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village idiot
4-Jun-2007, 19:11
Noob Qs'

Ok, so my Technika will be here tomorrow, and I plan on spending the rest of the week getting to know the camera, eg; set it up, focus, run through checklist, take the "shot", zero out, break it down, repeat ad infinitum. I want to go out this weekend and take some real shots. Landscapes, NW scenery, water, etc.

Unless someone here can give me some good reasons why I shouldn't, I am planning on shooting chrome. The question is which chrome? At this point I am leaning towards Fuji Velvia 100F, partly because there are no reciprocity corrections required (per Fuji) up to 1Min. exp, and I don't forsee getting into any seriously long exposure scenarios in the near future. When I intruduced myself here, Steve Simmons, in his kind welcome, suggested I pick a film and stick with it for at least a year. While Steve made this recommendation for B&W, It seems to make a lot of sense to me regardless of the type of film I shoot. My dilemma, if there is one, is that If I am going to stick with just one film for the next four seasons, I do want to hopefully make a reasonably "correct" choice for a beginner.

Note:
I will be having Ivey Imaging in Seattle do all processing, and for the time being, I will be scanning the slides on a crappy old HP all-in one.

Any input, suggestions, or guffaws of amusement? :)

Blueberrydesk
4-Jun-2007, 19:38
fwiw, I think Velvia's a fine choice for chromes. Personally, when I shoot chromes I shoot Kodak readyloads, so Ektachrome is my choice right now, but that's really only because I haven't bought Fuji films yet. I'm sure you'll get much more knowledgable answers than mine, though. This forum is the greatest resource I've ever seen in terms of photography.

Steven Barall
4-Jun-2007, 21:04
Talk to the people at Ivey Imaging. They see more film than anyone so they may have some useful insights. Good luck and don't forget to have fun.

Alan Davenport
4-Jun-2007, 23:14
I used the original Velvia 50 when I started into LF; abandoned it in favor of Ektachrome because of the color shifts and unforgiving reciprocity curve. Currently, I'm using E100SW which I find very predictable and forgiving.

I haven't tried the new Velvias, but have been told they are now similarly easy to get along with. Steve S.'s suggestion (one film/one year) is a good one IMO, and I expect you'll be happy with your choice.

Scott Knowles
5-Jun-2007, 05:10
My dilemma, if there is one, is that If I am going to stick with just one film for the next four seasons, I do want to hopefully make a reasonably "correct" choice for a beginner.... I will be having Ivey Imaging in Seattle do all processing, and for the time being, I will be scanning the slides on a crappy old HP all-in one.... Any input, suggestions, or guffaws of amusement?

I forgot to read your initial posts about your experience with 4x5 cameras, but since I have just started (Jan.) I created a list of places to photograph with different lessons to learn the camera (controls), composition and film (exposure). They are mostly city scenes (building, plazas, parks, etc. in Tacoma/Seattle), but also rural landscape (anywhere I can find) and nature (Mt. Rainier NP). Each scene has different perspectives or subjects to work with the camera, and being local I can always go back to the same place to try again.

The list was made over a two years of normal errands and work while I sorted out the camera decision, simply seeing and noting interesting places or scenes, from simple building fronts to angle views of places and open plazas/parks. It sounds easy until you get the results back and go, "WTF did I do?"

I agree to focus on one or two films (I also use Ivey Imaging because they charge the same no matter the film or push/pull), and I use T-Max and Provia, the latter because I use it with 35mm film. I'm not a fan of saturated films. One advantage to transparency film is errors show up quickly, especially wrong exposures or camera movements.

And lastly, two personal suggestions. First, take lots of notes. I use a "Rite-in-the-Rain" notebook (my from field work days). Second, a digital camera helps to take the same image (approximate focal length) to bracket the scene and compare later. It works for me.

Nick_3536
5-Jun-2007, 06:49
Unless someone here can give me some good reasons why I shouldn't, I am planning on shooting chrome.

Cost. Assuming you want to end up with a chrome then that can't be helped. B&W is so much cheaper and if you process it yourself that much cheaper. That makes it easier to shoot more.

OTOH there are advantage to handing the film to a pro lab and letting them process it.

Doug Dolde
5-Jun-2007, 07:02
Velvia will be more frustrating than Provia. The contrast is so high making it very hard to expose and scan well.

CG
5-Jun-2007, 07:58
Hi,

The advantage to a transparency film is that (if correctly processed) what you do shooting will be exactly reflected in what you get. If you are new to photography in general, transparencies are a great (albeit frustrating) way to get basic exposure technique down fastest. Be prepared to have to reshoot things a few times to get results. It's money and time well spent.

