Tales on Film

I realize that some of you are anxiously waiting, like the guys above, to see a new post over here. As I said before, it are very busy times for me at the moment and I can’t really find the time to research interesting things and write a piece about them.

The purpose of this blog has always been and will stay for me, to share interesting stuff about film photography together with some guest authors. Next to an apology, this is also a call to all of you. I would be very glad if some of you would send me some interesting things about film photography or even some articles. I promise that every article I receive will be posted to the blog. Also if you have multiple things to tell, don’t hesitate to ask me for a writers account on here. I will be very glad to give you one.

Let’s keep film alive and keep on shooting tales on film, but I need some help.

The last days, there are a lot of articles in the news concerning the stock of Kodak. Investors have lost faith in the company that started the photography for the masses about 131 years ago, the stocks has plummet about 85 procent in the last week and if we look further back, the stock of Kodak has gone down from 80,25 points in 1997 to 1,33 today. That accounts for a loss of 99,5% in the last 15 years.

Most of you know the timeline of Kodak, George eastman Kodak invented the roll film and marketed with the now famous line: “You press the button, we do the rest.” Since then the company became the biggest camera and film producer in the world. In 1975 an engineer from Kodak invented the digital camera. But Kodak only got in the digital business around 2000, that was a capital mistake and that’s where the big decline of the stock began.

If Kodak would go bankrupt, I would guess they will not disappear, but they’ll downsize. I don’t know what they are going to downsize, but I don’t think they will drop the film line. Kodak still makes a lot of film for motion pictures and they just released several new films in the last year. That’s a clear indication that there still is hope for the color films produced by Kodak. I would guess that they are probably going to kill of the black and white film, because there hasn’t been a new film in a while and they have been dropping b/w films consistently lately.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but I rather certain that kodak won’t go down without a fight…

After upgrading my mac to the new Lion (the newest mac os x), I had to stop using Silverfast, the scanning software I had been using until then. I know it’s not the easiest software to work with and the results are average. But after a long battle the first few times I used the software, I spent so much time with the settings that it just felt wrong to abandon it.

So this week I was forced to go look for some other software, but there aren’t a lot of options around, basically you have the option to go for the software provided by the manufacturer or you can go for vuescan. Most of the time the manufacturers software is very bad for doing a great job at scanning negatives. So for the moment I was only left with the option of going for vuescan. I was quite excited to find out that almost everything I found on the web about vuescan, sang it’s praise.

However great was my surprise that although I’m not a newbie on using computers, it took me about 4 rolls of film and several hours, even a couple of days, to find out how I can scan a roll with consistent colors and the same settings for every frame. This got me thinking, why is every piece of software for scanning negatives so hard to learn.

I mean we can make cameras that can focus on an eye from about 20 metres away, but it’s apparently very hard to get a scanner to figure out where every frame starts and stops. We also make software that can do about anything with a photo (hello there, photoshop) but it’s not possible to make software that can detect if the film is black and white or even color. Take the image above for example, I could clearly see on the negative that there was a heavy green color cast due to the light of the “Haunted House” attraction, but however I tried to scan it, it would always come out almost normal. No color cost, no bright colors, while the negative has very pronounced colors. It took me about an hour to get just this one frame right in the scanner and even then I had do to a lot of adjustment in post to get it as good looking as the negative was. How is that possible in this day and age.

Let’s also not forget all the option that have names nobody understands, a user interface that hard you can’t even figure out how you can select multiple frames to scan in batch. A wizard that pretends to make it easy to scan, but fails to deliver even a single frame with the correct crop. Do we still live in the 90′s, even then, it was easier to scan, you just pushed a button and hoped for the best.

So this a call to every scanner manufacturer and scan software producent. Please make the programs smarter, most of the people that I know, don’t want a scanner or software that can perfectly see the gamma rays of a film, we just want a scanner that does the best job at putting the scan as close as possible to whatever is on the negative and with as little as possible effort from the photographer. That’s why most of us shoot film, we choose the different films for there different effects, not for what we can do with them afterwards, if that were the case, I would stay shooting digital and not bother shooting film.

Everybody involved in making the soft- and hardware for scanning, repeat after me: “LEAVE THE BELLS AND WHISTLES OUT, JUST GET IT RIGHT!!!!“

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments, I’m wondering if my thinking is right.

Sorry if anybody feels upset by this rant, but after spending again 4 hours to scan one roll and still not having the scan completely fixed, I had to write something about it.

This camera is a legend in its own right, famed for its use by journalists covering Vietnam, Cambodia and the general disquiet of the 1960s and 70s. Probably the most famous user was Don McCullin whose Nikon F suffered a direct hit whilst he was covering Cambodia. It probably saved his life and is a testament to the build quality of the camera.

