7 ms·

Really loved my 500CM / Planar 80mm and DIY B&W at home but 3rd party developing & scanning medium-format have become so expensive that it forced me to abandon

by marban 7y ago

Really loved my 500CM / Planar 80mm and DIY B&W at home but 3rd party developing & scanning medium-format have become so expensive that it forced me to abandon this meditative hobby. Wish someone could take a stab and find a solution to make it affordable again.

jacobush 7y ago
If you forego scanning and make paper prints, OR put up with so-so scanning quality, it can be made cheap at home. Edit - a bonus with making paper prints (with an enlarger, I should also clarify) a side benefit is that photographic prints scan pretty well in ordinary documents scanners!
- acomjean 7y ago
  The college paper I worked at had a darkroom and upon graduation I had a home darkroom for 4 years, stuffed into various apartment closets. Honestly it’s kinda of a pain, there is the enlarger (not cheap), the timer, chemicals (the fixer I think was somewhat nasty). Then you look at the prints after they’ve dried and you notice the dust spots. Not to mention the fact that the negative contains more dynamic range than the print, so often your dodging and burning the image to adjust. Though I miss the magic of a photo appearing on a piece of paper when printing, I kinda don’t miss a lot about the process.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    After college darkrooms, I briefly setup my old home darkroom in a downstairs half-bath. It just wasn't worth it and, to tell the truth, I was probably a bit burned out on photography at that point. I continued to shoot slides on trips but it wasn't until I got into digital photography that I really fully got back into it.
    - mauvehaus 7y ago
      The best part of shooting transparencies is not being tempted to pull "one more print" to fix something you missed in the last 6 prints :-P
      - jacobush 7y ago
        Yep. Like shooting JPEG (instead of RAW) in your digital camera.
o10449366 7y ago
Developing at home (even color) is easy, especially if you have a sous vide machine to maintain temperature. Scanning 120 is also easier than 35mm because the larger negative means you can actually get away with using something like an Epson flatbed (whereas with 35mm if you want decent quality you need a dedicated scanner). Film is really fairly affordable for a hobby if you don't outsource development and scanning to 3rd parties.
- kohnicholas 7y ago
  An alternative to “scanning” your 120 negs is to use a light-table (or a large enough lcd screen showing an all white image) and taking a digital photograph of it. once you’ve captured the negative digitally, you can use editing apps to flip the curve to obtain a photo positive.
  - xuki 7y ago
    This works for 35mm but for 120 film you need to capture multiple times and stitch them.
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      Not at all. Depends on your setup but it is absolutely possible to take 120 negs in picture in one shot.
  - gsich 7y ago
    Flipping the curve is not enough for orange-brown coated negatives. Doesn't apply if you want a blueish/cyan looking picture.
- mauvehaus 7y ago
  Developing at home also means you have to shoot enough film to get through your chemistry while it's still fresh. Not to mention figuring out disposal for your spent chemicals. I found that those things mostly just stressed me out. I'd be much happier paying a hundred bucks a month for access to a darkroom where I didn't have to worry about those things and could just enjoy the process of developing and printing. I've never been more than a casual photographer, so figuring out how to run a darkroom by myself and how to make enough use of it to be worth my while were too big a hump to get myself over. I love the magic of watching prints develop and even the smell of a darkroom, but truth be told, getting a full-frame digital camera recently (a Sony a7ii) that I can put my old lenses (screw mount Takumars and Pentax M primes, one Pentax A zoom) on has done more to rekindle the joy in photography for me than anything. The Takumars, in particular, are maybe the most beautifully made things I own. Oh my god, the knurling of the focus and aperture rings is unbelievable. The action of the focus helicoid is divine. We will never see lenses made the likes of them again because the machining costs alone would probably double the price of the lenses and the beautiful action of the focus helicoid is probably completely at odds with fast autofocus. I will concede that from an optics and coatings standpoint, the world has moved on in the last 50 years. And obviously autofocus is a thing now. But I'm not a good enough photographer to be hitting the limits of my lenses, and for me part of the joy is the way they feel in my hands.
