The Online Photographer

Film Ordering Season Begins

Between today and June 28th, ultra large format (ULF) aficionados are special-ordering their year's supply of black-and-white film from Ilford Photo, for delivery by September.

Standard sizes of large format film are basically 4x5" and 8x10", with 5x7" sporadically available. But oddball sizes—4x10" and 7x17" panoramic, 8.5x6.5" whole plate, 11x14" and all the rest—are too rare to be stocked even by large mail-order dealers on a regular basis. So, once every year, Ilford makes its films in whatever size and quantity its customers want on a custom basis. (Some retailers do "order in" such sizes for sale throughout all or part of the coming year.)

A Shen-Hao 7x17" view camera (available new)

If you're not familiar with large format (LF), 4x5 was traditionally far and away the most popular size because 4x5 enlargers were (also by far) the most affordable, conveniently sized, and common. Now, with very few commercial uses of film left standing, contact printing is emerging as artistically just as important, even though many users still like to enlarge and 4x5 use is still widespread. Also, importantly, many alternative processes such as platinum-palladium are contact-print-only media.

(If I were starting out in LF today, I'd definitely plan to contact print.)

Worth noting is that many odd-sized large format cameras aren't standardized, so you must use the film holders specifically designed or designated for your particular camera. Don't buy an old view camera assuming you can get standard holders just anywhere (4x5, 5x7, and 8x10—at least—are all standardized).

You can read more about Ilford's program here. (Possibly a useless link, since everyone likely to order ULF film already knows all about this!)

There are several sites where the LF community is centered, mainly at the Large Format Photography Forum section of Q.T. Luong's largeformatphotography.info site. The Forum is very much worth visiting, even if only as a tourist, just to look at what people are up to. That's not to forget other sites such as the relevant sections of the Analog Photography Users Group (APUG).

Mike
(Thanks to Tom Kwas)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

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Featured Comments from:

Paul Bass (partial comment): "Completely agree regarding contact printing. I got started with 4x5 in the mid '90s, and without means for, or access to, an enlarger, I made contact prints on Azo, when you could still get it. (Still have a couple of boxes of that around...) Eventually, after learning platinum/palladium printing, and wanting a larger negative, I found a 5x7 'expansion' back that fit that Osaka/Tachihara family of LF cameras. Odd looking thing, and limited what focal lengths one could use, but I was poor, relatively, and used that setup for years with only a 210mm Rodenstock Geronar and a 120mm Angulon (in Linhof shutter!). Man, that was fun. Develop film at night in trays in the bathtub, and print the next day in the sunshine! Here's some of that work, and some of these."

Mike replies: That's very nice work Paul. I especially like numbers 3–8 in the first set. Simple yet fresh. Brightened my morning. Thanks.

Getting Back In to Get Out

A weekly column by Ctein

Last week I went back into the darkroom to start preparing for the big blowout dye transfer print sale coming up in mid-April. It's been a while. Like, um, about three years since I've made a new dye transfer print, and then another year and a half to the time before that.

Not-so-coincidently, those were the last two dye transfer sales I did on TOP.

I've printed in the interim, but it's been from existing sets of matrices. (Here's an overview of the process.) Guess what? Ya fergets stuff! Normally it would take me less than half a day to get prepped and set up to start on a new set of matrices. This time I spread it over three days. As with most "manufacturing processes" there's a lot of stuff that's never written down. I have copious, detailed technical notes, but there's all the stuff I just know because I've done it often enough. All that written documentation of mine, it's like a single recipe from The Joy of Cooking. Tells me exactly what I need to know to prepare the food...doesn't teach me how to cook.

It's a little disconcerting to find myself digging through memories to answer those "just how the heck did I do that?" questions, when the "that" is something I'd been doing pretty regularly for more than 30 years. It's different from being rusty. The manual skills are all there: the body never forgets. I just have to remember what it is I want the body to do.

I'm not doing too badly. Saturday I made the first test matrices, and my starting exposure was only a stop off in exposure and about 30 CC in color balance. Not too shabby. Still, make a note to self: craft is something you have to practice regularly to stay, well, practiced at it.

Odds are that I will forget that. Again.

The flip side is that a goal of this exercise is to get myself out of the darkroom. I'm treating everything as temporary. I found a leak under the darkroom sink. If retightening the nut on the trap hadn't stopped it, I'd've stuck a pan under the trap. Maintenance matters are all being evaluated with the question, "Will this get me through the next four months?"

Perishables
Chemical supplies, as well. I'd rather not buy anything that I'll just have to find new homes for in the summer. I've still got Tanning Developer I bought 20 years ago. I just mixed up the very last 5-gallon unit of Part A, and I'm hoping it'll carry me through the preparation for the sale.

