A film question

[jgredline]

I recently purchased a 4 pack of IS0 800 Kodak ...
Are there any do and don'ts?

My thought was this...I may be in left field, if so, let me know.
I will be using a polarizer with it at dawn and dusk to try and get some more grain. Yes, no, am I nutz...??

[straightshooter]

I will be using a polarizer with it at dawn and dusk to try and get some more grain. Yes, no, am I nutz...??

Hey, that's one of the great things about photography. Experimentation. You either say "Wow, I like that" or "Dang, remind me not to do THAT again."

CW

[jgredline]

Originally Posted by straightshooter

Hey, that's one of the great things about photography. Experimentation. You either say "Wow, I like that" or "Dang, remind me not to do THAT again."

CW

Ya, see, that was my thinking exactly.

[ryno]

I've had accidental over/under exposures and when the lab tried to make prints. some times they come out very grainy. I never paid attention to what I did, but if you kept notes on your exposurs, you might find something that you find interesting.
Ryan

[jgredline]

Originally Posted by ryno

I've had accidental over/under exposures and when the lab tried to make prints. some times they come out very grainy. I never paid attention to what I did, but if you kept notes on your exposurs, you might find something that you find interesting.
Ryan

Thanks Ryan,
By the way, I got the Super Tak 35mm Lens you sent me.
Eric is almost done with my Spotmatic, so I should have it back
next week....The filter I had went on fine by the way.
Thanks again, javier

[Peter Zack]

Geez Javier you are making me go back in time and the Ol' memory isn't what it used to be. I rarely shot above ASA64 but on the rare opportunity that I did, it was mostly B&W. If memory serves me right, underexposure brings out the grain more in film than overexposure does.

As said before, carry a notebook and record your exposure settings for each frame. That way you can learn what works best. EXIF data has made us lazy.

You didn't say if the film was colour or B&W. But 800 speed B&W is hard to find and I think Ilford is the only company that might still have it. Another thing that under exposure will do is increase the saturation in the image if colour and contrast if B&W but that is up to a point and then the image just degrades. I used to shoot slide film mostly and you had to be more careful to get the exposure right. In my experience, you could under expose slide film by 1/3-1/2 a stop without too much trouble. Negative film can take more either way.

Dawn and Dusk should be fine but if you decide on night exposures, then you will have to experiment and factor in reciprocity failure. That is if you shot a frame at 1/125th f8 and then changed it to 1/500th f4 or 1/1000 f2.8 or 1/2000 f2.0 the exposure is the same. For longer night exposures, the ratio will change and is no longer linear. You will have to leave the shutter open longer than metering would indicate. This starts to happen after a few seconds.

[jgredline]

Originally Posted by Peter Zack

EXIF data has made us lazy.

Ain't this the truth...

[eccentricphotography]

I shot this the other night with fuji press 800 although i had the iso set at 1600 and let the local camera shop develop it. I didn't want to pay extra for pushing($20). I just scanned it so no photoshop yet. I want to buy a polorizer for this lens.

[clawhammer]

One thing to know about the printing of the film- on the Fuji Frontier that I used (and I would imagine this goes for any printer), sometimes you can recover a whole lot of data from a badly under-exposed negative, but it results in a lot of grain on the final print. I don't know how the adjustments I made on the frontier correspond with EV's, but most prints you would do +/- 3 clicks max on the density adjustment. There were some dark negs that I could do +10 density and get all the detail in the final print, just with massive grain. If your goal is grain, you might try an EV compensation of -1 or -2. Just food for thought.

[jgredline]

Thanks folks,
That image is interesting for sure. I like it.
I ended up leaving work early and took off to the beach. I managed to shoot the roll of ISO800. Tomorrow I will drop it off at the CVS and see what happens. Will post images tomorrow.

[Clicker]

You do know the people who believe no grain makes a better image are going to hunt you down LOL

Best to add 1/3 stop with the polarizer.

[jgredline]

Hi Folks,
I got my film back today. I need to shoot another roll to get a better understanding of this film. first my observations..

1) There is more film grain. Not much more, but more and pleasant...
2) There is far more latitude as far as both Aperture and shutter speed is concerned...
3) It was nice to be able to shoot in rather dark cloudy conditions even with the polarizer...
4) On 4 image scattered through out the roll, these red flares popped out...Any Ideas ?
5) The colors are not as rich as when I use ISO200 or 400 film..

Note: Aside from resizing for the web, no PP work done..

[jgredline]

I should mention that these where all shot with my K1OOO and M50 F1/4 most where shot between F/2.0-4.0

[Mike Cash]

You have a light leak, most likely on the hinge side of the back. The higher ISO film brought it out where it wouldn't have been apparent with slower films.

The reason it isn't on every shot depends on things like how long you went between shooting frames, how bright the environment was, whether you had the body in sunshine or in shade, etc.

Easy to fix by gluing a strip of black felt on the inside edge of the door. I've done it on a couple of cameras.

Here's an example from a toy camera prior to the felt fix:



and after:



One from a Konica C35 before:



and after:



Very easy to fix yourself. Just look in the craft/hobby section of a store and pick up some black felt about 1mm thick. I got an A4 sized sheet that had adhesive backing and is large enough to do the door and all the other light seals on dozens and dozens of cameras.

There may be some goo there that used to be the light seal. The best thing for removing it is common old-fashioned lighter fluid, such as you would put in a Zippo lighter. Wet it down (Q-tips are good) and then use something to scrape it off. Be careful not to let the goo residue get inside the body of the camera. You don't want that crap on your shutter or the film pressure plate.

[jgredline]

Mike, Thank you. I did notice that the door seemed loose to me.
I will take a close look tomorrow.
Thanks again.