whited3
Well-known
My session timed out and I lost my post; so here is the short version:
I learned on digital, and now I have a Leica M3 and some film & slides. My brain did some backflips along the way. There are many things I'd like to share, but this is just one post and I don't want to bore everyone with novelties that have probably been discussed already.
So here is what this post will be about:
First, I'm pushing Tmax 400 to 1600 in Xtol and I think it's great. The challenge was I only found a couple recommendations to push Tmax and even less examples of photos. Whereas the standard recommendation seems to be Tri-x & I think Diafine or similar.
Second, I am using my dslr to "scan" my negatives and again, the results seem fantastic. I've read some heated debates about scanning film with dslrs and I have to say it's a viable option with B&W film at least. I'm interested in seeing the results after I try a roll of slide film.
Anyways, here are some sample photos of TMY400 @ 1600. I'll give details after if you want to keep reading.
This one was shot at f8 and seemed to be the sharpest on my roll:
Seriously, check out the full sized image here: http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo309/whiteda3/ZE4W7436_zps0e512798.jpg~original
So that's it. I think I am most excited about (ironically) digitizing my 35mm negatives in so much detail. Perhaps my expectations were too low, but I've been hearing of so many problems being able to make large prints from 35mm scans. So far I hardly see that being a problem for me.
And now for some detailed info:
These shots were taken with a leica M3, Tmax 400 pushed to 1600 (because hey why not), and a 50mm collapsible Summitar lens @ 5.6 and 8 apertures.
I shot two rolls this way and developed in Xtol @ 78 degrees F, because I live in a NYC apartment and have nowhere better to do this. The 1st time around I developed for 6 minutes in stock solution (hoping the shorter time would make up for the heat) and found my negatives were not dense enough. The 2nd time, I upped to 10 minutes in Xtol stock and seemed to hit the nail on the head. Both times I washed with water only, fixed for 10 minutes with the cheap-o kodak powder fixer, and again washed with water... this is a bare-bones setup.
The "scans" were taken with a Canon 1DS mark ii, Canon FL extension tubes (yes, FL; they came with a FL macro bellows which I ended up not using here) and a Canon FD 50mm f3.5 macro lens. The significant takeaways here were that f3.5 give acceptable detail (the 1st 3 images above were scanned @ f3.5), however f5.6 is much sharper in the center & corners with better contrast, and f8 the same in the center but even better in the corners. The last image was "scanned" at f8.
Oh and one last thing - I found backlighting my negatives with natural light was far superior to using artificial light because artificial light's color balance is so warm I get artifacts if I get aggressive with curves in the shadows.
Thanks for reading.
I learned on digital, and now I have a Leica M3 and some film & slides. My brain did some backflips along the way. There are many things I'd like to share, but this is just one post and I don't want to bore everyone with novelties that have probably been discussed already.
So here is what this post will be about:
First, I'm pushing Tmax 400 to 1600 in Xtol and I think it's great. The challenge was I only found a couple recommendations to push Tmax and even less examples of photos. Whereas the standard recommendation seems to be Tri-x & I think Diafine or similar.
Second, I am using my dslr to "scan" my negatives and again, the results seem fantastic. I've read some heated debates about scanning film with dslrs and I have to say it's a viable option with B&W film at least. I'm interested in seeing the results after I try a roll of slide film.
Anyways, here are some sample photos of TMY400 @ 1600. I'll give details after if you want to keep reading.
This one was shot at f8 and seemed to be the sharpest on my roll:
Seriously, check out the full sized image here: http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo309/whiteda3/ZE4W7436_zps0e512798.jpg~original
So that's it. I think I am most excited about (ironically) digitizing my 35mm negatives in so much detail. Perhaps my expectations were too low, but I've been hearing of so many problems being able to make large prints from 35mm scans. So far I hardly see that being a problem for me.
And now for some detailed info:
These shots were taken with a leica M3, Tmax 400 pushed to 1600 (because hey why not), and a 50mm collapsible Summitar lens @ 5.6 and 8 apertures.
I shot two rolls this way and developed in Xtol @ 78 degrees F, because I live in a NYC apartment and have nowhere better to do this. The 1st time around I developed for 6 minutes in stock solution (hoping the shorter time would make up for the heat) and found my negatives were not dense enough. The 2nd time, I upped to 10 minutes in Xtol stock and seemed to hit the nail on the head. Both times I washed with water only, fixed for 10 minutes with the cheap-o kodak powder fixer, and again washed with water... this is a bare-bones setup.
The "scans" were taken with a Canon 1DS mark ii, Canon FL extension tubes (yes, FL; they came with a FL macro bellows which I ended up not using here) and a Canon FD 50mm f3.5 macro lens. The significant takeaways here were that f3.5 give acceptable detail (the 1st 3 images above were scanned @ f3.5), however f5.6 is much sharper in the center & corners with better contrast, and f8 the same in the center but even better in the corners. The last image was "scanned" at f8.
Oh and one last thing - I found backlighting my negatives with natural light was far superior to using artificial light because artificial light's color balance is so warm I get artifacts if I get aggressive with curves in the shadows.
Thanks for reading.
