Analog Photography

[Painthappy]

Who else is into Analog photography? This has been my passion for the past year or two and has absorbed me completely as of late. I've been snatching up old film cameras and using them, trying out new film types (iso and companies) to see what I prefer and I've been developing, scanning, and editing my photos.

I prefer color but recently moved to black and white to give it a try and enjoy the simplicity of it.

Can't say I'm an expert by any means, but I've hit all the stumbles and finally found my groove so if anyone has any questions on it, I'm happy to help.

Some shots I took last year:





The three above were from our trip in Antigua this last fall.





This duck kept visiting my boat this past summer... We of course fed it and it would in turn hang out with us.




I have tons more, but they are all on Flickr. I'll try posting more about the 35mm and 120mm that I've been doing in case anyone else is interested or wants to know how.

[fullofpaint]

Been shooting a little of 35mm here and there the last few years. The camera was cheap and can use all my regular Canon lenses. Though it'd force me to shoot more, but not really haha.

Hard to find color film right now unfortunately.

Think this was with FPP Retrochrome:





Porta 160:
The Man, the Myth, the Legend, Bacci Paintball


Lomo 100:


UltraMax400:



Not sure, maybe Ultramax?:


Lab didn't label which rolls were which in these, but I think it's either Ektar 100 or Ektachrome 100:

[nak81783]

Cool! Nice work guys.

[Cunha]

I shoot a lot of instax wide with a fujifilm 500af.

I didn’t grow up with Polaroid but being forced to live with the photos seems to work. I dunno.

[chrislognshot]

nice. just wait in till you see my 4K and 8K videos and my Z9 resolution size files of 8256 x 5504. will have to use flickr to post since do not want to downgrade low resolution or crop photo to make it fit. do to fact photos are now 8256 x 5504 in size

[Grendel]

I love film but never enjoyed the photograph taking side of the hobby instead I always enjoyed the dark room work [in particular black/white film]. When I was learning photography in school and after, I was always amazed how much can be done with a photographs in the dark room. I developed a pretty good reputation at one time for taking poorly exposed negatives and being able to pull good looking photos out of them. "Photoshop" with chemicals , light and processes was huge fun for me and I miss the hobby some times but it was not worth keeping up with the equipment and chemicals once digital caught on.

Carter it looks like your cameras could use a good professional cleaning or you were using some pretty vintage film

[cellophane]

Who else is into Analog photography? This has been my passion for the past year or two and has absorbed me completely as of late. I've been snatching up old film cameras and using them, trying out new film types (iso and companies) to see what I prefer and I've been developing, scanning, and editing my photos.

Are you developing your own? If so that is awesome! I've done it once and it was pretty cool, but that was years ago.

[Painthappy]

Are you developing your own? If so that is awesome! I've done it once and it was pretty cool, but that was years ago.

Yes. Actually that's how all this started for me. I wanted to know and understand how to develop my own film. I've always been an amateur photographer and loved taking photos, but didn't know how to process film. Well, that's led me to now own 10 or so film cameras and I can develop both black and white photos and color photos.

I then scan the negatives in on an Epson V600 scanner. Adjust the colors as needed in Lightroom (sometimes the scan "tint" is off) and now I have a digital photo... Just the hard way. Something satisfying about doing it that way though!

[Grendel]

So you are developing the film into negatives only? That is pretty easy to do (keep fresh chemicals and equipment super clean) and not too much expense where a dark room hobby gets complicated/expensive is taking the negatives and doing prints along with any touchup/corrections. While I enjoyed doing prints, I think at this point I would go a similar route that you are taking so you can leverage Photoshop/Lightroom.

So what I thought was dust in your camera could also be floaties and debris in you developer chemical or in the developer can or reels.

[cellophane]

That's Awesome!

[Painthappy]

Some new ones...



I'm developing the negatives and learning how to better develop them so I get better quality scans with less grain. I scan the negatives in with an Epson V600 scanner.

[XEMON]

do you develop the film yourself?
Ive done B&W, but never had the setup to develop color in house ...
What enlarger are you using?

[Chuck E Ducky]

Puppies!

[Painthappy]

XEMON sorry I missed your question so long ago... Yes, I develop everything myself. I have an enlarger that I use to put on paper for my black and white, but have never done color. These are all scanned in on my Epson v600 scanning bed by the film. I did recently enlarge my first photograph. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be (learning from scratch I suppose) plus I had the wrong bins for the paper development (they were too shallow and I made an awful mess)

[ThePunslinger]

I shoot full time though mostly video these days. Always wanted to shoot paintball but only got to play so often, so said you know what why not put the old analog camera to use. So now I run with a pentax K1000 and a random lens every time I go play as a sidearm. I try to only take photos when I'm a live player for the added extra challenge and its been fun. Here's a few shots, BW is Ilford HP5 Plus and I want to say the color was Portra 400. I currently have a lab develop it and I scan it but thinking of building a small portable development kit to develop and scan in the evenings at these events.

[Painthappy]

Got back from bike week and took these with my camera - in color. I feel like I'm finally perfecting Lightroom for the color adjustments post film scanner. The best news is, there was zero dust removal in post. I won't say you can't find one or two specks, but I didn't do any! Very exciting. My process is becoming cleaner.

My goal is to take film shots but have them so they are not obviously film to the untrained eye. Not there yet but getting better with each roll I take.


Last picture is of my bike


Info is as follows:

Camera: Nikon FM2
Lens: 50mm
Film: Kodak 400 Ultra
ISO: 400
Lightmeter: Camera either spot on, or half stop above.
Developed at home using C-41 at 102* for 3.5 minutes
Gently squeegee the film with fingers (I almost never do this for fear of scratching the film)
Scanned with Epson v600 the next day
Color correction in lightroom - mostly to fix the tint

[fullofpaint]

Nice shots! I let a lab do all my processing so can't comment too much but the scans look good! Think you could go a bit darker on the contrast unless that's the look you're going for.

Going to Formula E in Portland this weekend and armed with a bunch of film, so hopefully will have some new stuff to post in a few weeks.

[Painthappy]

Nice shots! I let a lab do all my processing so can't comment too much but the scans look good! Think you could go a bit darker on the contrast unless that's the look you're going for.

Going to Formula E in Portland this weekend and armed with a bunch of film, so hopefully will have some new stuff to post in a few weeks.

Took your advice. Good call. I was paying so much attention to the shadows and detail there that I wasn't noticing how flat I was making it. Wasn't that far off, but as soon as I upped the contrast another +15 that seemed perfect. I also dropped the shadows a tiny bit.



Here it is with the added contrast.

I took one of your photos for giggles and ran it through also




I'm still working on it, and of course one custom program doesn't work for every photo. Some photos of mine are still you yellow/green in color so I need to adjust on the fly. And then again some are just too dark if my F stop is too high and there isn't enough light. But I feel like I'm getting closer to what I want as my "style".

[Painthappy]

Welp, that's it... I love this film. Ektar 100 - and pushed to +1 stop



I think this will be my goto film eventually. I only say that as I have a ton of film to burn through, but damn... I love it. Was taken on a Canon 7 Rangefinder, 50mm lens at 200 iso on f5.6

[fullofpaint]

Ektar is great! Just shot a bunch of it at Formula E this weekend. That and Ektachrome are my favs that are still easily bought.

If you like those landscape portraits you should try Fuji's Velvia 50. Tends a little reddish but makes for great landscape stock.

That higher contrasts def works better for the 400 Max. Never really cared for that film myself, everything I shoot with it feels like an old disposable camera. Great for the nostalgic look but not my thing really.