And, about twenty-year-old powdered chemistry in Kodak paper-foil pouches? It works just fine! Mileage may differ on this; the darkroom/garage level of my house stays close to a constant 60° year-round, so it's pretty easy on chemicals.

There was the partly-used cubitainer of Tanning Developer Part A in the darkroom, mixed up at least three years ago. Surprise, surprise, still good. Keep oxygen away from that stuff and it'll last an amazingly long time.

Moral? Don't toss your chemicals without testing them. You might be pleasantly surprised. (If you can't test, do toss. Better safe than sorry.)

I realized there was some equipment I could sell right away, like my APO-Rodagon D 75mm lens (above). Great for making separations at 1:1 magnification, give or take a factor of two, but that's not something I'm ever going to do again; that was only something I did for clients who sent me chromes to be printed. Ditto my Condit 4x5 precision pin register negative carrier plus punches, contact printing frames, and spare glass inserts. There are three unopened boxes of Pan Masking Film in the freezer. Heck, I'm not going to use up the opened box. I posted all of this stuff on the dye transfer e-mail list, and I'll see who bites. 

Equipment
Some stuff I haven't quite figured out how to deal with: I have two Durst RCP 20 tabletop processors: one that's been regeared for RA4 color/ RC B&W paper processing and a second one that can provide spare parts in case the first one breaks. Given the high cost of shipping these, I may not be able to get enough for them to make it worth my while selling them. We'll see.

Then there's the stuff I'm definitely not going to part with, like my Kodak Process Type 3 thermometer. The one at left just sold on eBay for $75, and that's a bargain price. Physical reference thermometers can cost a lot more than that. Each of these puppies was individually calibrated and engraved. Kodak specifies it as accurate to within one-quarter degree Fahrenheit at certain specific temperatures (like the ever-popular 68°), where the calibration machine did its thing. In between those temperatures, it was only warranted to one-half degree. But, folks at Kodak told me that most of these thermometers were a lot better than that: at their calibration points they were good to within one-tenth of a degree Fahrenheit. I don't know if I'll ever need a temperature standard in the future, but I'd be crazy to get rid of this.

That's life in the slow lane, these days, as I slouch slowly towards the demise of the darkroom.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

Ctein's regular weekly column appears on Wednesdays on TOP.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

BrianW: "For those who don't already know, issue 11 of the Luminous Landscape Video Journal featured a 45-minute segment of Ctein in his darkroom, demonstrating the making of dye-transfer prints. There is also an interview with Ctein and a slideshow of some of him photographs. The issue is still available for paid download. (I have no affiliation to the Luminous Landscape, other than having been a subscriber to the LLVJ.)"

Gary Briechle Photographs

Gary Briechle
96 pages
Published last December by Twin Palms Press
(U.K. link )

Review by Jim Hughes

One beautiful fall day in Maine a few years ago, I found myself sitting in the Subaru. I was just staring into space, admiring the spectacular foliage and wonderfully clear light while waiting for my wife to finish shopping. Suddenly, my attention was drawn to some activity in the distance on the Village Green. I saw a bunch of young people, wearing what appeared to be typical teenage grunge, gathered around a park bench. There was, if I remember, a blanket on the ground, and a young couple, literally wrapped up in each other, peering over at a man standing behind a big wooden box on an old fashioned tripod.

Approaching dusk made it difficult to see. I crossed the street to get a closer look. The box turned out to be a view camera, probably mahogany, with a well-worn bellows and a large brass lens aimed at the couple. The man behind the camera wore a floppy fedora. He held up a hand and ducked under a black oilcloth slicker of the sort worn by local lobstermen, deftly racked the lens forward to focus, hung his hat over what I soon learned was an antique shutterless barrel lens, pulled out a large dark slide, gently lifted the hat from the lens, and counted silently as the late afternoon light inexorably faded. Finally, he hung the hat back over the lens.

After quickly reinserting the dark slide, the man stood bolt upright and sprinted toward a nearby parking area, leaping over a heavy chain link fence in the process. Walking as fast as I could, I followed him. By the time I caught up, all I could see were two legs kneeling on the pavement. The man's torso had wriggled into a small opening in what appeared to be a makeshift orange-colored tent built into the rear cargo area of a Toyota RAV4 whose rear lid was open. A few minutes later, he extricated himself. He seemed surprised to have had an audience. I introduced myself.

"Oh, I know you," he said with an affable grin. I imagine he meant that he knew my writing about photography, not surprising since he was obviously a photographer himself. His name, he said, was Gary Briechle (he spelled it for me), and he had left the rat race behind in New Jersey to settle in small town Maine a few years earlier. I understood totally, I said.

