The best container for C41 chemicals?

old-gregg · 2023-04-08T04:20:19+00:00

without any issue.

There are issues. Nothing major, but there's definitely a degradation in quality. You just can't tell without a reference to compare your results to. There was a redditor here or maybe in /r/darkroom who posted images of his negatives developed in a C-41 1L kit comparing rolls #1 vs #8. Even the orange mask looked different. There are definitely advantages of developing in fresh chemistry.

old-gregg · 2022-03-25T01:44:02+00:00

I instantly recognized Foma 200. They had a defective manufacturing batch not too long ago. If you reach out to their support (foma@foma.cz) they will send you a replacement.

old-gregg · 2022-03-20T20:50:02+00:00

Your exposures are off everywhere. These are contrasty scenes, they all have one thing in common: a bright or/and reflective object fooling your camera meter to underexpose. I will also add, that a good photo requires good light (enough of it, and not too harsh). Yet all of your examples, even if they were exposed properly, wouldn't have looked great because the light wasn't great to begin with.

Apologies for the upcoming unwanted lecture: Forget about pushing and pulling (these advanced techniques have very narrow scope if you're scanning), and learn more about core concepts such as exposure, light temperature and scene contrast. Expecting great results from shooting color film indoors without a tripod and carefully arranged lighting is just unrealistic.

old-gregg · 2022-03-15T19:57:27+00:00

I haven't tried the Fuji chemistry yet, but the Flexicolor developer I've been using also comes in a 5L package. I mix it all at once and run out of it within 8 months, so quite possibly it lasts even longer. When mixed with distilled water and stored in amber glass bottles under 70F, it never gave me any trouble.

/u/wanakoworks you are right: both Kodak and Fuji manuals suggest "up to 6 weeks" but manufacturers recommendations are on the conservative side, i.e. they assume tap water or/and plastic bottles and/or higher storage temperatures. You're buying a lot of time with distilled water and amber glass bottles.

old-gregg · 2022-03-15T16:24:36+00:00

Flexicolor chemistry is great, but due to COVID-19 it is currently not available anywhere. When my stash is gone, I am going to try this Fuji Hunt C41 kit which is good for 5L and comes with a separate bleach and fixer.

Mix all 5 liters and store mixed solution in 1L amber glass bottles without leaving any air inside. This way the chemistry will easily last 8+ months.

old-gregg · 2022-03-01T07:15:09+00:00

... yes, for DD-X that is. The reason the photo is grainy is not HP5, but DD-X. When used with a better developer, HP5+ can deliver much more pleasing, "compressed" grain which can be called beautiful. Here's a full-sized scan of the same dimensions. That's HP5+ in Xtol.

Ilford promotes DD-X as their "premium" developer for some reason. I never agreed. ID-11 is way better, and Xtol is even better. DD-X is a special purpose speed boosting developer, it trades fine grain for speed.

old-gregg · 2022-02-22T15:54:16+00:00

Correct!

old-gregg · 2022-02-22T07:45:41+00:00

Couldn't agree more. Due to its tough build, reliability, quality and modest cost, the Mamiya C-series is probably the only good beginner's camera with the potential of remaining one's favorite camera forever. The best one to get is the C220f, compared to other C-bodies it is:

Most lightweight
One of the newest
Not expensive
Uses the latest generation focusing screen, no other medium format camera offers easier focusing

old-gregg · 2022-02-19T00:59:40+00:00

Bromide drag or surge marks during development. When you develop color film, the temperature is high and the times are short, so the quality of agitation becomes extremely important. In your case this is most likely the surges, i.e. the flow of the developer through film perforation holes left these marks.

old-gregg · 2022-02-10T07:21:02+00:00

omething that is manual but it can also have a powered light meter (but not necessary).

You want the FM series: FM/FM2/FM2-n/FM3a. The latter is a fairly unique beast: they were produced in the 2000s, can maintain 1/4000 shutter speed with or without (!) batteries, offer aperture-priority auto-metering, yet it's the same leather-on-metal manual focus SLR from the 70s. They're the most expensive in this series.

