Beginner, looking for film tips

[limr]

I think that the easiest (most forgiving for people just starting out) would be either porta 160 or 400. You can overexpose the crap out of them and you can barely tell. You can even underexpose by about a stop and still get decent results.

As far as bw goes... the most forgiving (and cheapest to develop) would be the kodak c41 black and white film. You can overexpose that quite a bit as well and still have good results. True black and white film... triX is awesome as well as a ton of others.

I'd try the c41 stuff first and see if you LIKE shooting film before dropping hundreds on Amazon only to find out that ... "****... developing film is really expensive and I actually like shooting digital more."

I'm going to offer an alternative to this ^^ approach.

Portra 160 is a beautiful film and I love it to death, and it is quite flexible. BUT...I'm glad I learned with films that were a little less forgiving because I learned better habits, and was able to have a better understanding of how my screw-ups with the camera affected the image. I think of how my father taught me how to drive: learn on cars that are hard to drive, and everything after that will be easy. I'm not suggesting you start with slide film, which isvery finicky, but maybe something that forces you into a bit more discipline right from the start, and will also cost less. Agfa Vista is a good, standard color film that I think would be a good place to start.

As for all the other stuff about gear and developing, I totally agree with folks. And I'll second (third?) the recommendation for a Spotmatic or K1000. Totally manual but still have light meters to guide you, great glass.

Cool! Then you are free to get any 35mm camera with a good 50mm lens on it

I'd look at a Pentax Spotmatic with a 50 1.8 or the 50 1.4
Nikon f2 series... with 50 1.8
Olympus with the 50mm Zoiko (spelling?)

you should be able to get any of those for pennies.

Zuiko Also another great suggestion. I was just shooting with my OM-2 this weekend. Any of these suggestions would be great cameras to start with (or continue with...I've had my K1000 for more than 20 years and still shoot it regularly.)

 

[Stormhammer]

Glad there are still film enthusiasts out there. I went ahead and dropped off my first roll a little while ago and should have it in a week or so. Really unsure as to how the camera I used performed as it hasn't been used in over 20 some-odd years, but it fired right up with new batteries and did well for the most part. Definitely going to have to give the black and white developing a shot and see how that turns out though since it seems to be easier than trying to deal with the color film.

 

[Gary A.]

If you're in Los Angeles, I can personally help you with film development. If you need to use a lab, I recommend Richard's.

www.richardsfilms.com

A lot of the pro's use Richard's. They've been around a long time.

 

[limr]

Glad there are still film enthusiasts out there. I went ahead and dropped off my first roll a little while ago and should have it in a week or so. Really unsure as to how the camera I used performed as it hasn't been used in over 20 some-odd years, but it fired right up with new batteries and did well for the most part. Definitely going to have to give the black and white developing a shot and see how that turns out though since it seems to be easier than trying to deal with the color film.

I agree it's good to wait a little bit to dive into developing, but if it makes you feel better, it feels a bit overwhelming at first but once you get used to it, you'll realize how simple it is.

Of course, that will be when it gets complicated (or fun, depending on your perspective... ) because then you'll want to learn how to develop better! You'll want more contrast, or less grain, or better shadows or tonal range...

But something to look forward to is the feeling of pure magic you'll feel when you pull that first strip out of the soup and see the images that you took and developed all by yourself

 

[Derrel]

It's difficult to advise you except to say, "Take baby steps." Plan your route forward. Ignore home color developing as an idea--it's expensive and unrealistic.How do you maintain those higher temps? At home? A sink full of hot water, and water bath-ing. Anyway...B&W...Kodak Tri-X is a good 400 speed B&W negative film, as is Ilford's HP5. CHromogenic B&W is developed in the chemistry used for color negative (AKS color print film) stock, so that can be easily developed at most labs that do color prints, and can be scanned into a computer.

