[aslyfox]

. . . P.S. The "best way" to digitize slides or negatives is to get a K-1 and use pixel shift!

the idea is to get full frame sensor without the K 1 or K 11

call me quirky or dumb or anything else

I've been called all that and more before

[aslyfox]

. . . But, "the brick-and-mortar store" you mention.... is that an actual photo lab?. . .

my local brick and mortar store is Wolfe's Camera in Topeka KS

Wolfe's Camera Shop | Topeka KS

I have never had them develop film and have to check if it is done in house or not

[aslyfox]

My personal preference would be to shoot slides -- there is nothing more beautiful than a well-exposed slide on a light box. . . ..

when I started out in the mid 70's, my dad had me shoot slides, basically the cheapest way to go. of course those are long gone. although he developed film, I never did, have no equipment to do so, nor space so I doubt if I would ever get into that

[Eyewanders]

my local brick and mortar store is Wolfe's Camera in Topeka KS

Wolfe's Camera Shop | Topeka KS

I have never had them develop film and have to check if it is done in house or not

If it's an actual photo shop, I'd say you're safe either way. It's just the mini-labs (most of which have ceased operation) found in drugstores that really suffered in quality as they wound down. Photo labs found in shops that have transitioned to more digital offerings are usually just fine - they'll have old school staff on-site to do it or who train the new folks. And if they farm it out (send it off and receive it back on your behalf behind the scenes) to another lab, it's usually a good lab that they use because it reflect upon them. I'd use Wolfe's. Like I said, those places can use the revenue and support.

Also those pricings are not out of the ordinary at all (at least for b&m... mail-order is cheaper overall if you've enough rolls to offset the shipping to and from).

[aslyfox]

If it's an actual photo shop, I'd say you're safe either way. It's just the mini-labs (most of which have ceased operation) found in drugstores that really suffered in quality as they wound down. Photo labs found in shops that have transitioned to more digital offerings are usually just fine - they'll have old school staff on-site to do it or who train the new folks. And if they farm it out (send it off and receive it back on your behalf behind the scenes) to another lab, it's usually a good lab that they use because it reflect upon them. I'd use Wolfe's. Like I said, those places can use the revenue and support.

Also those pricings are not out of the ordinary at all.

since they don't carry Pentax and don't get a lot of trade in Pentax, I do my best

classes and getting stretched canvas " prints " to put in my wife's office

[Eyewanders]

since they don't carry Pentax and don't get a lot of trade in Pentax, I do my best

Yeah hardly any do any longer. It's a Sony/Nikon/Canon world in the retail market these days, with a good splash of Fuji. (Though that splash has gotten pretty large)

[Eyewanders]

the idea is to get full frame sensor without the K 1 or K 11

call me quirky or dumb or anything else

I've been called all that and more before

He wasn't implying "just get a K-1"... He was just referring to digitizing negatives using the DSLR scanning method, essentially rigging a DSLR up on a copy-stand or other setup (there are various ways to pull it off) to take hi-res photos of the slides and/or negatives on a lightbox/table. For slides it's particularly useful since no inversion is needed in post-processing, no orange mask to deal with and color correction is very straight-forward. In my experience it's less (or about the same) work as using a flatbed, and more work than using a dedicated film scanner, but the results with a K-1, K-3, or other modern bodies are impressive if done well. Pixel-shift is incredibly useful for this since the camera and subject (the negative/slide) are entirely stationary. There are more than a few threads on the subject.

I've even used a Ricoh GR (experimentally) to "scan" in the past.

[travelswsage]

When I shot film, I started with print film, but migrated to slide film because I liked the results better. That being said, if you follow the same path to slide film, once you've calibrated the camera's exposure meter to your liking, I would recommend underexposing your slide film by about 1/3 to 1/2 a stop. That will lead to higher color saturation and less chance of blowing out the highlights. As I'm sure you know, you can usually recover some detail from the shadows, but once you've blown out the highlights, there isn't much you can do to recover them.

Great point. I also always underexposed by 1/3 as my main exposure. My brackets for normally lit scenes usually were +1/3, -1/3, -1.

