The OCAU "film is not dead" club

[lithos]

Originally Posted by Deftone2k

All I see is the use of way too often.

I understand you like just owning stuff and having stuff .. but I see these epic long essays which dont really say anything.

You could summarize it with.

"I have more money than I realised, and I got excited but I dunno it's kind of nice"

Dude, he's an engineer/economist - who gives a shit about the pictures? WHAT DOES DXO MARK SAY? WHAT'S THE LPM ON THE LENS? HOW MANY MEGAPICKLES IN A 35MM FILM FRAME?

[crispy12]

Sounds like you've got bad GAS. Just buy it all, that way you'll get to enjoy everything :P

You can start off with just BigW processing and a $50 Canonet or Himatic from gumtree, all in all should be less than $100. At least you can sell the film camera for the same price later on (that's my plan for my film gear too).

[Modafroman]

Originally Posted by shyoon

This whole 'I want to try out film photography' shouldn't even be a big deal. Buy yourself a cheap point and shoot and a few rolls of C41 from eBay/Gumtree, carry it around with you for a couple of weeks and then get them developed/scanned/printed at Big W. It'll set you back about $70 for (hopefully) a few nice photos. What have you got to lose?

Yea, might as well I suppose *shrugs*

Originally Posted by Deftone2k

All I see is the use of way too often.

I understand you like just owning stuff and having stuff .. but I see these epic long essays which dont really say anything.

You could summarize it with.

"I have more money than I realised, and I got excited but I dunno it's kind of nice"

Yea pretty much. I think a set of lee filters will probably do me more use tho, but meh. It's really not owning stuff, it's that i'm trying to learn as much as possible and immerse myself, trying to get better.

Originally Posted by djnz

If you want to give film a go, you have Canon gear in sig, just grab an older Canon EOS film body which will use your current lenses. Controls will be similar, might even take the same flash etc. If there is room you can put both cameras into your bag and then they're always handy.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Canon-EOS...item3cc8f861c5

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Canon-EOS...item25733cc9ce

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Canon-EOS...item25733cc9bc

Originally Posted by JamesR

Or for a few hundred, look at EOS 1n or EOS 1v

Yea but i'm not after a film SLR, my 5D will create images that are just as good if not better. After a rangefinder for the different style and to be a bit different/learn more stuff.

Originally Posted by lithos

Dude, he's an engineer/economist - who gives a shit about the pictures? WHAT DOES DXO MARK SAY? WHAT'S THE LPM ON THE LENS? HOW MANY MEGAPICKLES IN A 35MM FILM FRAME?

Awwww lithos, you no fun

Originally Posted by crispy12

Sounds like you've got bad GAS. Just buy it all, that way you'll get to enjoy everything :P

You can start off with just BigW processing and a $50 Canonet or Himatic from gumtree, all in all should be less than $100. At least you can sell the film camera for the same price later on (that's my plan for my film gear too).

Not really GAS, i've got all the gear I need plus more (tho as above - still want some lee filters).... just trying to learn and experiment.

May as well if I find a nice example of a QL17 or something.

Anyways, will let you guys get back to your film talk

/fadesaway into the background

[lithos]

The best place, Mod, as always, to start with deciding which CRF to buy is Stephen Gandy's overview of 70s CRFs.

[crispy12]

I'd be flat broke if CQ opened a store in Brisbane!

That's a fantastic link btw.

[Athiril]

There are more megapickles in a 35mm film frame with inexpensive lenses then you can get off the film with affordable equipment unfortunately :P

I do have some plans on paper for a 'pixel by pixel' scanner that looks pretty good. I'll try a b&w (single sensor) proof of concept one first in a few months.

[Athiril]

Originally Posted by Pollywaffle

Quick question, I know X-ray machines can possibly damage undeveloped film. However, can the X-ray machines damage the film while it's still in the camera?

I'm currently overseas and I totally forgot my film camera was in my bag as it passed through an X-ray scanner. I was halfway through a roll of film and now I'm worried it could possibly be damaged.

Any experience with this? If it helps, it's Kodak 400TX black and white film. I really hope my New York photos haven't been wiped

I've had 2 rolls from someone on different occasions, both Shanghai GP3, with what I can only assume to be X-Ray damage, has a great big dirty sine wave fogging along the film.