I had one of those Canon 35mm AF cameras back in the 1980's! It was my first-ever AF anything! See if you like it. It's basically a simple point and shoot, sort of the iPhone 4 of its era. The little Olympus Trip35 is probably a better shooter, and there have been MILLIONS of those made and sold for a verrrrry long production run.

As far as film cameras go: my personal suggestion in 35mm is a newer, 1990's Nikon AF SLR, like the N90s, or the F100, and forgetting older manual focus cameras which often need new light seals, or are beginning to show their age, and which were, really, designed for pretty high-level film shooters. Forget the Canon AE-1s and their non-working shutters, etc. and 1970's technology, and go for something a quarter century or more newer, and what was a $650 to $1500 camera...for $75 or so, the Nikon F100 is perhaps the best film camera value that's ever existed; this was a VERY expensive semi-pro film AF camera, but prices are cheap now. These Nikons can use a wide variety of tens of millions of OLD and NEW lenses; this is why I suggest these two specific Nikons.

But befoe the cart gets in front of the film horse: shoot some film rolls, see what you think of the process, the results, and the costs, and see what you like or do not like about film shooting, and then in a while you can make some good decisions.

I think you might, and I emphasize might, enjoy shooting medium-format rollfilm in something like a Seagull-branded twin-lens reflex camera, and making just 12, big, beautiful B&W negatives on each roll of 120 rollfilm.

 

[Stormhammer]

Thanks a lot everyone so much for all the help, advice, and recommendations. I'm actually down in Louisiana right now (thankfully not for much longer), and will be moving to South Korea soon for a year, which is part of the reason why I decided to get a little more "serious" about taking pictures, film or digital, in general. I'm going to have to take a look at all these film formats, camera models, and techniques you all mentioned. I'd like to have something before I go over there so I can avoid trying to buy anything and have to wait for it to get through customs (if it makes it at all) or potentially have something broken by being shipped overseas.

 

[loonatic45414]

Hi, I'm an avid film shooter, do very little digital. Develop C-41, different b/w developers for different effects, e6 transparencies, do scanning, real darkroom printing, etc. Worked in camera shops & film labs from the 80s & 90's.

I think film is a great endeavor. It's not going away, like painting was thought to be dead after film was created.

You sound like you need a mentor. In Dallas, we have a film club, perhaps there's one near you. I have to run, but feel free to message me & I'll be glad to help with any questions. You can go on Flickr to see my stuff under my name here. I play with just about anything from 110 to large format. Love it all.

It's possible to pack for Korea & refine your craft prior to going so you can continue while there. By all means find a good c41 lab near you & make sure you get negatives back. I'd stay away from c-41 b/w but that's just me.

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk

 

[Stormhammer]

Hi, I'm an avid film shooter, do very little digital. Develop C-41, different b/w developers for different effects, e6 transparencies, do scanning, real darkroom printing, etc. Worked in camera shops & film labs from the 80s & 90's.

I think film is a great endeavor. It's not going away, like painting was thought to be dead after film was created.

You sound like you need a mentor. In Dallas, we have a film club, perhaps there's one near you. I have to run, but feel free to message me & I'll be glad to help with any questions. You can go on Flickr to see my stuff under my name here. I play with just about anything from 110 to large format. Love it all.

It's possible to pack for Korea & refine your craft prior to going so you can continue while there. By all means find a good c41 lab near you & make sure you get negatives back. I'd stay away from c-41 b/w but that's just me.

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk

Hey, thanks for the advice there. After doing a little looking, the only place near me that develops film still (and also returns negatives) is a smaller shop in town that still has to send them off to another place to have them developed. Other than that, my options are limited to Walgreens, CVS, and other stores like that, all of which, I presume from doing a little reading, send film to the same large company somewhere who does not ship negatives back.

I did have a question about C-41. From what I could find, it's just a process for developing film...so could it be used for different formats other than just 35mm? I really don't know much at all about anything other than 35mm because that's all I was ever exposed to when I was younger and by the time I got to an age where I was old enough to really get into shooting a little more seriously, digital had already been pretty much cemented as the new standard.