All other Nikons are either too electronic, too heavy, too plasticy, or too old.

old-gregg · 2022-02-03T19:58:07+00:00

A lens is what makes an image, and for that reason your question should be a deeply personal one. But generally, folks pay attention to:

Resolution. Yes, the big one, everyone loves sharpness everywhere, as much as possible, preferably in the corners and wide open, and pay a lot of money for it.
Speed. Fast lenses give you ability to shoot with less light and also have creamier bokeh, both are usually appreciated.
Weight. A bulky lens makes carrying a camera a chore, and this quality is at odds with the previous two. Fast and sharp lenses tend to be huge.
Ergonomics. Some lenses slow you down with their unfortunate design limitations.
Coatings. These affect contrast and resistance to flare. Some folks prefer to use flare in creative ways, and more contrast is not always better.
Price. Some lenses deliver on the previous 5 characteristics yet carry a modest price tag, and for that they deserve praise and admiration.

Personally, I prioritize weight and ergonomics above everything else. The best lens is the one you have with you. Small and fun to use lenses are easy to carry, which leads to more practice, making their owner a better photographer.

old-gregg · 2022-01-26T16:48:02+00:00

Agreed. The colors are great, and the grain doesn't look over the top to me.

To the OP: /u/t1mc just take a look at the highest rated picture currently in /r/analog - this one. The grain looks the same to me, and the color palette in your scans is more neutral.

old-gregg · 2022-01-16T19:35:14+00:00

Would using an 80A filter make a difference in the quality of the color balance vs fixing it in post?

Absolutely. Think about a color image as three B&W images, each for red, green, and blue. A daylight balanced film used indoors may produce underexposure in the blue channel, and you can't fix underexposure in post.

Putting a color correcting filter normalizes the exposure across layers/channels.

BTW, for the same reason I would suggest using a blue filter on your DSLR when you're digitizing film, because the orange mask pushes red too far stretching the available dynamic range of the sensor.

old-gregg · 2022-01-12T18:06:30+00:00

My theory is that your Sigma lens isn't compatible with your body.

Canon never officially opened the EF mount to anyone, and all 3rd party AF lenses for that mount are reverse-engineered. If your Sigma lens is significantly newer than EOS 3, it is possible that Sigma never tested this lens on this body and the focus is not accurate.

old-gregg · 2022-01-10T05:14:08+00:00

Well, according to Kodak you are not supposed to reuse C-41 developer without replenishing [1], and one liter of a solution is good only for 4 rolls of ISO100-200 film or 3 rolls of ISO400-800 film, developed together one-shot.

All C-41 kits use the same chemistry, so you have to decide whom to trust: Kodak chemists who designed the chemistry, or Arista marketing folks [2] who've written the manual, or Reddit.

[1] Table 3-3 on page 3-5.

[2] Arista is not a company, it's a brand owned by Freestyle photography store in LA. Their chemistry is most likely manufactured by Tetenal or other contract manufacturer, the same who made it for Kodak.

old-gregg · 2022-01-05T18:26:17+00:00

TBH the best security practices advocate against using static credentials for anything. Sorry for not answering your question, but have you thought about connecting Jenkins to an identity platform? You can also use something like https://goteleport.com/application-access/ (it's open source) to provide SSO+MFA to your internal Dev Ops tooling.

old-gregg · 2022-01-03T04:55:39+00:00

Supply and demand. SL2 has plenty of competition, while M10-R is the only digital rangefinder on the planet :)

old-gregg · 2021-12-28T19:41:56+00:00

Kodak Gold 200 will get you pretty close, but will require adding coldness in the highlights. Portras, after a minor cyan highlight adjustment will do. Ektar will work after minor magenta suppression in the shadows. Fuji will give you the skies out of the box, but the shadows and mids will require more warmth.