Another consideration if you eventually shoot slides would be a very judicious use of polarizers. It's exceedingly easy to oversaturate films like Velvia (think fall landscapes on rainy overcast days). Provia worked very well when I wanted full polarization without blocking up shadows or oversaturating. If you find you enjoy shooting film you'll want to use 1 or 2 films you like the palette of on a regular basis to see how they respond to different lighting and different filters. Anecdotally, even though I was mainly a Velvia shooter my favorite film of all time was the original Fuji 50 that Velvia replaced. That film recorded the different blues in skies in a way that no other film ever replicated. Kodachrome 25 was another favorite. Even though your keeper rate (or "I want to print that rate") will be better with the print films like Ektar I think despite it's initial steeper learning curve working with slides will teach you more in the long run.

[kiwi_jono]

Looks like you have a very nice setup for film!

As others have said, probably print is the place to start. I loved slide back in the day but its probably not as convenient now and arguably easier to scan negatives than slides (which have frames to deal with) - although that depends on how they are scanned.

Have fun!

[titrisol]

You have a good stable of lenses, have fun with those and use them which ever way you want

I'd recommend you start with color negative film, rememeber that the ISO is FIXED and thus a 400 speed film woul dbe my 1st choice

[RGlasel]

Since you don't have already have thousands of negatives (or positives) in drawers, I would use a lab for scanning. High resolution, quality scans aren't cheap, but you will probably find that only a few photos from each roll you shoot are worth spending a lot of time (and money) on, especially in the beginning. Do you have a good slide projector? At some point you are going to want to look at your photos larger than 24mm x 35mm. As several have suggested, I would start with negatives, for greater dynamic range and the ability to experiment with different characteristics of B&W film. Chances are that if you want to share your film images, it will either be in digital form or printed on photo paper, not with a projector and screen.

[aslyfox]

Boy

first thank you for the complements on the lenses I have accumulated:

Kino Precision Japan Kiron 28mm F2 MC P/KA

SMC Pentax-FA 43mm F1.9 Limited

SMC Pentax-A 50mm F1.4

SMC Pentax 55mm F 1.8

SMC Pentax-FA 77mm F1.8 Limited

SMC Pentax-D FA 100mm F2.8 Macro

SMC Pentax-A 135mm F2.8

I also have a couple of D FA zoom lenses, *70-200mm F2.8 and the 150-450mm, which I will have to see if they will play with the Pentax Z-1 / PZ-1 as well

---------------

second a lot of things to consider and take in

it will take a while

___________________________


my decision to try film is not a rejection of ASP-C or digital but a desire to see what I can do with these ( excluding the D FA ) lenses on equipment they were designed for.

without the expense of a K 1 or K 1 II or other full frame sensor camera

I am sure of only one thing, this venture will suffer, as does all of my equipment from OE [ Operator Error ] and I hope I tolerate my learning curve

_______________________________________________

wish me luck and please continue to comment

[titrisol]

LoL, agreed on that point, however what I wanted to say is that yo son;t have the AUTO setting, nor can change it on the fly as you can with the digi-slrs
Film has both a set ISO and a set White Balance.... it's inherent to the film as there is not digital post processing

Well, I don't want to get into a semantic argument, so I will agree with you that ISO is fixed. That does not mean that ISO 400 film HAS to be shot at ISO 400. If necessary, it could be shot anywhere from ISO 50 to ISO 800, with little to no loss of information. That is the beauty of film latitude. Exposure correction can be done in processing (push/pull), scanning, and/or post-processing. My general rule is to ALWAYS shoot one stop over (ISO 200 film at 100, 400 film at 200) as a safeguard.

You can digitize film with an APS-C camera, where there's a will there's a way

[TwoUptons]

You’ve got the macro, so you could digitize your own with your K3...

I’ve found that 400 iso print film is a really good match for the scans at my local shop. If I shoot Ektar 100, I always feel there’s part of the image I’m leaving in the neg, but the 400 speed films fall apart about where the scan does.

-Eric

[miguelfenoglio]

Like I said, those places can use the revenue and support.

Couldn’t agree more. It winds me up bad when people complain about how sad it is that whatever store is now closed and how they can’t get any good advice anymore. When all they did was go in for the advice to then go purchase somewhere else.