 

[loonatic45414]

I did have a question about C-41. From what I could find, it's just a process for developing film...so could it be used for different formats other than just 35mm? I really don't know much at all about anything other than 35mm because that's all I was ever exposed to when I was younger and by the time I got to an age where I was old enough to really get into shooting a little more seriously, digital had already been pretty much cemented as the new standard.

Yes absolutely... I've mixed C-41 black & white, 120, 35mm, 110, and used the same process with the same chemistry on 4x5 sheet film.

The Unicolor home kit is very good, If you have good technique, a digital scale that does grams ($39 from Harbor Freight) and digital thermometer (mine was $10 at Walmart-look in the food section).

I don't mix up the whole batch but weigh out portions and dilute a certain amount because I'll save money but only to where it doesn't affect quality. I get 6 rolls done then toss the chemicals. I use 135-24 as my standard roll.

Keep in mind 1 roll of 120 = 2 rolls of 135-24, I don't shoot 36 exposure rolls much but I'll count each as 1.5 rolls (doing a total of 4 per batch of chemicals)

I've thrown an extra roll in after the fact, but I don't recommend it unless you're just testing an old camera & don't want to blow a good roll on it until you're sure it works.

You can also get great results using old movie film from Ebay even though it's not C-41. I'll find an example and post it.

 

[JonA_CT]

I know it was mentioned before, but I'll throw it out there again...

I'd wouldn't worry about mailing out your film to be developed, especially if your local labs are going to mail it out again. I tried my local lab -- their quality was terrible, and I'd bet it's because they don't have enough volume to care enough to consistently produce good results. Their scans were also terrible.

The lab that I send my film to gets several mail bins full of film a day. It's a large percentage of their business. They send the negatives back, and they are extremely quick. I live within 2 day mail range of them, and I frequently will post things on Monday and have the scans back before the end of the week. I eventually hope to have a house where I can develop my own, but there are great options available.

 

[loonatic45414]

Don't send movie film to a C-41 lab. Only play with it if you process it yourself.

This was shot on Kodak EXR 5245 ISO 50 Daylight balanced 35mm movie film. Paid about $35 for 400 feet with shipping included. Makes about (70) 36-exposure rolls.

I developed it using a Unicolor C-41 kit at home.

 

[Vtec44]

Hello. I posted this topic over in the Welcome section last week but to date haven't received any replies yet. I'm new to photography and at the moment, am interested in shooting on film. I understand a lot of people don't shoot on this format anymore for various reasons, but I've always liked it, if for nothing more than the feeling I get that takes me back in a nostalgic way and the process of taking the pictures, getting them developed, then seeing what you came out with. I've also always really loved the look of film in general.

I've got an old Canon Sure Shot AF35M II that used to belong to my parents back in the day that I'll be using for a little while until I get something nicer with more features, but my main questions were regarding things such as the film stock itself, and developing and finishing techniques that can be done at home. Since there are so few places anymore that develop and print film (and many now do not return your negatives), I have been looking at getting a kit to develop at home and possibly a negative scanner with a high DPI to scan my developed negatives into my PC.

Does anyone have any recommendations for film as far as color and black and white, and which are some good, reliable brands and/or types? Also, any recommendations as far as negative scanners and even photo printers themselves would be great, as an upfront cost for these would be outweighed in a short amount of time by the cost required to just take rolls of film to someone and have them developed. At any rate, any help is appreciated.

I'm a wedding photographer and I just incorporated film into my workflow recently. I was using a Nikon F100 35mm for about a year but recently upgraded to a Pentax 645nii medium format. Since I photograph mostly people, my film stocks are mainly Kodak Portra 160 (neutral skin tone), Portra 400 (great latitude even when slightly under exposed), Fuji Pro 400h (great when over exposed, pastel tone).

Best of luck and post up some samples once you have the scans