"Are you doing what I think you're doing?" I asked. "Probably," he replied, pulling out from the back of the Toyota a small white plastic tray full of really murky, and smelly, liquid. "I'm teaching myself wet plate." Wet plate collodion, to be specific, using hand cut glass plates for which he had devised a way to partition an 11x14 back into various medium format dimensions. In the tray was, indeed, a small glass negative that he rocked back and forth in his home-made solution so I could glimpse the image in the lowering light.

"It's all about the light," Briechle said. "The whole process."

"Photography is seeing. Light is beautiful. Pure. I don't like the direction photography mostly seems to be going in. So I decided to take the next step. Backward, some might say. I coat my own glass with an orthochromatic [blue sensitive] emulsion in my portable little dark tent. The reddish light inside is pretty dim at this time of day, and doesn't affect anything. Then I run over to the camera, load the wet plate, remove my shutter hat from the big old brass lens, expose by feel and growing experience, then run the plate, still wet, back to the tent, where I have very little time to develop it out. Wet plate collodion is photography at its most basic. I'm still learning. I'm having fun. It's like magic again."

I thought of William Henry Jackson setting up camp next to a stream on the top of a mountain, his huge camera, a crate full of glass plates and his portable darkroom all strapped to his trusty mule "Hypo."

It's been at least five years since I first met Gary Briechle. In the interim, he has continued to photograph the old fashioned way. His subjects mostly have been friends and family willing to sit or stand for the long exposures in dim light his process requires. He has had a book in the works for years. It is finally published, by Jack Woody of Twin Palms Publishers, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The first edition of Gary Briechle Photographs (the cover of the book says "Photographs" but the publisher lists the book simply as "Gary Briechle") was 1,500 casebound copies. List $60. There is also a limited edition of 25 copies in a clamshell box, with an original print, numbered and signed by Gary, for $800, from Twin Palms.

There are 66 superbly reproduced photographs—complete with the flaws inherent to such a hand-made process—in this handsome 10x12-inch volume. Pages are meticulously coated in lustrous black ink as if they were from an album. The images themselves are reproduced in glossy duotone on glowing white-paper rectangles framed in black. In the right light, contact prints from glass seem to float above the page. The technique is a perfect match for Briechle, who somehow transforms the picturesque outer world that surrounds him into a deeply felt interior vision. Also included at the end of the book are photocopied excerpts from the journals Gary constantly scribbles in. Although there is a brief statement by the photographer on the Twin Palms website, no written introduction, or any sort of clarification, appears in the book itself. Knowing Gary, he probably felt it was better not to explain himself, to let his pictures do the talking. But as a a writer and editor myself, I believe a little context goes a long way, which is why I felt compelled to write my own brief introduction. Thus this review. I can only hope Gary understands.

Jim

Jim Hughes is the major biographer of W. Eugene Smith and the founding editor of the original Camera Arts magazine. His writings for TOP can be found here.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Photo-Blacksmiths?

For years I had a bumper sticker on my car that simply said "READ." This is not exactly funny, but I was startled to encounter George Eastman, founder of Kodak*, agreeing with me in his final hour:

...Of course, that's not as it appears: his dying words weren't the same admonition as my old bumper sticker. When you click "Read more," you get what he really said:

I found this on Robert Burley's website in support of his new book The Disappearance of Darkness. I'm not going to link to it here; if you want the book, you should buy it through Robert's site—that way he gets a little more income from it.

Robert has documented the demise of film conscientiously and painstakingly since 2005. The book collects his photographs from his travels, which are indicated in this review at The Economist. The Economist review also quotes Robert Burley saying this:

"I was starting to feel like a blacksmith," he says, recalling the large-format camera kit he would unpack in order to capture his waning industrial subjects.

Good analogy. Photo-Blacksmiths...naw, it'll never catch on.

Mike
(Thanks to Ariel E)

*Also a distant cousin of mine, and I am really not joking.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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In a New Orbit

Jerry and Marty at Mike Crivello's Cameras, Brookfield, Wisconsin

So check this out.

As happens from time to time, I got caught in the tractor beam of Mike Crivello's Cameras in Brookfield whilst innocently orbiting past in the Toyota, and had to go in to torture my camera addiction. I went in to try out a new camera, a ———.

So I was incompetently putting some inferior images on a card with said tantalizing device, when look what Jerry pulled out of the back:

Anyone have any desire for a completely American-made camera?

What? Right.

This is an Orbit, made by Burke and James in Chicago, Illinois of all places. The City of Big Shoulders, the City that Works. Jerry found it in the basement.