I’ve been after one for a while, specifically a black one, which adds a premium if you want one in usable condition. It was worth it for me, as the black version allows a certain degree of discretion that is needed for documentary work that the chrome variant just doesn’t have. However, if you want your own Nikon F, the chrome version is absolutely identical mechanically and you can get them far cheaper, with a standard prism.
So I realised the other day I had a respectable amount of money in my account and took the plunge. I decided to go for a kit which had a body, 50mm f2 (I needed a manual 50mm) and the Photomic FTn finder. The whole thing cost £206.99 including postage.

Ergonomically, for me it is a goddess of comfortable form. I’m not going to say that it’s for everyone, as we all have very different sized hands and digits, but for me everything is in the right place. The only problem I have is that the photomic head adds an extension to the shutter speed wheel, which means it’s 25mm above where it normally is. Nonetheless, it’s still a pleasure to use.

Mine is a late model, so it has a few little features which affect the ergonomics that the earlier models don’t have. Later models have (slightly) more space on the top plate to accommodate the Photomic FTn finder’s larger bulk. Also, the advance lever has a plastic tip over the steel which is designed to aid comfort, but stops the lever from clicking in as closely to the shutter release as in earlier models. If you are one of those that are left-eyed it’s a blessing as it stops the advance lever from stabbing you so badly in the eye and from scratching your glasses if you wear them.

Accessing the all controls is fine as a rule, the exceptions being the re-wind control and the mirror lock-up(MLU). The MLU is found on the lower left of the lens mount. If you’re not careful you can make quite a mess of your nails from this flat control, but it’s ok once you have the knack. The re-wind control is used when the film is finished and for shooting a double exposure, it is a little collar around the shutter release and you need to pull back the advance lever then twist the collar to indicate ‘advance’ or ‘rewind’. This is probably made harder with the tall photomic finder.

The FTn finder does add a lot of weight to the body, but black standard prisms are expensive, chrome versions are far cheaper. It’s huge inside, easily the widest viewfinder I’ve ever used. It has a 100% coverage, which is pretty good for a camera of its vintage. It also has a ‘data display’ which shows the exposure on a scale of dark to light and the shutter speed. You need a reasonable amount of light coming down from on top to see this clearly, especially the shutter speed indicator.

One of the useful features that made this camera popular was the interchangeable view-finder system. There was a standard un-metered prism, waist-level finder (remember, people were still getting away from the TLR mentality), large action finder and no less than four types of metered prisms (to my knowledge) of which the FTn was the latest. There were also external finders, of which more later. This allows for a great deal of flexibility when considering how to shoot, the waist-level finder could make it a brilliantly subtle street camera and so on…

The film counter does what it is supposed to, which is count the number of frames you’ve shot, but a useful feature is that you can set it to remind you how many frames your film has, 20 or 36. If you suffer from amnesia, or even just a bad memory this can be pretty helpful. It doesn’t have a feature for the 250 frame automated back though.

Another nice little feature is the shutter release button. It does several jobs, obviously it releases the shutter but you’ll also notice that it rotates when you wind on and re-wind. When it makes one full revolution it means that a frame has passed the shutter fully. What’s so good about this then? Well it allows you to accurately double-expose a frame for creative purposes and when re-winding a film it stops rotating when the tail of the film passes it, allowing you to keep the tail out of the canister. This is good because you can then stop using a film part way through and change over to a different type, then go back to the first film later. It also means that you can process your film without having to break open the canister if you want… One problem with the shutter release is that it doesn’t accept a standard mechanical shutter release without a converter, which sits inside the collar.

The self-timer and mirror lock up are located on the front panel, left hand side as you look from the front. These can be useful for landscape work as it reduces the shake causes by the mirror reflex action. The self timer has three options, 3, 6 and 10 seconds, and markings so you can gauge the time accurately.

There is no film door to open at the back, instead the whole back comes off. This allows it to be completely replaced with a variety of different backs such as the 250 frame hi-cap (see above) and the motor winders. There are two main types available, the F36 being the main one, which can achieve up to 4fps when the MLU is engaged. Obviously, you can’t see through the prism with this setup so you will need the appropriate external viewfinder to frame your shots. There are several other auto-winders with faster FPS but these need external power packs to supply them with enough energy.

In terms of metering you’ve a selection of options, either a hand-held meter or four types of metered prism. The F Photomic was the first and worked as a reflected or incident meter, depending on how you set it up. It didn’t meter through the lens.

