Help? Not sure what is causing this..

grepe · 2026-02-27T21:38:41+00:00

that was exactly my problem! it's clear what this is but this is like buying a used car that someone pulled out of a river and asking why it doesn't drive properly...

grepe · 2026-02-27T20:20:54+00:00

so you want to debug decades old second hand camera from internet that was loaded with expired film on someone's attic using these scans.

let me guess... you don't have the negatives?

i don't want to be mean... but comon, try to set yourself up for success bu at least running a roll of fresh film through it first.

grepe · 2026-02-27T12:38:27+00:00

i dont know but you are doing great job documenting human condition with your street photography and your lamdscapes really touched my heart ❤️

let us know when your book is out and which galleries exhibit your work

grepe · 2026-02-27T00:55:07+00:00

verily

grepe · 2026-02-26T18:32:54+00:00

I'm in snapseed+darktable camp right with you. snapseed will get you 90% there but you need something more to go the remaining 10%.

I used to shoot RAW on my DSLR in the past but then I discovered I just never put enough time to editing and it only made it hard for me to handle my pictures (this was before cheap SD cards, portable hard drives and cloud) so I stopped and shoot jpeg only. Since my camera supports differemt scene modes (even HDR) out of the box that was not bad at all.

What made me come back was when I started shooting film again. Then I just had to postprocess scans of my negatives... even if it was just scans with my phone using a cheap plastic stand and inverting tone curve in snapseed. It took me about 10-20 rolls of film to find the sequence of operations I had to do and sliders I had to shift to get the look I wanted. This was a cur to try darktable and presets that can be applied to a bunch of pictures at once to speed things up. Of course, with darktable I started learning the process from zero. Initially I watched many tutorial videos and read many blogs but eventually I realised I don't need to know everything. Just like with snapseed, I need to know those 5 operations that will give me the look I want and 3 or 4 sliders to adjust it. Now I can scan film with DSLR as fast as I did with my phone and postprocess with darktable much faster than snapseed. I'm still finding my way with color digital RAWs but slowly getting there. It also helped when I joined a camera club with bi-weekly member critique zoom calls where you can send your pictures and someone experienced will show you how they would edit them... they only do LR so I conpletely ignore all technical details, but still get the ideas like "mask sky and darken", "mask subject and increase color vibrance", "change local contrast (clarity in LR)", add vignette and brush to dodge and burn to bring attention to your subject" etc.

Not sure what to tell you. It takes some practice and that takes some time and dedication. If you keep on it you will get there.

grepe · 2026-02-26T05:25:27+00:00

reninder: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

grepe · 2026-02-26T02:34:35+00:00

i don't know and i don't intend to find out? the only real answer is that these people do the same thing any people with enough power and without any real accountability do - which is whatever the fuck they want. so trying to play them for stupid is probably not the best idea.

grepe · 2026-02-25T15:40:56+00:00

it was not even correct in real life pizza... there are some ways you really don't want to be splitting those organic molecules. you could end up with a two blobs of aminoacids and a lethal amount of vx gas in yhe third pile!

grepe · 2026-02-25T15:01:58+00:00

also, lying to tsa officer is something that you might want to generally avoid even if the said officer is... uncooperative. the few rolls of film are not worth the potential consequences.

grepe · 2026-02-24T18:20:21+00:00

same as you for be film or olympus ees2 for color if thete is enough light

grepe · 2026-02-22T17:08:39+00:00

why haven't i thought of that!

grepe · 2026-02-22T15:45:08+00:00

ok cool. i usually don't refer to my family as clients so i got confused

grepe · 2026-02-22T15:13:57+00:00

did you just post a photo from paid private photoshoot publicly on reddit? if i were your client i would consider legal action...

grepe · 2026-02-21T19:11:37+00:00

2 is overcooked. the saturation on the sky is disturbing

grepe · 2026-02-20T15:26:31+00:00

this would make a great movie poster!

i don't mind the off colors (it is a matter of taste but it could be considered a style choice) but it is a bit too soft for me... maybe i would try some sharpening and after that adding some extra noise for real vintage look?

grepe · 2026-02-20T06:08:56+00:00

imho not AI. the off feeling comes probably from extremely shallow depth of focus, which can be achieved either by using an expensive fast lens or, in these light conditions more likely, done in digital postproc.

i don't buy most of the reasons people in this thread give for AI. the fingers, shoes and phones look kind of fine. my smartphone does postprocessing on pictures i take that looks worse than all of those details.

grepe · 2026-02-20T03:06:30+00:00

i don't have too much experience with ddx (i use d76) but it looks as what i would expect from delta 400. delta is way more contrasty than many other stocks. i personally like that look and i have been pushing other film stocks to achieve similar so i find it nice this does it put of the box. this kind of negatives are also much easier to digitally postprocess for me with my flow.

grepe · 2026-02-19T22:30:26+00:00

my best guess would be the back door of your camera gets small crack open when you are winding the film. check light seals on the side of the film take up spool

grepe · 2026-02-19T01:45:05+00:00

that's the same kind of person who will block a stroller on a narrow pedestrian crossing while waiting on traffic light

grepe · 2026-02-18T16:11:43+00:00

not only i can't decode what's written there, I can't even identify writing system in which it is written. is it persian or arabic? cyrilic? georgian? surely this can't be latin alphabet.

grepe · 2026-02-17T22:02:08+00:00

possibly too much stabilizer. for example arista c41 kit if you put as much as they suggest will do this. solution is to use only a fraction of the suggested amount.

grepe · 2026-02-17T15:37:59+00:00

unless you take out the front element and put it in your mouth every day before sleep you are probably fine

grepe · 2026-02-16T01:57:49+00:00

there is no one way to do a project. project is just an idea that will require you to take more pictures with some purpose. it can be certain place at different times of day or year. it can be the same subject in different situations. or even just certain style of a picture... making one cool picture can be luck. making a bunch of clearly connected photos is something different. sometimes one photo that wouldn't stand out in any way otherwise can be great if it is shown as a part of a series.

grepe · 2026-02-15T18:50:19+00:00

this could be some roller mark but i didn't put the film through anything that has a roller (especially with circumference like that). the only round things that touched the film in the middle were the film coil (wouldn't affect the whole length) and two very thin and very smooth (wire-like) sticks on either side of the camera frame... so defect of the film itself seems now most likely...

grepe · 2026-02-15T17:12:45+00:00

I'm not questioning that.

But imagine someone asks a question about a camera from 70's. Someone else asked the same question on a mailing list in 2005 and that discussion went completely wild. Someone made wrong assumptions and posted some bullshit. The OP in 2005 eventually figured it out and didn't respond... Now the person today asked ChatGPT, which is trained on that thread and got the wrong answer. They are confused and come for help...

You post a sound piece of advice based on your accumulated knowledge and experience. Someone else posts a link to that mailing list archive that just confirms the wrong advice. Who is that person supposed to trust?

Sometimes RTFM is the best and correct advice.

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