If it's not new, it certainly does a good imitation. It's in perfect condition. Well, I shouldn't say that, because I know some peoples' definition of "perfect" gets pretty fanatical when it comes to old cameras, and we did not get out the magnifying glass. But it's beautiful. Maybe it got used, but it could pass for brand new. The spiffy red bellows are...well, what's a word for unwarranted apparent perfection? They certainly look crisp.

It's a 4x5, with a rotating back. And check out its carrying case:

Not fancy, but stout, and it's made of wood. A backpacking camera this is not. A work-out-of-the-back-of-the-SUV camera, yes.

The Orbit was not a fancy camera when it was available new, but as a cherry example of a bygone era this is a very appealing period piece, and perfectly (that word again—augh) usable too. I told Jerry if the camera were inside the frontier where it was even plausible I'd ever take a single picture with it, I'd be tempted. Alas, it resides in deep space where my orbit never passeth.

He said the last one he saw had been made into a lamp, and very beautifully, too.

If any large-format fan out there wants this, they're only asking $350 for it, wooden casket included. Call Jerry at (262) 782-4303. Or toll free, 866-941-4303. Or contact him by email at mccc@mikecrivellos.com.

And that brings us to the next post, a lament....

...The Single Use Device is No More of Use

Alas, it has come time to man up, face facts, and move on: I ain't a view camera photographer. I knew this, but photography for me is all about seeing for myself, and this is a lesson I apparently have to relearn once every couple of decades or so. Large format is amenable to some personalities and skillsets, but I am not one of the lucky ones.

(In fact, I might be selling all of my cameras.)

Self with WP in the pride of new ownership (and
the flush of unrealistic ambition)

I've enjoyed owning this, albeit more in theory than in practice. Fortunately for the next owner, that has left it largely without signs of wear. For sale: one very lightly used Chamonix Whole Plate folding view camera, complete with three gorgeously hand-built holders, several lensboards, an Arca-style QR plate, and two new black Tamrac cases into which said equipment fits like the proverbial glove. I would say each holder has been in the camera no more than three or four times. The camera is used, but doesn't look it.

I also have a 210mm Apo-Sironar-S, but that's more eBayable.

I don't need to get top dollar for this, but I do need to sell it with the holders, boards, and cases, which will raise the price somewhat. If you're interested, please contact me and I can work up a fair price.

Also, if you frequent the kinds of places where large format folks are known to e-loiter, please pass the news along, would you?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kirk Tuck: "Dump them all and start over. It's purging and fun and drives all the linear thinkers crazy when you divest of gear in one big cathartic bang. They want generally want to do stuff in drips and dabs. Just pull the lever and go."

Jim Simmons: "Responding constructively to self-awareness epiphanies is a sign of maturity. We change but often struggle to admit it. If you can accept who you've become now and act on it, life will advance and you will be happier. That's just how it works.

"I am a big time pack rat, but every time I do a purge, I end up smiling like crazy. I was a happy one camera, one lens guy for 25 years (Leica CL/40mm) but then the Internet and eBay came along and fueled the same disease that many of my fellow photographers have suffered through these past few years now. But unlike you, Mike, I've discovered a particular joy in each of the formats I've picked and consequently own and use one model of each—4x5, 6x7, Micro 4/3, stereo 120, and iPhone. The one camera I rarely use is the Leica! But that's my lover, and she will be buried with me."

What MY Photography Costs ME (By Mike)

Duelling comments
The following two comments on Ctein's Wednesday post came in one right after the other, in the order they're presented here:

From Thor Finton:

The arguments about the need for high end computer, expensive printer, and up-to-date Photoshop are when I start to get annoyed at these conversations. 

Currently, I'm using a six- or seven-year-old iMac, an Epson Stylus 1400, Lightroom, Photomatic, GraphicConvertor and Photoline. And I'm shooting with a Pentax K-20. I do just fine. Fine as in, I'm happy with my results, and the people I share my work with are impressed. Or maybe they're just polite. My camera, computer and printer are all years old, long out of warranty, but they still work and produce very nice results.

The belief that you need to spend fifteen thousand dollars [note figure—again, neither of these commenters saw each other's comment] on hardware just to get started doing decent digital photography is ridiculous. It sounds like the sort of excuse people make to themselves for why they don't do the thing they'd like to.

Can't afford all that equipment? Buy a Canon G12. $500 new. Or for even less money, a used G-10 or something similar from Nikon. Or any other manufacturer. Take your memory card to your local chain drug store, Target, K-mart or whatever, and get 4x6 prints for twenty cents each.