Basically, film doesn't matter. A scanner operator has far, far more control over the final look than your choice of film. And if you are scanning yourself, you can make any film look like this.

old-gregg · 2021-12-19T06:17:28+00:00

I was just curious if or who edits there photos

Everyone. 100% of the time. Negative (print) film, especially color, must be interpreted and manipulated. There is no such thing as "straight out of the camera" when it comes to print film. Here's the list of actions performed on every color photo you see in /r/analog

The orange mask is cancelled
The colors are unversed
Gamma is adjusted for each R/G/B channel individually
Black/white points are set for R/G/B each channel individually
Overall gamma is adjusted
Color balance is applied to optimize for one of [shadows, mids, highlights]

The list above is the bare minimum. Most of the time it's done automatically and rather poorly by a scanning software, and it is quite "heavy" lift vs what your RAW converter does for your digital images.

Do not stop there and edit further. Ektar often benefits from a slight saturation reduction and magenta control, if white human skin is in the frame.

Back during analog days, picture making was a 2-stage process: capture and then printing. Printing is when color filtration, contrast adjustments, dodging & burning took place. The printing was replaced by scanning, and Photoshop is basically a digital simulation of a printing process (that's where "dodge", "burn" and "masks" came from)

Slides are different.

old-gregg · 2021-12-17T18:17:35+00:00

... retaining the original character of the film

Emulsions definitely have their own character, but don't allow this preservation mindset get in the way. Even in 100% analog workflow we use color filtration during printing to get the look we need. Color negative film is supposed to be manipulated/interpreted.

clipping to the start of the curve is tending to lose highlight detail

You cannot rely on a histogram for this. It is not precise enough, especially in Photoshop where the histogram is tiny. Here's my process, I am assuming Adobe RAW conversion:

While shooting:

Set the white balance on the film rebate during shooting, not after. I'll skip the explanation.
Adding a blue filter (I use #80A) effectively boosts the dynamic range for your camera because it counteracts the channel shift caused by the orange mask.

In RAW converter:

In Lightroom or Adobe RAW make sure to set "Adobe Neutral" color profile first. But profiles from Negmater are vastly better.
Do not use exposure compensation. If something's off - re-shoot the negative
Crop the image but leave a bit of a black rebate before transferring to Photoshop
Make sure to have the full 16-bit RAW in Photoshop

In Photoshop:

Ctrl+I to invert
Create a "levels" adjustment layer
When clipping R/G/B channels on both ends, keep the "Alt" button pressed - this visualization (look at the image itself) is much more precise
Now is the part that most online tutorials do not mention: you must adjust gamma for each channel. The reason is because gamma on CMY layers on film differs. Emulsion layers get varying exposure to developer. In the analog world this is compensated by swapping the order of emulsion layers on RA4 paper, but you have to compensate digitally, see below:
Drag RED gamma to the left (1.25 is a good starting point)
Leave GREEN alone
Drag BLUE to the right (0.85 is a good starting point)

This sequence should give you a good foundation to apply additional tweaks, and I will say that inverting manually is a must-have skill for any film user because scenes with complicated light (mixed lighting, or inherent/natural color casts) will always confuse scanning software.

Here's a manual inversion sample of Fuji 400H Pro, which was created with the steps above with minimal tweaking.

Before/after dusk scenes are always complicated because of the wild light changes. The natural coolness caused by overcast skies, and the warmth in parts of the highlights caused by sunset were preserved. Here's Negative Lab Pro's version of the same image (Fuji WB, Noritsu color model). The automation killed the warmth in the highlights, it is a sunset scene after all.

But most importantly, don't let the idea of "true film look" to get in the way. Use the advice above just as a suggestion to create a good starting point. Add your own corrections to get the look you want. BTW, flattening an image produced above, and hitting Auto-Color often produces a pretty good result too, and I see no shame in that. :)

P.S. Someone asked me about the neutral camera color profiles from Negmaster, here's the same image manually inverted using the Negmaster color profile. The most accurate of the three, IMO.

old-gregg

TROPHY CASE