Paul's Film Photography Blog

…the one which isn’t at home when you see the perfect photo present itself along the side of the road.

I was reminded of that again last night. Me in car, heading home. Camera and tripod at home. Too bad. No photo this time, good buddy.

Would Ansel Adams have been caught unprepared like this? Of course not, he would have screeched to a halt with all 4 wheels locked, scrambled to set up the 8×10 view camera, chosen the exposure by putting the moon on zone VII and performing some math in his head, and made the shot with seconds to spare. With a large format view camera!

Next time, that camera will be right there with me.

Note: all links open in a new tab or window, unless I forgot to set that when I added one of them!

First up is not photography-related, but is someone who I’ve known for a long time and who is at last going to be reaping the rewards for his effort and commitment to his dream of becoming a published writer. Col Buchanan’s first book, “Farlander“, has just been published in the UK through Tor Books. Check out his author site and excerpts from the book at ColBuchanan.com

Back to photography, specifically film, and the Film Photography Podcast. It’s released in the middle of the month and is on its 6th episode so far. It manages to be informative yet entertaining and funny; not an easy combo to pull off. If my favorite computer magazine of all time had a podcast (yes, yes, I know podcasts didn’t exist in 1988, work with me here) it would probably have sounded a lot like these guys!

For stronger photographic results, Ken Rockwell recommends FARTing at all times. Pass the beans and some Ektar 100! And you, uhh, might not want to go in there for a few minutes.

The Figital Revolution has a test of Ektar 100 in 4×5 large format sheets. I’m not a large format shooter (well, maybe if someone gave me a Speed Graphic and a darkroom to call my own…) but Kodak even releasing this product is meaningful for film folk. Now they just need a good quality film scanner to go with it, maybe around the $500 price-point!

Many years ago, I had a brief interest in pinhole photography. I never did follow through on it, but I recall buying a book about it at some point when I was maybe 10 years old and thinking how cool it all sounded. Well DIYPhotography.net just posted a link to a Make magazine article describing a printable 35mm pinhole camera. Only one small problem: it prints on A4 paper, which we don’t have here in the Land Which Metric Forgot. I’ll just have to buy a Canon FD body cap and make it into a pinhole lens, then, won’t I?

Finally, I would be entirely remiss if I failed to use this inaugural “Week in Links” to give a shout out to my employer – Lakelubbers.com: Lakes for Vacation and Recreation – Lake Lovers Love Lakelubbers. This isn’t just a shameless plug though, it has photo-relevancy as we have extensive and growing galleries of lake-related pictures on the site.

OK, that’s all for now, have a great weekend!

When I started getting back into shooting 35mm film, I was a little worried. Would I be able to get it developed anywhere nearby? Would the quality be any good? Would I stand a good chance of having my negatives trashed by some kid who didn’t know or care what they were doing? Would I have to set myself up to process C-41 at home just to ensure the safety of my film, never mind the quality?

I’ve heard the minilab horror stories, after all. And the pro-lab horror stories too, come to think of it.

Turns out I needn’t have worried, the CVS round the corner from where I work (the Westlake store at Hardy, VA) has me covered. I just processed and scanned my 10th roll since December through them yesterday and was pleased with the results yet again. I’m pretty sure they mostly know me by sight now and this time I even got the film back with a thank you note! Another couple of rolls and I’ll probably be able to rock in there and ask for “the usual, please”!

The scans are inexpensive and good for printing up to about 5×7 and for proofing and web use. They’re auto-adjusted for levels, which is great if you’re using some sort of flaky point and shoot with marginal exposure control, not so much if you’re using a manual SLR and hoping to learn from your errors! Higher resolution and non-adjusted scans would be great but I haven’t explored that possibility yet, other than being vaguely aware that the Noritsu machine they use can do both. Ideally I’ll have a scanner of my own sometime soon anyway; the net result of that would be that I go process-only at the CVS but end up shooting a whole lot more and sending more rolls their way for processing.

More important in that regard, the processing and handling has been excellent. The only fingerprints on any negatives have been my own before I bought some white cotton gloves to use while working with the negs. I haven’t seen any obvious scratches or dirt either. They’re fine with returning the film uncut, which allows me to cut to the lengths I want (6 frame strips, perfect for the desktop film scanner I don’t yet own).

Sure, I could do my own processing. If I ever get into shooting black and white it makes economic sense to process at home, but for C-41 I can’t buy the chemicals for any less per roll than it costs me to process at CVS and it’s a lot less trouble to just drop the roll(s) off in the morning and pick them up after work.

So, thank you CVS Westlake for doing an excellent job. I really appreciate it.

Went looking for info on photographic emulsion cleaners and found this gem of what I can only call “Manglish”, for “mangled English”.

Generix PRO-CLEANER be all for Photographs, Film and Negatives. It is an excellent emulsion cleaner that will compellingly pull out orb spike and best other inks, finger grease, grease pencil, laser loneliness oil, fungal nodule, smoke and even soo Pro-Line Archivalware Pro Cleaner.

OK, so “orb spike” => “ball-point” (pen). I get that one. But “laser loneliness oil”? What the…?