i_am_proteus 7y ago
If you have a digital camera (SLR or mirrorless), which most people who shoot film do, you also have an excellent scanner. I scan 35mm, 120, and 4x5 with a DSLR, inverted tripod, and macro lens. The results are better than any flatbed scanner. Use a rocket or canned air to keep the dust off, and a sheet of anti-newton glass to keep the film flat and focused while scanning. Developing B&W at home is economical if you use a shelf-stable developer (I like Kodak HC-110, a half-open bottle keeps for years) and fixer (Ilford Rapid). Per-roll developing cost is between 50¢ and $1. I shoot a few rolls and throw them in a big Paterson tank. Two rolls of film take 30 min to develop and 15 min to scan. Not much longer than the time to drive round trip to the photo lab. No darkroom necessary- I load film in a dark bag. Post-process the scans in Lightroom or Darktable. Batch-processing means it's pretty fast. If I want to make prints, either I send out the digital positive to ProDPI or I rent time at the community darkroom.
- gsich 7y ago
  I use Negative Lab Pro and a Nikon ES-2. The time saving is immense.
- wl 7y ago
  I recently made a 60"x48" print from a 4x5 negative scanned with a Epson V700 scanner. You're simply not going to get that kind of resolution with a DSLR. I don't doubt you get good results with your setup, but your statement that "the results are better than any flatbed scanner" is nonsense.
  - i_am_proteus 7y ago
    I will counter that my statement is non-nonsense: I stitch multiple "full frame" shots for formats larger than 35mm.
  - gsich 7y ago
    For film negatives this scanner will get about 2300 dpi according to [0]. A DSLR with 24 megapixel will get the ~4000 dpi form a 35mm negative in a fraction of the time. A 4x5" negative takes 33 minutes to scan with 2400 dpi. In this time I can make several photos and stitch them together do some spot removal and will get a better quality. [0] https://www.filmscanner.info/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html https://www.filmscanner.info/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html
leejo 7y ago
Here are some figures off the top of my head, as a user of Hasselblad V (film) systems for approaching 15 years. All the work on my site (link in "about" page) is shot with Hasselblad film cameras. Mostly with the 6x6 V cameras. A top spec Epson flatbed+negative scanner will cost you in the region of $500. This will allow you to scan medium format film at a quality more than adequate for web stuff and also for printing up to 50x50cm. Film costs are now in the region of $7 per roll for quality B&W and $15 per roll for quality colour. That's good stuff by the likes of Ilford and Kodak. Development of B&W is trivial to do at home, and will cost you around $3 per roll. You can economise by reusing chemicals or by doubling up (two rolls in a tank for example) to bring this down to $1 per roll. Chemicals will last in the region of one year if stored in air tight light proof containers. Development of colour is slightly more involved but can still be done for around $5 per roll. Printing is where the expense comes at you. Depending on paper, sizes, inks, etc, this can set you back anything from $5 per print for a cheap mass-market lab style print for 20x20cm, to $30 if the inks/paper are better. All in all I don't think it's that much more expensive than using a digital camera. You shoot less, you shoot different photos, you see different things. I average around 50 rolls per year through my Hasselblad. FWIW I wrote about my experiences with Hasselblad cameras a couple of years ago : https://leejo.github.io/2017/03/08/ten_years_with_a_hasselblad/ https://leejo.github.io/2017/03/08/ten_years_with_a_hasselbl...
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  Thanks for writing that so candidly, I learned a lot (I shoot full frame almost exclusively these days).
- jiggliemon 7y ago
  I think skate photographers got early exposure medium format and to the Hasselblad brand itself. Growing up watching Atiba and Blabac creeping into video frames with their Zeiss 30’s – and all the square framed iconic shots made the hassy almost requisite. It looks like you cut your teeth a little bit later than my generation. When we were shooting, digital was just dawning, and all of us couldn’t wait to stop paying for film and processing. I was talking to Grant not long ago, and he said Transworld spent about 400k on film servicing. We hated film servicing so much that we even settled for the sub-par digital bodies (1D anyone?) with no steroid crops. Anyhow - ever since I bought digital, I couldn’t ever understand the desire to shoot film. It’s only very recently that I’ve had the desire to get a 645 film camera (with optional digital back) – I’m rambling. Great shots. Always happy to see a new skate photographer.

