I was pretty into photography some years ago. But stupidly said yes to do alot of photos for my workplace. Was fun at first, but after a while i got fed up. Doing hundred and hundreds of product photos with editing can kill a hobby.
But did some portraits for a colleague before christmas. 6 kids and 2 dogs outside in cold temperatures was a challenge. But kind of rediscovered the fun of it, and got exited about it again.
I like doing portraits, but its hard to get people to pose. hehe. My girlfriend gives me the finger as soon as i start pointing my camera in her direction.
If you buy Rodinal developer you can reuse it loads of time till it gets really soupy. Colours fun but the temperatures have to accurate else you get funny colours. Seriously dont get ripped off by sending them off. It really is easy once you know how
The developing I don’t mind too much (although colour does sound trickier!). But scanning, I like high quality and feel it’s better to pay someone with a real high end scanner than fork out hundreds and hundreds for my own which I know won’t be that great. I don’t think my Nikon D600 can do the negatives thing either / I don’t have a macro lens at the moment. Plus there’s the time element… For now, part of doing film is the idea that I spend less time seeking perfect, and enjoy getting out taking the pics rather than spending more time inside in darkened rooms! I’ll get into developing at some point, just not yet.
Ps - I used to always want an FE but could never afford it !!! I used to use an FG quite a bit as my main caving camera - it was pretty much indestructible - on one caving expedition we hitched a ride in a truck and the camera was in the top pocket of my rucksack - it came out and bounced around the back of the truck for a few hours ! It still worked fine - bit scratched after though and I still used it for years afterwards !
I’m almost exclusively a landscape photographer, though I enjoy perusing all genres of it. There are some fantastic examples of photography work here! Well done all!
I teeter between photography and music, but find as I grow in each, it helps growth in the other. Recently, I’ve had two photography shows in different galleries back-to-back and got burned out on photography and dug back into music for a while.
As for camera gear - I photograph almost exclusively with prime lenses. My primary is Sony A7RIII with Loxia 21mm f/2.8, Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2, Voigtlander 65mm f/2.0 and Zeiss Batis 135mm f/2.8.
I prefer shooting film, but it’s a lot heavier and I usually hike for miles at altitude, so weight is already a concern. I also grow to despise dust on either negatives of scans, so the process of getting a print of the film images is much more of a pain. I’ve got a Pentax K1000, Pentax 67, Holga, Yashica EM TLR and Chamonix F2 4x5. I develop all my film, stick primarily to black and white for film and then “scan” by photographing the negatives on a light table with my Sony and 90mm macro lens.
I also delve into print making and alternative prints such as cyanotypes, Van Dyke Brown, Salt and Gum prints when I have time.
I really love landscape as well - there’s something about waiting for the light for hours and then panicing for the 5s that it’s ok !!! I still love using filters as well - still use them on digital a lot (although only ND grads, polarisers and high factor NDs now). Not sure I could ever go back to film nowadays - I miss it sometimes - I can remember on dives rushing back to the surface and changing film multiple times on a dive… (and the excitement of waiting for the rolls of film to come back, checking on the light box and then mounting the ok slides was a great feeling…)
I used to live up in the mountains. So nature is something I’ve liked to photograph. Here is some Musk ox pics I did some years ago. All with some vintage manual lenses I bought cheap since I couldn’t afford modern lenses. Was a bit funny as the people I went with had expensive canon and Nikon 500mm F4’s. They warned me that I would have a hard time with my manual lenses. But when we left they all had struggled with autofocus. Hehe.
I was just thinking that I needed to search for a photography thread and this shows up on the front page! I have a Konica T4 that was my dad’s when he was in his 20s that I ended up with at some point. I shot a lot of trippy long exposure stuff on it in my 20s, the internal light meter takes a battery that isn’t made anymore so I was always just winging it for more traditional shooting. I got a bunch of film for Christmas tho so I decided to download a light meter app on my phone and try to do some more traditional stuff with it.
I got into shooting polaroids last year and would love to be shooting a lot more of it but it is pricey. This is something I shot last fall that I’m really still in love with.
Ive worked in photographic studios and darkrooms as a technician. If you know how to scan properly you wont hardly see any difference unless your blowing up poster size prints. Smaller resolutions its negligible. Ive used the high end scanners you mention as a technician and we lower the resolution to give smaller tiff sizes. Because we knew nobody wants 600mb size files unless requested.
Plustek
Canoscan
Nikon Coolscan.
Even digital with a 50mm lens can give exceptional results.
If your in it for the long term this is the way to go.
For 35mm it makes no sense to pay a fortune for scans. Medium format maybe(although i did my own with no problems). Its only in large format that problems creep in.
If your just having a bit of fun with a few expired rolls of Portra or kodachrome then send them off as theres no point.
I’ve still got a Coolscan - I’m really happy with the results - I’ve finally finished scanning my slide collection as well !
I think it’s worth doing it yourself as you do need to fiddle with settings on a per slide basis for best results - the optics on the older scanners are great but they also had more limited dynamic range. For selected slides I would often scan several times and composit HDR manually.
Sadly I no longer have an enlarger and developing kit - I stopped all that once digital became good quality… but I do miss it sometimes…
