One of my first RB67 photos!
Jan. 9th, 2024 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneBack on my birthday last month, I went out to White Sands with two new - to me - cameras. A Mamiya RB67 film camera, and a Canon 5DS 50 megapixel DSLR. Today I got the scans from my film back! And here's one of the photos!
It was the last shot on the roll - it's been some 30 years since I shot an RB67 and it has a bit of a learning curve, and I got some end of roll funkiness on it. There's a bit of Photoshopping on it to crop it and cut off some flare and clean up some negative yuckies.
BUT there's no Photoshopping to make it look old! That character is ALL because it being FILM! And this is why I like FILM! It has character that digital just doesn't give you. Specifically it's Ilford ISO 100, overexposed about 1.5 stops. I think it was HP5, I'll have to look at my film back when I get home and update the post. Photoshop curves darkened the area around the tree, that's about it.
I calculated out the pixels, and the scan is the equivalent of about a 25 megapixel camera! But it ain't cheap: I got six frames from that roll because of problems, and with processing that's about $7.50 a frame!
And I actually like that about film. Knowing that there's a definite cost associated with every shot, you pay lots of attention to the composition and exposure to make it count! You're not just blasting a dozen frames on a single image because there's pretty much zero cost once you buy the equipment.
As usual, click to embiggen.
This photo was shot within a minute of the film photo above with the 5DS digital. Photoshop of the color original for various tweaks and crops, ending in applying a red filter to strike it to B&W. I didn't have to do any retouching to remove any of the film processing yuckies, but I did have to remove footsteps in the sand because this had a different crop than the RB67 shot. Huzzah for Photoshop!
I don't have any filters in this installation to make it look grainy like film, and since it was digital, it doesn't have the characteristics of the image below.
Regardless, I definitely like the character of the film shot a heck of a lot more.
As usual, clicken to embiggen.
It was the last shot on the roll - it's been some 30 years since I shot an RB67 and it has a bit of a learning curve, and I got some end of roll funkiness on it. There's a bit of Photoshopping on it to crop it and cut off some flare and clean up some negative yuckies.
BUT there's no Photoshopping to make it look old! That character is ALL because it being FILM! And this is why I like FILM! It has character that digital just doesn't give you. Specifically it's Ilford ISO 100, overexposed about 1.5 stops. I think it was HP5, I'll have to look at my film back when I get home and update the post. Photoshop curves darkened the area around the tree, that's about it.
I calculated out the pixels, and the scan is the equivalent of about a 25 megapixel camera! But it ain't cheap: I got six frames from that roll because of problems, and with processing that's about $7.50 a frame!
And I actually like that about film. Knowing that there's a definite cost associated with every shot, you pay lots of attention to the composition and exposure to make it count! You're not just blasting a dozen frames on a single image because there's pretty much zero cost once you buy the equipment.
As usual, click to embiggen.
This photo was shot within a minute of the film photo above with the 5DS digital. Photoshop of the color original for various tweaks and crops, ending in applying a red filter to strike it to B&W. I didn't have to do any retouching to remove any of the film processing yuckies, but I did have to remove footsteps in the sand because this had a different crop than the RB67 shot. Huzzah for Photoshop!
I don't have any filters in this installation to make it look grainy like film, and since it was digital, it doesn't have the characteristics of the image below.
Regardless, I definitely like the character of the film shot a heck of a lot more.
As usual, clicken to embiggen.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 01:03 am (UTC)Where do you get your film developed?
Or do you do it yourself?
