Minolta AL - 160NC - Voyages into Geordie'land

the look of this actually owes a fair bit to film, or at least it's colour palette does.
the shooting is more controlled and quicker being digital, the 'printing' takes a lot a longer than real colour printing (actual RA4 prints using an enlarger and sorting your own colour out not machine prints or truprint) B&W is the opposite it's a lot quicker on the computer than real printing with chemicals.

Where is that? Looks like a stockpile of coal for a power plant?
I have spent many nights stalking industrial behemoths through mini mountains of ore, a few have nearly killed me (dry drowning in ore & being knocked down by automatic conveyors/stalking feeds). But I love the textures & colours you can get on them heaps.
I've tried with no success to make digital look like film, I blame my equipment though, like any good photographer does ;) as my borderline neolithic canon 20d just can't produce the light 'range' (right term?) that more modern & full frame digi can so when I go to mimic analogue in lightroom it just comes out flat & compressed looking :/

For me on specific projects/ adventures, film actually gives me faster results. I choose the film I want before hand, shoot it, develop it when I get around to it, get a gadge to scan it for me then upload, DONE! no digital fiddling really. vs. digital I spend far too long on each shot and they always come out dull & lifeless compared to their film equiv.

Also just picked up one of these, a 70s Olympus 35RC rangefinder.
I've heard of them before (35/RC/RD/LC/LF/SP) and knew they were the equiv of a full XA but the previous generation. But its marvelous.
5 element 42mm/2.8 zuiko (same as full XA? but not quite as sweet as the 7 element f1.7 in the SP/RD models) with full manual & shutter priority auto (throw it into a speed then shoot without worry as it physically cannot under/over exp).
'finder is brighter & higher contrast than some really swish RF's I've tried (Voigtlander bessa r3/4 & leica m5), though min focusing is 90cm which is a bit long, I like being able to get down to 20-30cm.

Most important thing, its freaking tiny, about the size of an XA. Found I had some ilford fp4 left so going to shoot that this week and see what I get :)

being digital, the 'printing' takes a lot a longer than real colour printing (actual RA4 prints using an enlarger and sorting your own colour out not machine prints or truprint) B&W is the opposite it's a lot quicker on the computer than real printing with chemicals.

is that true for everyone? I'm surprised - I haven't any experience of digital really, but RA4 prints take me so long compared with B&W, which feels a lot more 'fluid' in the darkroom...

great image, reminds me a bit of Ollie Woods project in china: http://www.olliewoods.com/red_star_page_3.html

also - BrickMan - love the dock/boats, absolutely fantastic

image was taken in Tarragona Spain, it's coal unloaded on the dockside
Film now involves scanners and monitors but for me it only ever involved enlargers and lightboxes apart from a short period when prints were done on an inkjet or a ridiculously expensive print was done at Metro. can't remember the process but it was more expensive than a hand print and was done on massive sheets of watercolor paper.

Thread seems to have gone quiet after all that digi/analogue commotion, so here are some shots from a minolta AL 35mm rangefinder from the mid 60s. Rokkor 40mm f/2 lens & portra 160NC (gone pink from being left in the hot Moroccan sun!).

street pap winnar - minolta AL - Essaouira, Morroco - 160NC
Took about 10minutes until someone interesting walked past this archway. Essoaouira was one of my favourite places in Morocco, 'Cat City', people were very friendly and there were very few tourists compared to other regions which was nice. Stayed within the Medina for about 3days just relaxing and wondering the streets, felt very 'safe' compared to even somewhere like muswell hill!

fishing boats and people - minolta AL - Essaouira, Morroco - 160NC

Newcastle monument busker - Minolta AL - 160NC - Voyages into Geordie'land

nice!

Just set myself up a darkroom in my bedroom.
I have no idea why I haven't done this sooner.
Got the offer of an enlarger for free if I could pick it up quickly the other night so I went n got it and turned out to be an LPL c7700, pretty good going for free I reckoned.
Got an easel and a safe light n some trays with it, I already had some stuff from when the darkroom at my dads workshut down and general processing stuff from doing films at home.
All I had to add was a bottle of paper dev and a blackout blind which cost me £20 from Argos.
Anyone thinking about setting up a darkroom at home - get it done!

is that true for everyone? I'm surprised - I haven't any experience of digital really, but RA4 prints take me so long compared with B&W, which feels a lot more 'fluid' in the darkroom...

for me, colour is quick when you understand colour theory and the amount of CMY to add/subtract. B&W takes longer as printing is a methodological process that takes time if you do it properly (proper processing with archival washing plus any toning),
using a resin coated machine is for 'snaps'

I've only ever done tray B&W and machine RA4. I guess it's just practice, I find colour balance and exposure much harder to judge, I can't guess very well so each print takes ages. Doesn't help that my neg exposures are all over the shop. I also just have quite squiffy eyes/vision... not really cut out for visual work really.

Would love to get more time in the darkroom, but it's an expensive hobby these days doing colour.

I love the light in the grave yard, which film/camera did you use?

are those shots super-compressed jpgs? They'd look a lot nicer if they weren't