Lack of sharpness, C41

[xwhatsit]

Boy, talk about changing a lot of variables at once;

I've recently bought a whole lot of B&W film and all the gear I need to develop. Along with a scanner. So I wanted to use up the C41 I had sitting around in cameras.

I had expired Kodak Ultramax 400 (by a year or two). Instead of getting prints made like I did before from a send-away lab, I went to the local minilab and asked for `develop only', as I now have a scanner (Lide 500F, produced a pretty good comparison with prints from earlier negatives), only cost me $NZ5.

Got two rolls back and there's a huge lack of sharpness. Even outdoors with fast shutter speeds and f5.6-8 apertures things seem pretty indistinct.

So I've changed my lab, film, and viewing (scanning) method. I have no particular attachment to this roll, but I'd like to know what might be causes for this.

Looking at the negs themselves, they don't seem to have been washed well or looked after. There is the occasional scratch and they haven't cut them too well. Will poor C41 processing lead to crappy negs, lack of acutance? I figured expired film would become grainy and exhibit colour-shift (which I think I can see as well), but is a loss of sharpness likely?

I think the scanner is OK, as scanning in earlier negatives which produced nice prints produced a very similar on-screen result to the prints, apart from different white-balance, perhaps some tweaks to saturation would be needed too.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Acutance and sharpness won't change significantly: mostly determined by film, not by standardized C41 process. Washing, scratches and permanence are however lab-dependent.

Most C41 films I've tried are pretty damn' sharp with my Konica/Minolta 5400 II, though not (on 35mm) with my Epson 1680. Don't know the Lide, sorry.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Post an example of one of those 5.6 - 8 shots, and the used speed if you remember it...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

And which lens too: with a tele you can have blurred shots even using high speeds... Even with a 15mm I've had blurred shots at 1/250... I couldn't believe it!

Cheers,

Juan

 

[xwhatsit]

Acutance and sharpness won't change significantly: mostly determined by film, not by standardized C41 process. Washing, scratches and permanence are however lab-dependent.

Most C41 films I've tried are pretty damn' sharp with my Konica/Minolta 5400 II, though not (on 35mm) with my Epson 1680. Don't know the Lide, sorry.

Cheers,

R.

Thanks, Roger. I was using some ordinary Fuji 200 film before and was quite amazed with the results from my old Minister D, hence being quite surprised with what I got now. The Lide 500F is just a cheapy flatbed scanner, but from scanning the Fuji 200 and comparing it to the prints, is just as sharp.

Post an example of one of those 5.6 - 8 shots, and the used speed if you remember it...

Cheers,

Juan

Hi there, have done so now, was just figuring out how to use the member gallery function (can't attach bigger than 600x600 with normal post attachments).

The image I posted actually would've been more like 1/500 & f11. I haven't noticed a drop-off in performance in the Yashinon when stopped down below f8 before, though.

EDIT: Forgot I'm not in the Yashica forum, heh: it's a fixed-lens, 45mm f2.8.

 

[Steve M.]

Yes, poorly developed negatives will give you all sorts of problems, including loss of sharpness, contrast, color, you name it. That's been my unfortunate first hand experience. But we're talking really, really bad developing. Your shot that you posted doesn't look like it's catastrophically processed.

You have far too many variables at this point though. A 1 hr lab, expired film, a scanner that you've just started to use. Just look at the negs on a light table (or a computer screen on google's home page) and a loupe. That will leave out at least one variable.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

That shot is not unsharp...

 

[xwhatsit]

Yes, poorly developed negatives will give you all sorts of problems, including loss of sharpness, contrast, color, you name it. That's been my unfortunate first hand experience. But we're talking really, really bad developing. Your shot that you posted doesn't look like it's catastrophically processed.

You have far too many variables at this point though. A 1 hr lab, expired film, a scanner that you've just started to use. Just look at the negs on a light table (or a computer screen on google's home page) and a loupe. That will leave out at least one variable.

Cheers. I'll acquire a loupe then, I'll think I'll need one shortly anyway when I start souping B&W on my own. I've heard of people using front elements of lenses, maybe that'll be enough to see what's going on. C41 is damned hard to see through, though! I wonder why they use that muddy brown base, the scanning/enlargement process must have to do a lot of work to get proper colours and brightness out of that.

Haha, yes, too many variables. I'm a software developer, first rule of fixing bugs: change one thing at a time! :bang:

Looking at the sky in that scene, I'm guessing the weird graininess/colours are a more typical result of expired 400ASA film and/or careless development?

That shot is not unsharp...

It doesn't look too bad there, I still had to scale it down to get it into the gallery. If you look at the fence posts, they have no definition compared to earlier results I've had from this lens on Fuji 200 and using a different lab.

Well I think I might just write this roll off. I think expired colour film and cheap minilabs is a bad combination. I bought 30 rolls of Maco UP400+, and 50 rolls of FP4+, one developer (Microphen). So when I get disappointing results I can iterate until I figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks everybody!