my film always fails

den9 · Jul 8, 2011

this was a 4 hour shot, i have no clue what the hell happened, it definitely failed, and it looks like there is light leaks, my camera has a viewfinder curtain too.

this was used with fuji 100f, even my regular daytime photos looked like ****.

heres a snapshot in broad day light with a fast shutter speed, the film looks horrible, very grainy.

what gives? half the reason why i bought film is because my dslr sensor was overheating on exposures over 20 minutes. i even tried 30 second exposure with tungsten film and had failure. it sucks paying 20 bucks everytime and getting bad results.

shortpants · Jul 8, 2011

If you've used several different types of film and have the same weird results, I would guess it's your camera. Were you shooting through a window on #2? It almost looks like there's a reflection in the sky. Plus with the vignetting it looks like you shot this with a toy camera. It's been so long since I've used film I can't really tell you what's going on, but you should probably just try to get a hold of another camera for a test roll.

dxqcanada · Jul 8, 2011

What do the negatives look like ?

Sw1tchFX · Jul 8, 2011

den9 said:
this was a 4 hour shot, i have no clue what the hell happened, it definitely failed, and it looks like there is light leaks, my camera has a viewfinder curtain too.

this was used with fuji 100f, even my regular daytime photos looked like ****.

heres a snapshot in broad day light with a fast shutter speed, the film looks horrible, very grainy.

what gives? half the reason why i bought film is because my dslr sensor was overheating on exposures over 20 minutes. i even tried 30 second exposure with tungsten film and had failure. it sucks paying 20 bucks everytime and getting bad results.

I haven't a clue what the magenta cloud is, was the film old or heat damaged? Nonetheless you have the same problem with both pictures: extreme underexposure (with probably cheap film, the only 100F's that I know fuji makes are Provia and Velvia). I'm assuming you're using negative film.

This is an easy fix, just expose for longer. Are you going off what your meter is reading? In the bottom picture it looks like it could have been spot metered for the white paint on in the center, and the top picture is just underexposure.

Film and Digital are very Very VERY different. They cannot be treated the same.

Let's assume you're shooting negative film (because it's cheaper and more flexible). With digital, when you expose, you need to nail your exposure. If it's overexposed, it gets blown out right? With negative film if you overexpose all you do is add more information to work with (to a point of course). negative film likes density, the denser your negatives the more information you have in the shadow areas, the thinner your negatives (like what you have above), the less information you have and the more pronounced grain gets and the muddier the images look. It's like underexposing a digital shot 2 stops and trying to recover it. Doesn't work well does it?

SO. Next time you go out shooting with your film camera if you have ISO 400 film, set the camera's ISO to 200. Meter for the shadows. If you do that, you'll get beautiful results. By shooting at a stop slower you'll get more density and more information to work with, and by metering for the shadows you'll keep them brighter and less grainy.

Things like that are one of the areas film is a far superior medium to digital. Kodak's new Portra 400 (incredible film) has about 18-20 stops of range in it! You can shoot Portra 400 at ISO 100 and the only difference in IQ is the shadows get richer and more detailed. Photographers have pushed Portra 400 to 3200 and get results that are pretty good, i've shot it at 1600 and it looks great. I usually shoot it at ISO 200 though just so i can get a richer negative.

Portra 400@200, spot metered the hands. Because it's been "overexposed" by a stop and I metered for the hands, see how they aren't lost in grain? but also see how the background isn't blown out either? Film has highlight latitude digital shooters can only dream of.

Portra 160@80, spot metered for the darker skin tones. See how rich the color is? That's what a nice, dense negative will give you. If I shot this digitally with the same settings, almost the whole image would be paper white except for the horses, her pants, hair, and the rope.

Both of those are straight from the lab, I didn't do any color adjustments at all. You just need to slightly overexpose your film and it will look great. If you're not sure about exposure, just overexpose. Don't worry about exposing 2 or 3 stops over, it will look just fine.

Also, look up reciprocity failure. Digital is alot easier to shoot at night. Film loses sensitivity. A 5 minute exposure on digital may take up to 45 minutes on film for good density. When shooting stars at night with negative film, open the lens aperture up, and let it expose for longer than your best guess is. I've done exposures up in the mountains for probably 2 hours and they were still so far underexposed it was almost impossible to pull a usable print from them.

I really hope that helps, i reiterate: Buy better film (Portra 400 is very forgiving), rate the film at half the box speed, meter for the shadows. Film is beautiful, alot of digital shooters try to emulate it, but why emulate when you can go directly to the source and not have to fuss with anything after the fact?

shortpants · Jul 8, 2011

Sw1tchFX while I think you're response is excellent and informative in general, I really don't think it's applying to the problem here. Underexposure is clearly not the issue, I've shot hundreds of rolls of film pushed, pulled, under and over exposed, and completely screwed with development and never had anything turn out like the OPs unless it was from my light leaking plastic Holga.