Then put money aside and when you've learned a little and are ready to step it up, you'll be able to buy a modest system that will get you started.

And then this from robert harshman (about those lower case initials, I always reproduce commenter names the way they're written by the commenter):

I guess it all comes down to just how serious a photographer you are and your image volume. But I can not see any way that digital is cheaper than film when you add in the cost of computers, software and the need for multiple storage with offsite backups and ongoing upgrades to those backups. Add in the need for new lenses, and cameras every two to four years and you kick the cost up by a significant factor.

While we all may quibble about the details, it's clear to me that digital verses film is at least close in cost and not at all cheaper in any real comparison from photographers that are making images on a constant basis. When I upgraded to a D800E I had to upgrade everything that touched it. The camera cost $3,300. The upgrades for the tripod, lenses, computer stuff, software, etc. cost more than $15,000. That's a lot of film.

I always try to present a variety of views in the comments, but it's especially striking when two such opposing comments arrive in close succession—and both happen to name the same figure.

The cost of my photography
I often want to comment on Ctein's posts myself. He's good at bringing up topics that just make you want to chime in, isn't he? Occasionally I do. Mostly I don't, to speak of, because I figure that conversation's between you and him. I'm like any other commenter on Wednesdays.

But if you'll all indulge me, a few comments about what costs me money in photography:

1. Me being an idiot. This is a significant ongoing cost, and it's the most annoyingly wasteful. I buy a lot of stuff I never use. Software ("ooh, cool! I need that!); books I'm just curious about that I really want to see for myself, that I turn out not to like; technical how-to books that I never even open (HTML, XHTML, and CSS by Elizabeth Castro. Sure, Mike); useless accessories that I must have "to complete my outfit"; things I desperately need one minute that I am completely over by the time they arrive via the UPS truck. (The "what was I thinking" purchases.) I always figured it's a good thing I'm not richer, because it only means I'd waste more money.

2. Film cameras. This one's really bad. Digital has cost me big time for film cameras. Ever since digital came along, the price of film cameras has fallen, fallen, fallen, and all of a sudden I can actually have the stuff I used to lust for but could never afford ten, twenty, even thirty years ago. So I buy all kinds of things. And, of course, I never use almost any of it. I mean, did I really need a Nikkormat FT3? No. Will I ever use it? No. Is it pretty? It's so pretty. Here's what I use it for: fantasizing that I'm still a film shooter when actually I'm not*.

3. New digital cameras I don't need, replacing perfectly good, still-nearly-new digital cameras that don't need replacing, that replaced cameras that were perfectly good when they were replaced, et cetera on down the line. At least the K-M 7D broke and couldn't be fixed, making it the one digital camera I actually used until I couldn't use it any more—and I'm grateful that there's at least one.

4. New digital cameras I don't even like enough to use. After Carl visited and showed me his nifty Panasonic G3, I had to buy one. So far, the only thing I've used it for is...loaning it to Carl to use as a backup to his G3 during his epic Kickstarter-funded western-states drive-in theater swing. (And he ended up not using it either, although I'm sure it was good to have a backup just in case.) You might not have the problem I have: I can justify buying a camera because I "might review it." Sure, Mike.**

5. Stuff I lose or break. I have to keep telling myself that the HP B9180 paid for itself many times over. It did. It's just that I feel guilty when I think of it, like I recycled a perfectly good printer because I just got too tired of having problems with it. The next time I buy a scanner, it will be my fourth scanner: scanners will break if I so much as think malign thoughts about them. Which I do often. And I've bought at least a dozen memory cards in my life, but if you offered me $1,000 for every one I could find in the house by tomorrow, I could probably come up with about four. Maybe five.

Film vs. digital
Look, here's the thing about photography. You do what you have to do to get the results you want. If it costs more to do that, you spend the money. If you don't have the money, you get the money—there's an arrangement called "working" in most societies where, if you do more of it, they give you more money.

I could care less about cost per frame, or hit rate, or any of the metrics by which people argue about cost. Just do what you need to do. If you need to bulk-roll your own film cartridges, do it (I did, for years). If you need a better camera or a certain lens, save up, and get it. Does it take you six months, or two years? Who cares? Do it. If you have to carry a big, heavy camera, boo hoo. If you need a smaller, more unobtrusive camera to sneak up on your subjects, then deal with less "image quality." Whatever you need to do, just do it. Don't forget that the absolute best, #1 way to save money on your photography is to give it up altogether.

And here's where I come down on film vs. digital. I like film much better. Much. I like the cameras much more; I greatly prefer the all-B&W workflow—make that "mindflow"; I like film prints better; I much prefer the process with film (darkroom work) to digital (sitting at a computer and wrestling with recalcitrant inkjet printers, most of which were invented in hell to torment us—and don't get me started about the price of ink); and I greatly appreciate being part of the history, heritage, and intellectual traditions of film photography.

