Analog.Cafe v3.32.43 adds various improvements to the Comments app. I worked on the Reply and Thread buttons, the avatar and date-posted fields, and the image, video, and article preview layouts in the list feed. I hope these changes make it easier for you to add and find comments!
Dilution Calculator (a feature of Film Log analog.cafe/app/film-log and Chem Log analog.cafe/app/chem-log apps) now remembers your values and preferences across your browser sessions. I found that I frequently use a 1+25 Rodinal dilution to make 300ml for a single 135 black-and-white roll; my guess is that you may also come back to your earlier recipes — this update should help us save a few seconds typing those numbers.
Thank you for breaking this down. I think if I had to choose between Color Plus and Kodacolor, I would pick the one that was less expensive. I have always been able to tell that Kodak Gold was different though. I like using it in the late afternoon (on sunny days of course). It really does pick up the golden tones of the “golden hour” better than any other inexpensive film I have tried.
There are much more accessories for the MX available:
- 250 shot bulk film magazine
- dial date back
- data back with a little window to scribe short text by hand (roll numbers for instance) — this is a unique product
- Motor Drive (5 fps) with NiCad pack or hand grip for AA batteries
- external control pack for timed serial images
And of course all the photographic accessories for macro, micro photography and for adapting the camera to telescopes (Pentax built first rate astronomical telescopes, some of those extremely fast and with a flat field, especially for astrophotography)
- the MX was available in chrome or black finish and meant to be the most light weight professional camera on the market at that time.
Analog.Cafe v3.32.28 adds a “Delete” option to all comments you may’ve authored. Please check this page to learn how this feature works: analog.cafe/r/introducing-…
I’ve also fixed a bug that prevented the comment message from being updated after it was edited or deleted.
Hi, Dmitri. I’m enough of a Polaroid fanboi to respond to this. I’ve shot a fair amount of the OneInstant film and have several cameras that can make use of this.
¹ — Please watch this Analog Resurgence video to understand what you’d be getting yourself into first: youtube.com/watch?v=QrZaQV…
I’m giving away this pack of very expensive film because it looks like a 1) pain to assemble, 2) pain to operate, and 3) I have no compatible camera or even experience shooting pack film.
But I know that there is someone out there who knows how to shoot this film, has the right tools, and the desire to deal with the challenges of assembling this thing.
If that’s you, please reply to this thread, and I’ll contact you via email. First one gets it.
Great essay. Takes guts to write your story. I have a hard time even thinking about those “last trips”. It’s the price of having pets for anyone with a heart. I weep as I write this, so strong the memory is of my hand on that little chest and feeling the last heartbeat of our little morkie Monkey, who exited this world 17 months ago. She was 14.
How to get a “pushed film” look without actually push-processing it.
Push-processing means adding development time or temperature to your film so it acts as a more sensitive film than it’s marked on the box. For example, you can push an ISO 100 film to EI 200 by simply metering it as if it were an ISO 200 film (giving it one stop of light less) and then either asking your lab or, by yourself, keep it in chemicals for a set time longer so that the shadows and highlights develop more.
Pushing film helps get action shots with low-ISO film and photographing in dimmer light than the film is designed for. But pushing film typically increases contrast and, if it’s a colour film, saturation — which can be a desirable effect.
Unfortunately, not all labs can push-process your film. Or if they could, it might add to your total costs. Even if you develop at home, there isn’t always enough time to push-process something, or you may be mixing films in a single tank and don’t want to alter the development times for just one film.
Luckily, if you can get high-quality scans and your film has a reasonably wide dynamic range (7+ stops), you can underexpose it by 1-2 stops (same as when you’d push your film by +1 or +2 stops) and *develop normally*.
Your scans will appear dark and may have colour shifts. But once you correct those issues using your favourite image editing app, the results can look very close to what you’d expect if you were to push this film by the same number of stops.
I’m attaching an example test shot pair of Kodak Kodacolor 100 exposed and developed normally (left), then underexposed by -2 stops (right) and developed normally (this was actually on the same roll).
Both films were scanned on Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000ED (analog.cafe/r/nikon-super-…) and inverted with #film Q. I’ve corrected them using the greyscale masking technique.
How to edit film scans (this article explains what a high-quality scan means and how greyscale masking works for colour correction): analog.cafe/r/how-to-edit-…
That’s a good point. A better comparison should probably examine that baseline directly (the differences in batches of the same film).
So far, I’d say the evidence I have points to the differences between ProImage and Kodacolor 100 being greater than batch variation, but it’s not 100% conclusive. I’m referring to my earlier test: Kodak ColorPlus vs. Kodacolor 200 vs. Kodak Gold (analog.cafe/r/kodak-colorp…). I’m assuming that since ColorPlus and Kodacolor 200 use the same formula (as the above article explains). They are also quite likely to have been produced in separate batches (due to different production dates). And yet, both films render images that appear identical in my scans, whereas the third film in the mix — Kodak Gold — looks identifiably different.
All of that, of course, comes with a huge caveat: age, dev chemicals and methods, and, even more so, the scanning process, can erase or exaggerate the slight differences I found.
Subtle differences might be caused by different production batches. Back in the day, photographers used to use the same batch stock for any given work. While the same stock from different batches will behave in the same way, mixing it would lead to small (but potentially perceptible) differences in tone and contrast.
Anyways, Kodak has dozens of film patents, many of them versions of the same film. So it’s not crazy to think that they used different versions for their own brand, very close to Proimage and identical in practice to ColorPlus for legal purposes.
I thought that it would be cool to see some photos of negatives pushed/pulled to extreme ISO. I’m very curious how negatives turn out, what’s their density etc.
In general it may be a good idea to include pictures or maybe even scan samples of negatives in your future reviews. It could help to better understand how emulsion behaves.
If you Google my full name, you’ll find articles, like “This is the First Photograph to Ever Be Developed With Weed,” the existence of which is owed to the incredible versatility of the Ilford HP5+ film and the three friends who helped that experiment come to life.
Another world’s first was when I pushed HP5+, an ISO 400 film, to behave like an ISO 100,000 film (+8 stops of push processing). And no one, to my knowledge, had before shot it at EI 3 — which I also tried, succeeded, and published on this blog.
Whatever I threw at HP5+, it handled it like a champ. Sure, it would take some work to get this film to perform unusual tasks, but when it comes to being a reliable partner in creating black-and-white images, there may be no stock better than this. Whether you’re a pro, an experimental photographer, or maybe this is the first film you’ll ever shoot — HP5+ just works.
The original review of HP5+ was published three years ago, before the experiments and countless rolls I spent trying to understand the emulsion better. Today’s update is a complete rewrite of the original article, which incorporates all of the above:
Not only does this re-review include the usual basics, like the grain, contrast, home development, scannability, prices, etc., but it has an updated section that disambiguates the Ilford name (which is just one of *four* names under which this film was sold). I’ve researched and covered the history of this film more thoroughly — and I’ve rescanned my 2018 negatives to offer you photos taken with this film when I was a little worse at photography (but thanks to this film’s forgiving qualities, still look pretty decent today).
Please enjoy the review, remember that you can download and print it as a very pretty PDF, and let me know if you have any experience with this film you’d like to share!
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