by marban 7y ago

jacobush 7y ago

If you forego scanning and make paper prints, OR put up with so-so scanning quality, it can be made cheap at home. Edit - a bonus with making paper prints (with an enlarger, I should also clarify) a side benefit is that photographic prints scan pretty well in ordinary documents scanners!

acomjean 7y ago
The college paper I worked at had a darkroom and upon graduation I had a home darkroom for 4 years, stuffed into various apartment closets. Honestly it’s kinda of a pain, there is the enlarger (not cheap), the timer, chemicals (the fixer I think was somewhat nasty). Then you look at the prints after they’ve dried and you notice the dust spots. Not to mention the fact that the negative contains more dynamic range than the print, so often your dodging and burning the image to adjust. Though I miss the magic of a photo appearing on a piece of paper when printing, I kinda don’t miss a lot about the process.
- ghaff 7y ago
  After college darkrooms, I briefly setup my old home darkroom in a downstairs half-bath. It just wasn't worth it and, to tell the truth, I was probably a bit burned out on photography at that point. I continued to shoot slides on trips but it wasn't until I got into digital photography that I really fully got back into it.
  - mauvehaus 7y ago
    The best part of shooting transparencies is not being tempted to pull "one more print" to fix something you missed in the last 6 prints :-P
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Yep. Like shooting JPEG (instead of RAW) in your digital camera.

o10449366 7y ago

Developing at home (even color) is easy, especially if you have a sous vide machine to maintain temperature. Scanning 120 is also easier than 35mm because the larger negative means you can actually get away with using something like an Epson flatbed (whereas with 35mm if you want decent quality you need a dedicated scanner). Film is really fairly affordable for a hobby if you don't outsource development and scanning to 3rd parties.

kohnicholas 7y ago
An alternative to “scanning” your 120 negs is to use a light-table (or a large enough lcd screen showing an all white image) and taking a digital photograph of it. once you’ve captured the negative digitally, you can use editing apps to flip the curve to obtain a photo positive.
- xuki 7y ago
  This works for 35mm but for 120 film you need to capture multiple times and stitch them.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Not at all. Depends on your setup but it is absolutely possible to take 120 negs in picture in one shot.
- gsich 7y ago
  Flipping the curve is not enough for orange-brown coated negatives. Doesn't apply if you want a blueish/cyan looking picture.
mauvehaus 7y ago
Developing at home also means you have to shoot enough film to get through your chemistry while it's still fresh. Not to mention figuring out disposal for your spent chemicals. I found that those things mostly just stressed me out. I'd be much happier paying a hundred bucks a month for access to a darkroom where I didn't have to worry about those things and could just enjoy the process of developing and printing. I've never been more than a casual photographer, so figuring out how to run a darkroom by myself and how to make enough use of it to be worth my while were too big a hump to get myself over. I love the magic of watching prints develop and even the smell of a darkroom, but truth be told, getting a full-frame digital camera recently (a Sony a7ii) that I can put my old lenses (screw mount Takumars and Pentax M primes, one Pentax A zoom) on has done more to rekindle the joy in photography for me than anything. The Takumars, in particular, are maybe the most beautifully made things I own. Oh my god, the knurling of the focus and aperture rings is unbelievable. The action of the focus helicoid is divine. We will never see lenses made the likes of them again because the machining costs alone would probably double the price of the lenses and the beautiful action of the focus helicoid is probably completely at odds with fast autofocus. I will concede that from an optics and coatings standpoint, the world has moved on in the last 50 years. And obviously autofocus is a thing now. But I'm not a good enough photographer to be hitting the limits of my lenses, and for me part of the joy is the way they feel in my hands.