Hugs, Jon
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 01:22 am (UTC)I can and used to process and print my own B&W. But I'm not enrolled in that program, and I think the lab is temporarily shut down right now. I sent it off to a lab in California, which I initially knew as North Coast Photo Services but apparently is now known as The Great American Photo Lab. They're pretty popular with professional photographers. They processed and scanned my film in two days, and will be mailing my negatives back tomorrow: just missed today's post office run because of a weirdness with my address. Which is fine, I already downloaded the negatives.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 07:15 pm (UTC)I could get prints from them. But first, I'd have to work over the scans in Photoshop to get what I wanted. Lots of places can print, and some on somewhat exotics materials, such as canvas.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-16 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-16 04:30 pm (UTC)Lots of drug stores still do processing, but not in-house. It's all sent out.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-16 04:31 pm (UTC)I don't think they ever developed here in town.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 01:51 pm (UTC)I have a Yashica that uses 120 film that my mother bought in the 60s for a photography class she took when working for a university. I used to take it to the stables now and then when I wanted to try to get particularly nice pics of some of the horses.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 06:55 pm (UTC)I don't know the exact model of your Yashica, but it was the forerunner of my first camera, a Yashica Mat-124G that I bought in 1977! Loved that camera and have one hidden somewhere. Excellent workhorse and silent with that leaf shutter. Sync flash up to a 500th of a second. Film is readily available from places like B&H or any of the major camera shops. Processing doesn't have to be as expensive as I paid, the scanning really kicked up the price.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 08:06 pm (UTC)I don't recall the model right off. I'd have to dig it out of the closet. It does have a (nonfunctional) light meter built in just above the lenses.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 08:27 pm (UTC)I think my model, the 124G, the meter used a battery and the previous had a self-powered meter with a selenium cell and those eventually failed.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 04:59 pm (UTC)But that's just background.
"Knowing that there's a definite cost associated with every shot, you pay lots of attention to the composition and exposure to make it count!"
Our chief photographer/developer was a man who previously worked in a lab in New York. He told me that when there were special events the professional photographers would each come in with as many as 300 rolls of film for his place to develop; they essentially ran off the rolls on auto advance, get negative proof sheets, and then have the lab take certain negatives and crop out the image they wanted from it. No composing. Just aim, shoot, and crop!
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 06:58 pm (UTC)Yeah, some pros shoot very differently! And now with digital, you can just blast away, swap the card and battery as needed, then select your shots in Dark Room and Photoshop. I can't work like that, it's just the antithesis of how I worked from the beginning.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-10 09:52 pm (UTC)Interesting that you should mention the AE-1. I did own one once upon a time, I sold it to a friend. Had a nice leather case with a custom cut-out foam interior. ANYWAY, I don't know if you are familiar with Ken Rockwell, he is a pro shooter who has an amazing review web site - he shoots the daylights out of gear then writes it up. He rates the AE-1 as a superior used camera if you're shooting the old lenses, likes it better than the old F-1! He also thinks Canon has been more innovative over the last decade or so more than Nikon. I don't have the info at-hand, but there's a company making a 'film' insert that is a Micro 4/3rds digital scanner that turns any film camera into a DSLR! I considered buying into the Kickstarter for it, but I have good digital cameras and good film cameras, I can't really see it having a place in my equipment portfolio.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 12:59 am (UTC)Your new equipment is just a license to go out and (thoughtfully, methodically) have fun! I hope you get to exercise your cameras often!
no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 03:49 am (UTC)Thank you! It was a fun excursion, I plan on going on another one soon. I just wish I had a red or polarizer filter. I don't know if you read Ken Rockwell's web site (kenrockwell.com), he's an excellent pro photographer and does great equipment reviews. He brings up an interesting point about keeping negatives: scanners improve! So right now, those 6x7 negatives, as scanned, are effectively at about 25 megapixels. And I have no idea what equipment was used to scan them. I am quite satisfied with the result, I need to do some more work on it in PS and see what else I can do with them. But in 5-10 years, assuming I'm still kicking, the scanners may make them 30-35 MP files. THEN what can I extract from them? Ken demonstrated increased scanner resolution on some 4x5 chromes that he had, it was quite interesting.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 10:47 pm (UTC)Thank you! I'm having fun, and producing some neat stuff, and that's the important bit!