BW is forgiving, and will get you tolerable results more reliably, but won't teach you as fast. There are just too many variables when you get all that extra power of manipulation from negative to print.

Velvia is more demanding because it is quite contrasty, but it will show you clearly what you are and aren't doing. Bracketing a lot can often save you much grief.

If you have done much BW and color photography with other cameras and formats, and are new only to the Technika, then shoot what you want.

Best,

C

village idiot
5-Jun-2007, 07:59
Hmmmm, lots of food for thought.

I do plan on talking to the folks at Ivey today. I’m going to follow the suggestions in other threads about asking if they have any empty film boxes available, also if they have any “damaged” 4x5 film to practice loading/unloading. I will try and get input on film choice from them at that time.

Alan, I saw in another thread where you use Photoassist. Do you use the reciprocity function in this program, and if so, do you find it accurate/helpful?

Scott, I’m considering Photoassist (above) for notetaking. Good suggestion, thanks.

Nick, re; cost- it is not in the cards right now to set up a darkroom, and Ivey charges the same for processing any type of 4x5 film, so there would be no cost savings there. Obviously, the film would be cheaper, but I’m willing to take that hit.

Doug, are you saying Provia is more “forgiving” of exposure errors?

village idiot
5-Jun-2007, 08:06
CG, I shot 35mm in the late 70s-early 80s, and what I have retained from that wouldn't fill a thimble.

I am planning on using my Nikon digital to bracket, and try and narrow down my exposure window. I will be taking notes, and the EXIF info from the digital captures will hopefully help in learning the demands of whatever film I do choose.

Brian Ellis
5-Jun-2007, 08:16
I would have thought a color negative film was a better choice for someone who hasn't used any color film before, just because it's more forgiving. With slide film you need to be spot on with your exposure. And of course you have a narrower contrast range than with negative film. Why not try one brand of each type? While Steve's suggestion about picking a film and sticking with it is certainly a good one, you don't have to be a total slave to that idea. I imagine Steve was thinking more of those people who bounce around all the time from one film to another and didn't mean that you literally use the very first film you ever put in your camera for a year. A little experimentation at the beginning to find that first "one year" film isn't prohibited.

Alan Davenport
5-Jun-2007, 08:16
Pardon me while I blaspheme.....

V.I., a suggestion for getting your feet wet without getting soaked: buy short-dated or recently-expired film. If it's been stored properly during its shelf life, you won't notice any changes. PM me if you'd like a seller ID.

Oren Grad
5-Jun-2007, 08:28
I am planning on using my Nikon digital to bracket, and try and narrow down my exposure window. I will be taking notes, and the EXIF info from the digital captures will hopefully help in learning the demands of whatever film I do choose.

You will likely have to do some calibration for this. The effective sensitivity of the digital camera at a given ISO setting may not match that of your film of choice at the same ISO, and exposure latitude generally behaves differently in digital capture as well.

Donald Qualls
5-Jun-2007, 09:44
Unless someone here can give me some good reasons why I shouldn't, I am planning on shooting chrome.

If you have the equipment to develop your own B&W, there's a *really* good reason not to do your learning with chromes: cost. You can buy a 50 sheet box of Ultra 100 from Freestyle for the cost of a 10 sheet box of chromes, and process the lot for about the same cost in chemicals that you'd pay out for processing those ten chromes. To my eye, that's five times as much learning (from the camera operation standpoint -- obviously the latitude of negative film means you learn a little less about exposure, unless you're working at a Zone System level of detail regarding densities and such) for the same money.

Now, if your budget is such that a ratio like that is meaningless to you, then carry on...

Doug Herta
5-Jun-2007, 09:44
V.I. - The unforgiving nature of slide film will probably help you to determine if your metering scheme is going to give you accurate exposure information. Yes, B&W and color negative are more forgiving, but it is nice to have fairly immediate feedback about whether you are going about exposure correctly. I work a few blocks from Ivey, let me know if you need some film boxes and I can hand them off.

village idiot
5-Jun-2007, 09:57
Doug, I PM'd you.

r.e.
5-Jun-2007, 10:22
Hi,

What do you want as an end product, given that you are going to scan on what you describe as a "crappy" scanner: transparencies that you can view on a light table, prints that you will make from the scans or digital images that you will view on a computer screen? Or do you want to try all three?

