a few from our first day out with black&white

[naptime]

lots of issues with these photos.. if they can be called that..

went out with no clue about metering. didn't even know it was something i was supposed to do. had the sunny16 chart with me, and thought i understood it. appaantly not. some of the shots, i am happy with. some, eh, they are what they are, amatuer. some that i THINK would have been good, are all super dark from my settings being wrong .

it was only my second day shooting with the camera. and the first day without full auto. and of course, i went to straight manual. but didn't know all the pieces involved. that's ok. i learn from my mistakes.


next issue was with processing.

we processed these ourselves at home. which was also our first time trying that. all of the images have a row of streaks, for lack of a better word. i THINK they are from my fingers. i made them like a scissor and ran them down the film to get the wetting agent and water off before hanging to dry. maybe i should have just hung them up without wiping the water off? not sure if that's what caused this problem.

next problem was getting them scanned. we couldnt. after being told that the drug store coulddo them, we show up to find out they can't scan b&w (though i asked weeks ago) then the local joint that does do b&w scans, wanted $47.00 per roll.

so, i decided to try with our home scanner.

i found a method that worked. not the greatest, but it got the job done enough to see the pics.

so, here they are, with just a simple crop and auto contrast in picasa.

i'm much happier with them than i thought i would be. obviously i still have a long way to go. with a proper scan, these MIGHT be a hair better, but maybe not. i think most of my lost detail was in my camera settings.

 

[RebeccaAPhotography]

Well I'm on my iPhone but I don't see any pictures

 

[BlackSheep]

For the streaks on the negs, you can get a little squeegee (sp?) to use instead of your fingers, if I remember right they only cost something like $10.

I'm suprised to hear that the drug store couldn't scan the negs - did they say why?

Looks like you haven't got the pictures attached to your thread quite yet, looking forward to seeing them!

 

[naptime]

this day was overcast. grey skies. no sun. a few dark grey clouds, mostly light grey clouds. no rain or snow. just dreary. and we were shooting film.

a shot from the amtrack station.

i'm not sure i love this. but i like it. i laid down on the track. i was hoping to use the tracks as a leading line. but my eyes are more drawn to the bridge, which i dont entirely enjoy.

1. manual mode. iso 100 film. shutter speed 90. f11. i chose f11 because the sunny chart implied that for a sunny day you would use f16. and for overcast you step down to f11. not sure if i understood that properly, but that's why i did what i did.


Image5.tif by jaythomson, on Flickr

cherry street bridge.
i was trying to frame this in with some of the trees on this side of the river. but not sure how that worked out. obviously my subject was the bridge, and i tried to follow the rule of thirds by putting the pylons on the top and verticle lines.

2. for this shot my film was still iso 100. i changed my shutter speed to 125 so it would be faster than the film instead of slow. the sky seemed darker to me, so, going off the chart i had, i dropped to f8. again, don't know if that was the right choice. but that's why i did it.


Image1.tif by jaythomson, on Flickr

asia on the chains.
though it might be cool to get a shot of asia on the chains at the riverfront, with one of our bridges in the background. lost some detail on these between the camera settings and the scanner. but i'm happy with it. i think i'll like it a little more with a sepia tone, or a holga-ish look to it and use the flaws to my advantage.

3. this again was iso 100 film. with a shutter speed of 125 and f8


Image17 by jaythomson, on Flickr

riverfront chains and sidewalk
i don't want to overwhelm the thread with too many images. but here is one more i was happy with. both the composition and the result.

4. iso 100. shutter speed 125. f8


Image2.tif by jaythomson, on Flickr

 

[naptime]

Well I'm on my iPhone but I don't see any pictures

i'm too slow

 

[naptime]

For the streaks on the negs, you can get a little squeegee (sp?) to use instead of your fingers, if I remember right they only cost something like $10.

I'm suprised to hear that the drug store couldn't scan the negs - did they say why?

