I finished 2 rolls of film!!!

[minicoop1985]

But why should it? It's just another camera, after all. You know what to do. I say, rip it, bay-bay!!!! Miss Ellie has the right idea.

The answer is simple!

THIS. It's eating into my gadget fund!

Gavjenks, what do you use for a 35mm? I like the one in my OM.

 

[Tiller]

If you develop yourself, you can do a roll for something like 10 cents' worth of chemicals. Obviously it requires a bit of investment up front, but not much ($50-100 for some graduated cylinders and funnels and bottles and a tank and blah blah). Once you get good at it you can even do many rolls at once, so it becomes not a big investment of time, either.

Obsidian Aqua -- cheapest developer I know of, about 3 cents a roll
Most stop baths -- about a penny a roll
Cheap fixer re-used as much as possible -- a few cents a roll.
Wetting agent and/or distilled water - negligible, pretty much. Maybe a cent a roll.

The trick is then to not just order prints for all of them, but only the ones that are actually good! Do you order prints for all your digital photos? No. Just like keeping most of those in a folder on your computer and them never seeing the light of day, it's okay to leave most of your negatives in a drawer forever. And it's free.

So then overall, most shots of 35mm are about $4.00 (tri-X, etc.) / 36 = 11 cents for film + maybe 1 cent for developing = 12 cents a shot. Vast majority of cost being the film itself. (full frame digital is around 2 cents a shot)

Yes yes I know I do need to get on the whole home developing scene, but that's just gonna have to wait till I'm less busy

But until then, I am going to buy a scanner so I can just get my negs developed for $3 and then scan them from home.

 

[Gavjenks]

I use an Olympus OM 1. It is supposed to have a meter. It's just "broken"

Not actually broken, but the battery failed, and you can't buy them anymore. I could MacGyver a hearing aid battery into it to make it work again, so the internet says, but I don't really care enough, because I shoot a lot more large format and the 35mm doesn't go in the bag as often now. It's too heavy to just bring along on a lark / by default.

 

[minicoop1985]

I had an OM 1 MD that had the meter. I actually found the right size replacement battery, but the meter will be slightly off (low) due to the fact that it's not a mercury based battery, but a lithium. But hoping it's kinda right ish could be a pain in the rear... If you have a meter you could "calibrate" it yourself to know how far it's off.... Just random thoughts.

 

[terri]

I had an OM 1 MD that had the meter. I actually found the right size replacement battery, but the meter will be slightly off (low) due to the fact that it's not a mercury based battery, but a lithium. But hoping it's kinda right ish could be a pain in the rear... If you have a meter you could "calibrate" it yourself to know how far it's off.... Just random thoughts.

^^ A lot of people do exactly that. The meter itself doesn't matter as long as you know "what it's telling you" and it is consistent.

 

[Gavjenks]

I had an OM 1 MD that had the meter. I actually found the right size replacement battery, but the meter will be slightly off (low) due to the fact that it's not a mercury based battery, but a lithium. But hoping it's kinda right ish could be a pain in the rear... If you have a meter you could "calibrate" it yourself to know how far it's off.... Just random thoughts.

^^ A lot of people do exactly that. The meter itself doesn't matter as long as you know "what it's telling you" and it is consistent.

Is it actually logarithmically consistently off, though?

Like, if you have a weaker battery, is it always going to be +/- 1.3 stops or whatever it is, in every situation? Or will the battery nonlinearly interact, such that in low light, it is +0.7 stops, but in bright light, it is +1.3 stops etc.?

 

[minicoop1985]

From what I was told (I can't verify this, but maybe someone can), it's off the same amount throughout the range. If it's dark, it's off x stops. If it's bright, it's off x stops, not x + 3 or something of the like. That being said, I would still grab your meter and see for yourself. If this doesn't work, the battery cost me $3, and you can leave the switch off, so pretty much no harm no foul.

Edit: Forgot to mention, it will always read lower than what it should with the lithium battery.