If you are doing this for fun, my suggestion is that you experiment. Try some colour reversal film, try some colour negative film, try some black and white film. There's no reason, at the outset anyway, to turn this into some kind of rigorous discipline. It's not like you have to pass some kind of exam in 12 months. That said, I think that transparencies and a small light table make a lot of sense if you don't want to pay for prints and don't have a good quality scanner and printer to make your own prints. On the other hand, if you want prints, and can afford to pay for them or are set up to do them yourself, there is a lot to be said for negative film.

The other thing that I'd suggest, if you can afford it, is to buy a light meter that takes incident and reflected readings and leave the digital camera at home. Using a digital camera as a light meter works, but compared to using a dedicated meter, it is a nuisance, and you are likely to learn a lot more from using the latter.

Ron Marshall
5-Jun-2007, 12:32
You don't need much to process b/w film: a daylight tank, developer, fix, thermometer. Chemicals would be around $0.15 per sheet and you can buy a used tank for less than $50.

I'm not trying to push you into b/w, I just want to make it clear that it is not difficult to process b/w.

village idiot
5-Jun-2007, 12:40
Donald, Nice job, throw logic and budget into the mix...:) Eventually I think I will process my own film, but for now, I'm trying to not bite off more than I can chew.

Oren, yes, the first LF photos compared to the digital captures will, I hope, give me a sense of how to compensate for what I see in my histogram, vs what I can expect from my film. This is going to be interesting!

village idiot
5-Jun-2007, 12:48
Dang, hit the "send" before I was through.

r.e.,

All three. I would like to get a nice scanner, but right now I'm reeling a little from gearing up with camera hardware, so the scanner will have to wait a while, hence having to use the old HP. Part of the hardware expenditures was a Sekonic L328.

Ron, let me get my first "sticker shock" from Ivey on processing, then I'll probably be back here with questions about developing/printing gear.:o

Donald Qualls
5-Jun-2007, 15:36
If you can handle loading 4x5 film holders, developing your own B&W film is a piece of cake. I *would* recommend learning with 35 mm or 120, if only because it'll be easier to find equipment designed specifically for those formats and you can very easily find folks who already do those and can help -- OTOH, for $4 you can get food storage containers that will serve nicely as 4x5 trays (or, for about $15 including shipping, you can get a set of real plastic 5x7 trays from U S Plastics); weatherstrip to light seal a bathroom door will cost about another $6, and I made the shield I slip into my bathroom window from a full sheet of black-core foamcore board, some strips of black matt board, and some black masking tape, for a total outlay of about $11. Kitchen measuring cups (suitably marked, of course, to ensure they don't wind up getting used to measure milk or salad oil after they've been used for developer and fixer) make quite passable graduates, and I store my mixed developers in old pickle jars and water bottles (again, suitably marked, and there are never children in my house).

For whatever it's worth, I learned to develop film at summer camp, at age 9, and did my first unsupervised roll the next summer -- from mixing the developer, stop bath, and fixer (Kodak Tri-Chem Packs were discontinued, but I got some at a yard sale along with the developing tank), to improvising a dark enough area to load the film, to processing, leaving me with a roll of beautiful 620 negatives that I then had no way to print, store, or (in 1970) scan... :p Developing is *so* easy, it's tempting to suggest it's worth learning that before you worry too much about exposure and focus...

fhovie
5-Jun-2007, 23:30
knowing what I know now - if I was starting all over - with a camera that shoots sheet film:
I would limit myself to B&W
I would have film for shooting crap (only one box) - as cheap as possible - just to learn the stupid stuff - like loading film holders and loading Jobo reels ... etc (you have a Jobo reel, right?) .... Psssst - that is the hot tip ---- ok? http://www.bhphotovideo.com
I would have film that I will make art with (why else would you not use a digigizmo?)

The art film is FP4 - or - TRI-X - or both.

TRI-X can suck up 12 stops of dynamic range with the right processing. It can be pushed to ASA6400 (1600 very well) It is a very hard to screw up film.

FP4 makes low contrast scenes snappy and at an enlargement of 30x40 it is still grainless. Like wow! also - with stand processing - you can make 8 stops or more really sing! (rapidly becoming my main sheet film - TRI-X becoming my main roll film)

Unless you have a rich uncle, stick with m o n o c h r o m e.

Besides, all your friends will say, "OOOOOO cool, black and white, I love black and white." and they won't say, "wow man, did you git ur camera at Walmart, like I did?"

Color is for guys that live in Lone Pine, CA (Mt. Whitney area) and have a gallery to sell big prints for tourists. B&W lets you dress in black, with black cowboy boots and wear a red beret. THAT! is a big benefit!