Looks like you haven't got the pictures attached to your thread quite yet, looking forward to seeing them!

i was warned in the darkroom area NOT to buy a squeegie because it could damage the film.

but, after further looking at the "streaks" they can't be from my fingers.

on my landscape fotos, the streaks are vertical. and perfectly spaced and symmetrical. if they had been from my fingers, they would have been horizontal to the image. and couldn't possibly have been perfectly laid out like they are.


leads me to believe they are in the film. perhaps an error in the way we processed? i'll have to ask more about it in the darkroom. i've noticed that ALL the images from all three rolls have it. so it's definitely the film, not my fingers.


the drugstores cant scan b&w film. only c41 processed film. i dont know enough to know why. but i had called around and asked BEFORE buying the tank and chemicals to process ourselves and they all said oh yeah, no problem. until we showed up yesterday. and all of them said oh, no, we cant do black and white film. one lady even tried for 10 minutes at rite aid. and whatever their machine does, it would not take this film. so she apologized and gave it back.

i dont know enough about the process to know why.

but walgreens, rite aid, k mart, walmart, meijer. none of them can scan black and white film onto cd. they have to send it out.

even the local place that said they can do it, or $47.00 a roll, told me 10-12 days turn around

 

[TwoTwoLeft]

One time was developing TX400 for a college class I had a roll turn out with the same pattern on the negatives. For the life of me I can't remember what caused it, but I'm pretty sure is was something I did...

 

[naptime]

well, whatever it is, it's consistant.

we processed 2 rolls of 100 and 1 roll of 400.

all film was arista premium. and all chemicals were arista. we followed instructions on each bottle to the second.

and all three rolls have those lines.

 

[BlackSheep]

Hmm, I see the streaks in the images, I don't believe they are from your fingers. Can you see them on the negs (they would be black on the neg)?
They could be from the scanner and not actually from your processing.

I used squeeges all the time at the lab I worked at before, and never had a problem. But I would expect that some squeegees are better than others, maybe the "good" ones cost way more than they are worth. Not sure about that.

I think you did a fine job with the photos themselves. Composition is pretty good. The final images need some more contrast, either through adjusting your developing process or in PP/scanning (once you find a better place to get them scanned).

By the way, here's a good link for trouble-shooting developing problems: Olympus Microscopy Resource Center | Photomicrography - Black & White Film Processing Errors

It's from a science lab, so the example photos are a bit wierd, but good info anyways.

 

[dxqcanada]

I've always used Paterson squeegees: Darkroom & Film Processing Equipment - Paterson Photographic
... and you don't need a lot of pressure.

The lines do not look like it is occurring on the negative ... these would be very evident if you look at the neg's (with a diffused light in the background) with a magnifying glass.
The lines are too uniform and there are jagged edges that can be seen.

The only other time that I have seen banding is if the film is rolled backwards ... this was common on older cameras with manual film winding ... but they normally are thicker and not uniform.

 

[dxqcanada]

What scanner model do you have ?

 

[naptime]

i do NOT see them on the film !!!! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

i'm looking at the banding and i think i know...

it's the scanner.

our scanner is just an hp all in one scanner, copier, printer. we paid a hundred bucks for it. HP D110

the light that travels and scans, is actually a few hundred little lights. or it appears that way at least, when i look at it.

i think the banding is shadowing from the overlapping light sources.

since it's not a film scanner, i had to do some rigging to get it to scan the negs. a few google searches and here's what we did....

scanner bed. then laid down the film. but it REALLY curly, so i laid a picture frame glass on top of it. which wasnt heavy enough. so a second frame glass. then, we had to make a bit of a contraption from cardboard and white printer paper, to put over the top of the whole glass, like an umbrella, to reflect the light back down since they are transparent.

obviously it worked enough to just get the images up here. but i think the banding is shadowing from the overlapping light sources, and with them being reflected back down i'm sure it didnt help.

 

[BlackSheep]

That makes sense to me.
Yay! you guys developed your first B&W films!!!! Well done

 

[dxqcanada]

Hmm, I do not think it is up to the job of neg scanning.
I do not think it can handle such a small image.
In your other post I added some info for you.

 

[dxqcanada]

I will repeat it:

Ok, here goes ...

When the Canon mode dial is on M
The control dial will change you shutter speed.
If you hold down the AE button with your thumb the dial will change the lens aperture.

In the viewfinder there is a -2..1.. | ..1..2+ indicator
The arrow underneath shows if you are under (-) or over (+) exposed
Using a combination of shutter speed and aperture ... you want to target the middle ( | )

Here is a price list of scanners (if you want): Film Scanners