[Hades_au]

After Praktica B series cameras if anyone has one they want to sell

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/forumdisplay.php?f=87

[crispy12]

For all the Canonet and film rangefinder fans:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126604/

[Robespierre]

I was inspired to give night portraits a go by this video.

http://vimeo.com/29240634

Unfortunately I haven't got any money to spend on new equipment so I would like to use what I have lying around. My flash is a Canon Speedlite 300TL essentially it only has two settings 1/1 and 1/16, I have figured out how to trigger it with my Rolleicord but the problem is that I have no idea how to expose for it as a fill flash. Is there a rule like sunny 16 for figuring out exposures with a flash? I have a sekonic l-208 but I don't think that is sensitive for the night light.

I think basically what I would like to understand is Guide Numbers and how you use that in conjunction with an incident/reflected metering of the scene. The stuff I've found so far doesn't make much sense although I'm sure it would be a lot easier to figure out with flash metering in camera or a flash meter.

[zach]

Alec Soth says: “One of the qualities of this camera is that because you are under a dark cloth, [the subjects] don’t see you and they don’t see you looking right into their eyes. . . . They become less self-concious, in a strange way, than if I’m holding a camera to my face.” He also describes the image that appears on the ground glass, or viewfinder, before the photo is captured as “a little painting of a person.”

Source

Man that Alec Soth DVD sold out fast.

[crispy12]

Originally Posted by Robespierre

I was inspired to give night portraits a go by this video.

http://vimeo.com/29240634

Unfortunately I haven't got any money to spend on new equipment so I would like to use what I have lying around. My flash is a Canon Speedlite 300TL essentially it only has two settings 1/1 and 1/16, I have figured out how to trigger it with my Rolleicord but the problem is that I have no idea how to expose for it as a fill flash. Is there a rule like sunny 16 for figuring out exposures with a flash? I have a sekonic l-208 but I don't think that is sensitive for the night light.

I think basically what I would like to understand is Guide Numbers and how you use that in conjunction with an incident/reflected metering of the scene. The stuff I've found so far doesn't make much sense although I'm sure it would be a lot easier to figure out with flash metering in camera or a flash meter.

Check out strobist 101 for the basics. Flag exposure is controlled by aperture, you'll need to check the flash sync speed for the Rolleicord. Then an easy way to confirm is to use a digital camera to preview, then copy the settings to your film camera.

[zach]

Robespierre, test exposures on roids!

[Robespierre]

So I read some stuff on strobist. So if I'm using the flash at a setting where the guide number is 6.2 (m units) does that mean that I just need to place the flash at roughly 1.1m if I use an aperture of 5.6 and the subject will be well exposed. Therefore I can just change the shutter speed to whatever I want in order to expose the background.

So for a rough process; meter the background then focus on the subject with the camera and then use that distance to roughly estimate how far the flash is. Then work through all the guide number settings possible on the flash and divide by the aperture.

Also with the zooming on the flash does it make a difference if you use a setting like 35mm when you are actually using a 80mm lens or this just a general guideline.

[crispy12]

Originally Posted by Robespierre

So I read some stuff on strobist. So if I'm using the flash at a setting where the guide number is 6.2 (m units) does that mean that I just need to place the flash at roughly 1.1m if I use an aperture of 5.6 and the subject will be well exposed. Therefore I can just change the shutter speed to whatever I want in order to expose the background.

So for a rough process; meter the background then focus on the subject with the camera and then use that distance to roughly estimate how far the flash is. Then work through all the guide number settings possible on the flash and divide by the aperture.

Also with the zooming on the flash does it make a difference if you use a setting like 35mm when you are actually using a 80mm lens or this just a general guideline.

Yes, the calculation is correct but keep in mind this is ISO 100.

The process you mention is also correct if you are firing flash on camera. If you're using off camera flash then the only important distance is the flash-to-subject distance.

Lastly the 35mm zoom is for 35mm film or full-frame DSLR cameras, so for a Rolleiflex with 80mm lens you would use a 50mm zoom setting on the flash instead as an approximate field of view.