Pgeobc · Jul 8, 2011

#1 is reciprocity failure. Not only does film need time compensation, but long exposures require color correction filters, too. When you have a 4 hour exposure, almost any little source of light, that might not otherwise be noticed, can become significant

#2 has a problem with light fall-off (vignetting), rather badly. Perhaps you have the wrong lens shade on it or maybe one too many filters. Some lenses exhibit this characteristic wide-open and even 1 stop down from max.

den9 · Jul 8, 2011

i was using 100f, slide film

i was using a canon 1N, flagship 5k dollar camera back in the day, solid as a rock

i used no filters

i used a super wide angle lens, 17mm, i have no clue about the vignetting or why that happened, i did shoot through a bus window, just a snap shot

the first shot i think i had it at f/8 and it was a 4 hour exposure

can you tell me alittle about the filters for long exposure like that, the shot i took was up the mountains clear sky 0 pollution, only light was from the house. i even tried T64 as reccomended once and it failed at 1 min exposures.

can someone tell me alittle bit about the metering, i assume it was on spot.

i never really has problems during the day shooting
http://www.flickr.com/photos/denbeighley/4766486645/in/photostream

Paul Ron · Jul 8, 2011

In your night shot you are picking up stray light from the house and possably a street lamp causing it to fog.

The light leak... do all your exposures have this same light leak problem? If not you don't have a light leak, it's just the stray light in that shot, a passing car or street lamp or the house lights.

Shot #2 your lens shade is clipping the corners.

Yeah photography is tough and takes some practice n lots of film to get it right.

den9 · Jul 9, 2011

makes sense with the lens hood, i just cant remember if i used it or not.

as for the stray light, this was in the middle of no where, cant even get phone service. no street lights, 1 traffic light in the whole county lol. how come the light from the house would effect this though, when i see shots like this

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs27/i/2008/036/2/e/Star_trails_by_kopfgeist79.jpg

Paul Ron · Jul 9, 2011

4 hour exposure of the house lights is overexposing and fogging the film. Middle of nowhere with a house is not the middle of no where. Next time turn off the lights in the house, put them on at the last moment of your exposure and you'll see a big im[provement in your shot. You can also "paint" in certain parts of your pic by selectively flashing it.

The obseratory shot looks as if it was staged in a few part exposure. The stars were shot using a long exposure, then the lights of the buildings were flashed later as was the grounds in the background.

Yuor light leak is a weird one, maybe you used a flash light to see the camera at one point?

Try it again n have fun flashing in parts of your scene.

Pgeobc · Jul 9, 2011

"can you tell me alittle about the filters for long exposure like that, ..."

Well, you will have to go to the manufacturer of the film and get their recommendations for that specific film. Kodak has, in the past, often published recommendations; I'm assuming that Fuji, et al., would too. Kodak even made recommendations that distinguished which films were recommended for long exposures and those that were not. Films vary considerably in their tolerance to this phenomenon. Remember, too, that one will have to add time for the added filters AND time for the reciprocity failure.

den9 · Jul 9, 2011

ill look into that, my next film im using will be fuji velvia 50, any experience or reccomendations with filters?

would film fail the same was if you do ten 20 seconds exposures, instead of 200 seconds in one shot?

dxqcanada · Jul 9, 2011

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/professional_films/pdf/velvia_50_datasheet.pdf

Refer to Long Exposure Compensation

Velvia 50 is an excellent film ... when I ran out of Kodachrome 25 I switched to Velvia.
Lovely saturation. Great colours.
I always under-exposed by about 1/3 stop.
The only filter I ever use is a PL.

Sw1tchFX · Jul 9, 2011

Velvia 50 is gorgeous film in the daytime, but I've heard it's awful with reciprocity failure, I wouldn't shoot it at night. Velvia 50 is also REALLY contrasty and if you're having a lab scan it on a Frontier or Noritsu, you can have problems with clipped highlights and blocked shadows unless the lighting is really flat.

Negative film in my experience scans much easier in minilabs than slide film. Those scanners can pull more out of the negative, especially when color needs to be corrected for. For slide film, Provia 100 has good reciprocity characteristics, no adjustment needed until you're past 10 seconds, Ektar 100 and Portra 400 are both good with longer exposures, Ektar has this really old school look that i'm not a fan of and will really exaggerate color. Portra will be more neutral. I shot this last week on the ektar (nasty color):

In the B&W films, Acros 100 is the best for reciprocity.