The Photomic T came next. As it was slightly larger, at this point (1965) they slightly enlarged the top plate to accommodate it. This meter is TTL and is essentially an average metering system. The Photomic Tn was a centre-weighted 60/40 meter, this clever setup is aesthetically nearly identical to its predecessor but has a little ‘N’ behind the ‘on’ indicator. The Photomic FTn came last, but not least. It is the most popular of the metered prisms and differs in that it automatically detects the maximum aperture, allows you to see the shutter speed inside and has a lever on the front to release it when changing prisms. It is also reputably the most likely to be found not working, as is mine. This can be a fault with the electronics or mechanics.

To conclude, I love this thing. It’s not excessively big, is comfortable, subtle and provides lots of modular options for all purposes. A master of all* trades.

There will be some shots taken by the F coming soon!

I think I’ve covered everything now… here are some useful links:

An extremely useful site on the F
A rather fun page on the special versions of the F

Nikon repair manuals (I’m not responsible for you using these):
http://arcticwolfs.net/
http://arcticwolfs.net/data/servicemanuals/F.pdf
http://arcticwolfs.net/data/servicemanuals/F%20Photomic%20FTN.pdf

The Wikipedia page (which also has photos of the F250 hi-cap back)
My Nikon F

*most

A search query I see pop up a lot in the search results for this page is “Is film photography dead” or “future of film photography”. I don’t know if I’m the best person to answer this question, but I’ll give it a try.

For me film photography is definitely not dead, it has had a huge blow in popularity, that’s for sure. At the moment I have the feeling it’s growing again and we have reached a point where the latest in technology isn’t really bringing any extra possibilities to the table. Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate digital, absolutely not, it’s the way I earn my living. But digital has it’s purpose and we should look at the alternatives too. If you look at the rise of photoshop effects, apps on our phones and ways to mimic the look of different films, it’s clear that there is a need for us to look at photos differently. As we all know very well, when you take a digital photograph, if you don’t post process it a bit, they all look kind of the same. This post processing takes a lot of time and skill, a skill most people don’t want to learn or can’t be bothered to invest time in.

With film you get a certain look, feel, color, grain, … in my opinion this adds a bit of soul to a photo. I don’t mean that a bad photo on film, suddenly becomes a good photo, a bad photo is a bad photo. However film can add something extra to a good photo. It can become more realistic. Take the photo at the top of this post for example, this photo is straight out of camera, it’s was shot on a certain type of film, Kodak VPL 100 in this case. The photo is no great portrait, but it isn’t the worst shot I ever made either. But because of the look the film adds to the photo, the subject working in a vintage shop in London, looks even more as if he came straight from the sixties. If I would have taken the same shot digitally it would have been an average photo, with no soul, because it would take a lot of photoshop to have it feel as if it was taken in the sixties.

For the masses, shooting film won’t come back and I think that’s a good thing. I realise that may sound strange, but just consider that not everybody is prepared to learn the basics of photography to take photos of their family, I also don’t want to know everything there is to know about installing a toilet, yet I still use one. Now imagine that we are going back to using film for the masses, with the amount of photos taken nowadays, it would be a booming business, but there would not be better photos. Because of the instant feedback a digital camera provides, we even get better photos then before, because you can immediately see if the shot worked out or not and if not just repeat it.

However for those of us passionate about photography, we are realising that film is something we can choose for and use in collaboration with digital. Film is about making choices in advance, you choose for a certain ISO, you choose for a certain film, you choose for b/w or color and you have to stay with those choice for 8, 10, 12, 16, 24, 36 photos on that roll. All this choice also means we are more conscious about making a photo, we choose to make a photo, we no longer take photos, but we make them. In that light I like to compare film to a very sturdy rock in a the wild sea of instant decisions and ever changing situations.

Not only does it makes us think and gives emotion to a photo, film is also still superior to digital in terms of quality, for example the dynamic range of most films is still not equaled by digital sensors. As most film has a latitude of 13 stops, most digital cameras only have a latitude of 8 stops. Aside from that, as far as I know, in digital you still don’t have any affordable sensors bigger than 6 cm by 4,5 cm, while film has 6cm by 9cm and higher, for most of us that doesn’t mean a lot, until you try to print a huge print on a smooth surface from a digital file.

Also the manufactures have come to the conclusion that film is not dead, a company like Kodak even released a new film emulsions in 2010 and 2011. Let’s not forget the rise and growth of The Impossible project film to replace Polaroids film. I have to admit, lomography has played a part in the appreciation of the look and feel of the film and they are very expensive, but sometimes the goal justifies the means and let us be honest, they have some pretty cool cameras. I also do really like the look and vibe in the lomo stores, so credit where credit is due, they do a great job of getting a generation that hasn’t known film photography get in contact with it and experience the joy of it, be it through plastic toy cameras.

I think I’m going to stop my ramblings here and just let you guys tell me in the comments what you think will happen. I personally will continue to expand my travels in the land of the film photography and that’s also one of the reasons I started this blog about 100 posts ago.