But the BIG question, the bottom line, is this: which one do you take better pictures with? To hell with hit rates, or cost accounting, or convenience. I don't give a crap about convenience. You do what you have to do to get the results you want. With which one do you get the results you want?

I get better pictures with digital. It makes me a better photographer. I take pictures all the time with digital that I'm just not good enough to get with film.

The cameras are nasty, I miss B&W, I hate hate hate learning software and I could pretty much kill every digital camera designer who ever lived...how do I hate thee, digital, let me count the ways...but I like pictures, and I like getting better pictures. Digital cameras have three things that help me—high ISO capability, image stabilization, and experimentation with immediate feedback. I'm a better photographer with digital cameras than I am with film cameras. It's a lot less work, yes; it's cheaper, yes; it's easier, yes; it's less fun...etc. Don't care. It helps me be a better photographer. Do care.

That's what matters. If you want to weigh "film vs. digital," just ask yourself which one you do better work with. I have zero quarrel with either answer, and a low tolerance for film ideologues or digital ideologues. Whichever is best for your work is best for you.

Mike

*On the good side here, I haven't yet bought a 5x7 Deardorff. I swear I used to regularly go visit that camera on display at Ferrante Dege in Cambridge. It was just a bit wondrous to me at the time how anyone could want a thing so much and yet not be able to have it.

**Begone, harpy Sigma DP2 Merrill! Fie! Leave my thoughts alone, tiny temptress!

ADDENDUM: Another thing nobody's brought up yet regarding expense is how much you make from your photography. I always figured (outside of the seven years I worked as a photographer full time, of course) that whatever I spent on photography in a year, I also needed to earn from it. Some years I came up short, some years I earned more than I spent, but on balance, all during my amateur career I would guess my hobby's pretty much paid for itself.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

My current favorite photobook:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark C: "I appreciate and concur with your film vs. digital view. Except I'm not sure digital has made me a better photographer...yet. But I have the feeling (and have had since I converted to digital three years ago!) that just one more upgrade (hardware and software) is all that's required to get me over that hump."

John: "I like film too, but it is a hassle to work with. About the only justification I have is that in 40-odd years when they go through my bits and bobs, a shoebox full of 6x9 negatives of family is likely to be recognised for what it is, while a bag of thumbdrives and memory cards will head straight for the recycling bin. The idea for this came from the discovery of a stack of glass plates my mother-in-law had. Scanned, they turned out to be from her father's childhood and youth in the early 20th century."

Bruce K: "I'd swear you were referring to me in your list of five comments...."

mani: "Classic TOP post. Just one observation: I'm a digital user who discovered film three or so years ago (apart from when I borrowed my dad's OM-1 when I was a teenager), and it's definitely made me a better photographer. The thing with digital is that I never need to really visualize—really compose and vividly imagine—an image before taking a shot. I'd just take the shot. Then I'd either chimp on the spot to see if it worked out, and maybe take a couple alternate shots, or it would be an image I effectively 'chimped' on the computer screen—that is, I'd sort the keepers and trash on one screen or the other. With film I find my mind is far more concentrated and aware of what I'm photographing, because I really need to previsualize each shot for 'photographability' without the crutch of chimping or disposability."

Barry Reid: "One thing that hasn't been mentioned—if you exhibit, it levels the playing field considerably. Venue, prints, nounting, framing, private viewings...I'll have spent considerably more on that than processing or any single bit of gear in 2012, and a significant amount in 2011. All for a very limited return in sales, too."

Zvonimir MW Tosic: "How much our life costs us? Is it worthwhile investing all that we have just to die, sooner or later?

"So what if we want to spend a fortune on photography? So what if it costs 3x as much to develop film as opposed to digital? Or vice versa?  I think we are talking about excuses then, that often obscure that we have a passion of spending time with something we want to explore more. And overall, that's just a drop in the overall 'cost' of life. We earn and spend millions in a lifetime, on us, our children, the society, just to leave all that behind.

"I think Ken Tanaka reflected well; it's only a matter of 'cost' of time, not a matter of 'cost' of money. Our only and true investment in everything is time. If we have little money, we can invest little on photographic gear, but a lot on quality time in enjoying and learning photography. And perhaps the opposite is true too: sometimes we spend lots of money on gear as a compensation for lack of time to explore photography to the depth and extent we'd really want."