Oh yea, .... If you have the stones to shoot B&W, have the stones to mix your own chemistry. It ain't rocket science - heck, nearly everyone reading my dribble here mixes their own chems. So if ya got fears, git over um! Photoformulary (if they fixed their link) or art craft or something. There are a ton of great recipes on the net - My fav is Pyrocat-P ... either semi-stand or regular processing, it is great stuff. AND CHEAP. ... Did I say CHEAP. yep.

So - do it - or don't do it. But Geeze - a Technika! better just do it. Build a dark room ok? you got a closet? right? man - you must start somewhere. Then someday, you can come out of the closet. - I just did - my kids moved out and I converted a bedroom to a darkroom - no more closet! very cool. OK - now you heard the straight scoop - not politically correct, but until you get an 8x10 camera, it is the best I can give you. And I had the guts to give it to you straight here and now. A real rarity for me.

Ron Marshall
6-Jun-2007, 08:35
You don't even need a darkroom, just get a daylight tank, such as a Combi-plan.

village idiot
6-Jun-2007, 09:49
OK, I see it all clearly now.... I have joined the Support Group From Hell!!!:)

I come into this forum to inquire as to what film I should use, as I am planning on having my processing done for me, and the assembled LF brain trust instead proceeds to find new and exciting ways for me to remodel my house and spend more money!;) :D

Well, as it turns out, the decision will have to be postponed for a while, as my Technika arrived yesterday in pieces.... (See thread in Cameras and camera accessories)

Instead of shooting any film this weekend, I will be starting over in the search for a camera. ( Suggestion to Mods- please upgrade "smilies" to include one getting drunk on tequila, it would have come in handy at the end of this post...)

But seriously, thank you all for your considered and thoughtful input.

Scott Davis
6-Jun-2007, 10:55
for a replacement camera, go call Badger Graphic or View Camera Store and get yourself a Shen-Hao HZX 45 AT II (aka "the Shen Hao"). Terrific little camera, tons of movements, and dirt cheap for a new LF camera. Also, extremely solid and very durable. Spend a few extra $$ and get two add-ons/upgrades - the bag bellows and a Canham ground-glass/fresnel set to replace the factory ground glass. Oh, and have them ship it to you FedEx instead :D.

Mike Davis
6-Jun-2007, 11:57
for a replacement camera, go call Badger Graphic or View Camera Store and get yourself a Shen-Hao HZX 45 AT II (aka "the Shen Hao"). Terrific little camera, tons of movements, and dirt cheap for a new LF camera. Also, extremely solid and very durable. Spend a few extra $$ and get two add-ons/upgrades - the bag bellows and a Canham ground-glass/fresnel set to replace the factory ground glass. Oh, and have them ship it to you FedEx instead :D.


I agree with Scott. The Shen-Hoa is a good choice for a 4x5 field camera. I don't know about the Canham Fresnel, but I really like the Satin Snow glass. I also haven't found a need for the Bag bellows at least not with my shortest lens (a 90mm Fuji).

The one flaw in the Shen Hoa is the bellows length. There are workarounds, but you are limited to non-telephoto lenses in the 300mm range. In addition, for Macro, I suggest a 135 rather than a 150 as a normal.

My lens kit for the Shen-Hoa is the Fuji 90mm, a Nikon 135mm, and a Schneider 210mm.


Mike

Scott Davis
6-Jun-2007, 13:24
The Canham Fresnel/glass set is about a whole stop brighter than a Satin Snow - the Satin Snow's are very nice, indeed, but they're not as bright as a fresnel, and there's also about a three month backlog on orders the last I heard.

Yes, you're right about the long lens limitation - but the solution for that is if you need something longer than 300mm, get a true telephoto lens. While the teles don't allow as much movement (reduced image circle, nodal point being not located at the lens' physical center), I found I hardly ever used movements beyond a bit of rise or shift with my 300T Fujinon, so it was not really an issue. You can get by with the 90 on a flat board on the Shen Hao and the standard bellows, but if you want anything wider, and plan to use movements, the bag bellows are a must have. I like them even with my 90, because I'm more likely to use movements with my 90, and the standard bellows binds up when shifting/rising/swinging.

fhovie
6-Jun-2007, 22:39
Man! what a setback! I am so sorry to hear about your camera. .... now ... about redesigning your house ...

John Berry
6-Jun-2007, 23:38
My vote would go for Provia. The color looks more natural for landscapes. Since the exposure tolerance of chrome is a lot tighter than B&W, it will pay dividends when you start B&W. I live in Renton. If you would like to get together sometime let me know and I will PM you contact info.