i_am_proteus 7y ago

If you have a digital camera (SLR or mirrorless), which most people who shoot film do, you also have an excellent scanner. I scan 35mm, 120, and 4x5 with a DSLR, inverted tripod, and macro lens. The results are better than any flatbed scanner. Use a rocket or canned air to keep the dust off, and a sheet of anti-newton glass to keep the film flat and focused while scanning. Developing B&W at home is economical if you use a shelf-stable developer (I like Kodak HC-110, a half-open bottle keeps for years) and fixer (Ilford Rapid). Per-roll developing cost is between 50¢ and $1. I shoot a few rolls and throw them in a big Paterson tank. Two rolls of film take 30 min to develop and 15 min to scan. Not much longer than the time to drive round trip to the photo lab. No darkroom necessary- I load film in a dark bag. Post-process the scans in Lightroom or Darktable. Batch-processing means it's pretty fast. If I want to make prints, either I send out the digital positive to ProDPI or I rent time at the community darkroom.

gsich 7y ago
I use Negative Lab Pro and a Nikon ES-2. The time saving is immense.
wl 7y ago
I recently made a 60"x48" print from a 4x5 negative scanned with a Epson V700 scanner. You're simply not going to get that kind of resolution with a DSLR. I don't doubt you get good results with your setup, but your statement that "the results are better than any flatbed scanner" is nonsense.
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  I will counter that my statement is non-nonsense: I stitch multiple "full frame" shots for formats larger than 35mm.
- gsich 7y ago
  For film negatives this scanner will get about 2300 dpi according to [0]. A DSLR with 24 megapixel will get the ~4000 dpi form a 35mm negative in a fraction of the time. A 4x5" negative takes 33 minutes to scan with 2400 dpi. In this time I can make several photos and stitch them together do some spot removal and will get a better quality. [0] https://www.filmscanner.info/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html https://www.filmscanner.info/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html

leejo 7y ago

Here are some figures off the top of my head, as a user of Hasselblad V (film) systems for approaching 15 years. All the work on my site (link in "about" page) is shot with Hasselblad film cameras. Mostly with the 6x6 V cameras. A top spec Epson flatbed+negative scanner will cost you in the region of $500. This will allow you to scan medium format film at a quality more than adequate for web stuff and also for printing up to 50x50cm. Film costs are now in the region of $7 per roll for quality B&W and $15 per roll for quality colour. That's good stuff by the likes of Ilford and Kodak. Development of B&W is trivial to do at home, and will cost you around $3 per roll. You can economise by reusing chemicals or by doubling up (two rolls in a tank for example) to bring this down to $1 per roll. Chemicals will last in the region of one year if stored in air tight light proof containers. Development of colour is slightly more involved but can still be done for around $5 per roll. Printing is where the expense comes at you. Depending on paper, sizes, inks, etc, this can set you back anything from $5 per print for a cheap mass-market lab style print for 20x20cm, to $30 if the inks/paper are better. All in all I don't think it's that much more expensive than using a digital camera. You shoot less, you shoot different photos, you see different things. I average around 50 rolls per year through my Hasselblad. FWIW I wrote about my experiences with Hasselblad cameras a couple of years ago : https://leejo.github.io/2017/03/08/ten_years_with_a_hasselblad/ https://leejo.github.io/2017/03/08/ten_years_with_a_hasselbl...

ComputerGuru 7y ago
Thanks for writing that so candidly, I learned a lot (I shoot full frame almost exclusively these days).
jiggliemon 7y ago
I think skate photographers got early exposure medium format and to the Hasselblad brand itself. Growing up watching Atiba and Blabac creeping into video frames with their Zeiss 30’s – and all the square framed iconic shots made the hassy almost requisite. It looks like you cut your teeth a little bit later than my generation. When we were shooting, digital was just dawning, and all of us couldn’t wait to stop paying for film and processing. I was talking to Grant not long ago, and he said Transworld spent about 400k on film servicing. We hated film servicing so much that we even settled for the sub-par digital bodies (1D anyone?) with no steroid crops. Anyhow - ever since I bought digital, I couldn’t ever understand the desire to shoot film. It’s only very recently that I’ve had the desire to get a 645 film camera (with optional digital back) – I’m rambling. Great shots. Always happy to see a new skate photographer.