How To Shoot Ilford XP2 Super

Andrew Gastwirth, Sugarloaf Mountain, XP-2 at E.I. 200 (Fuji GF670)

I've been shooting chromogenic film (black-and-white film designed to be developed in standard color negative chemistry) off and on since it appeared on the market. The first ones were Agfa Vario-XL and Ilford XP1, which were announced more or less simultaneously in 1980 and were in stores by '81. I shot with the Agfa film first, and liked it, but it was discontinued quickly. After having settled on the Agfa film initially, I had a hard time warming to XP1, but by the time XP2 arrived I'd gotten over it. Around the turn of the millennium, after the Ilford film was well established, Kodak finally got on board with its T400CN film. A variant, BW400TCN, is still available. There are a few others, such as Konica VX 400, that I'm not familiar with.

Ilford's version is the best established in the market. The current iteration of its C-41 process B&W film is called XP2 Super. It's a fine way to shoot B&W in film cameras if you don't want to do your own processing.

XP2 Super photo by Matt Ramalho (swing overlooking Honolulu)
(Canon AE-1, FD 50mm ƒ/1.8)

There were two main advantages to a chromogenic film as opposed to conventional B&W film. The first was convenience—because it could be processed in C-41 color negative chemistry*, and C-41 was available at virtually any processor, including "1-Hour" processors, it could be developed anywhere. Its most interesting property was that, because the image is formed with dye-clouds, the films are more grainy in the least exposed areas ("shadows") and least grainy in the most exposed areas ("highlights")—the opposite of conventional B&W films, which are grainiest where they are exposed the most. This makes it particularly well suited for subjects with large areas of bright highlight area, such as skies and sunlit clouds and beaches. It's a great "days of summer" film. XP2 Super's inherent exposure flexibility also makes it a great film for older and antique cameras, which might have apertures, shutter speeds, or meters that have drifted out of spec over time.

Its disadvantage? Probably that it doesn't look very generic—XP2 prints often have a recognizable "look."

It's often bandied about in a most unfortunately cavalier fashion that chromogenic films can be exposed at many different exposure indices (exposure index [E.I.] is the correct term for "personal film speeds," set on film cameras with the ISO dial.) This is true, but, if you're interested in negatives of the best quality, there's a sizeable caveat, and I'll get to that in a moment. 

Tommy Oshima, Néo-noir (XP2 Super, Olympus OM-2, Zuiko 50mm ƒ/1.4)

First, there's another caveat, about development, that you need to know.

Even today, when film processing facilities and services are much less widespread than they used to be, shooting XP2 Super is a great alternative for film shooters who don't want to process their own B&W film by hand. However, XP2 Super that doesn't receive an adequate wash will deteriorate relatively quickly. So you should still have the film developed at a reputable lab that does dip-and-dunk C-41, and avoid places like drugstores or one-hour photo services...assuming you can still find one. The processor I recommend is Duggal Visual Solutions, but they're not the only ones who can do a good job.

You can make your own prints, but the base color cast of the film (which is variable! Mostly reddish/orange, but I've seen everything from pinkish to purply) makes it problematic to enlarge onto variable-contrast papers using a limited-spectrum light source like a cold light head. Stick with dichroic-style enlargers that use a projector bulb or condenser enlargers for this film. If you have prints made for you, the quality will vary widely—from machine prints made on color paper, which will almost inevitably have a color cast and have a low life expectancy (LE), to carefully made custom prints costing up to hundreds of dollars.

One option I recommend is having fine prints made by Digital Silver Imaging—ironic, because they scan the negatives digitally and print them with a Durst Theta printer! —A digital intermediary step in what was orginally a pure optical-chemical process. DSI prints are made on traditional fiber-base photographic paper and have superb longevity and no color cast. (DSI also makes fiber-base archival prints from digital originals.)

Nowadays, many labs will scan the negatives and return the scans to you for editing and subsequent inkjet printing, of course, and that's a good option too (although I've never done that myself). Or you could scan your negatives yourself, if you're capable of that. (UPDATE: Although I don't do that myself, if you do, see the first "Featured Comment" below from Gary.)

"Never push"
The conventional wisdom, oft repeated, is that chromogenic films can be pushed well, with wild claims made for usable results with up to several stops of underexposure. Not so, says me. Underexposure in B&W almost always looks awful**—it's just how awful it will look that's in question. No, the main advantage of chromogenic film is how well it pulls—well, overexposes—that is, you can give it considerable overexposure and it still won't block up. That, combined with the film's grainlessness in the highlights, is the real secret of the material's unique beauty.

Medium format XP2 Super photo by Ben Massey (the photographer's mother and a terrier). (Kiev 60, Arsat 80mm, Vivitar flash through an umbrella). Large areas of smooth, grainless high values with good gradation are the film's forte.

So here's how to shoot XP2 Super, according to me. It's simple. This yields the highest percentage of results of the best quality—I don't care a whit for "make do" solutions that yield only acceptable results. Using camera metering:

• For regular shooting in most normal lighting, use EI (ISO) 200.

• For shooting in extremely bright and/or contrasty lighting, like harsh full sun and shadows, use EI (ISO) 100. This insures adequate shadow detail, and the highlights won't block up.

• For shooting in low and low-contrast lighting—and this includes indoor shooting and "available darkness"—use EI (ISO) 400—or even a little higher, although I personally don't recommend ever going all the way to (gasp) 800.

That's it. Beyond those adjustments made to accomodate the prevailing light, you can let the camera's meter set the exposure and you'll get a high percentage of good results (a bit higher, of course, if your metering skills are good). And you can switch settings on the same roll all you want—the processing is not adjusted and is always the same.

Conclusion
The biggest problem with XP2 Super is how to get prints. It's not hard (still) to find a good lab that runs a competent C-41 line, and not hard to get the negatives scanned for web use, but it can be difficult to work out a way to achieve prints you like. If you make your own prints, or find a lab that will make prints for you to your own standards and satisfaction, you might find that you really like the look of XP2 Super. And it's a great way to bring old cameras back to life.

Mike
(Illustrations by kind courtesy of the photographers)

*Calling chemicals "chemistry" is improper grammatically but is a well established term of art in photography, and is, paradoxically perhaps, proper.

**Unless you're going for "British Style" printing, nicely laid out by master printer Eddie Ephraums in this article. You can get the gist of it quickly just from the illustrations.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Gary: "If you scan your own negs, chromogenic films offer another substantial advantage over conventional B&W emulsions—you can utilize Digital ICE dust and spot removal software. Saves an awful lot of post processing!"

Pat Trent: "Hurray! Something more for us film lovers! However, rather than shoot chromogenic black and white, I prefer to shoot color C-41 and then just convert to black and white (unless, of course, I'm shooting silver black and white films from the start). But I agree that XP2 Super is a great film. I usually rate it at EI 250."

Peter Robinson: "I've been using chromogenic films just as long though I've only ever used Ilford's. Big difference is, although I have on occasions had it processed commercially, I nearly always process it myself in black and white chemicals. For the last few years, this has been Paterson Aculux (15 mins at 20 degrees C). Of course, you lose the benefit (if you consider it to be that) of the dye-clouds but that's not an issue for me. On the other hand, you do get the benefit of the film's characteristic curve which has a very long shoulder and which allows the change in ISO rating. As for the ISO I use, I concluded years ago exactly the same as you have Mike and I use the same ISO settings you recommend for the same conditions. I recently shot a project entirely on XP2. Results here or on my Flickr site."

Wolfgang Lonien: "What a great photo from Tommy Oshima; thanks for sharing!"

Zach: "I've just today received an ancient 6x6 folder. This seems like a good way to begin!"

Mike replies: A folder is one kind of camera I've never taken a picture with. The closest I've ever come is an Agfa Super Isolette, which was a wonderful camera.

Andrew Lamb: "There was an article in the much-missed Camera and Darkroom magazine which compared all the major 400 ASA B&W films on the market. The writer made prints of the same subject from these films and than did an informal straw poll as to which film yielded the nicest print. XP2 Super came out on top."

Gordon Lewis replies: Andrew, I wrote the article you're referring to and generally agree with your recollection of my conclusions. I've even got the original negs and prints. I just want to emphasize that "nicest print" is subjective and will vary according to taste and subject matter. Aside from that, I completely agree with Mike's observations. Follow his advice and you can't go wrong.

Are Digital Photographers Still Deep-down Insecure?

Some of the responses I got to the "#1 Problem With Film" post (privately too) astonished me. It's as if every time "film" is mentioned, it pushes buttons which launch canned comments (or arguments, or diatribes) of one sort or another. It seems that many people assume whenever I mention film in any context that a) I need to hear why they like, or have chosen, one or the other; or b) I need to be advised of the faults of whichever one they didn't choose; or c) they assume I'm "deciding" between the two...and need help.

It seems to me that we're well past the era in which the problem was (some) film photographers acting reflexively superior. (That era certainly existed.) Now we're into an era where (some) digital photographers are acting reflexively insecure.

Several people launched extended apologias for digital, heaping scorn on film. What is this, 2005? Digital is image capture these days, folks. The fight is over. Digital won. About as thoroughly as can be imagined. And about as quickly as could be imagined, too. The swiftness of the decline of film's hegemony has been impressive.

Despite this, here at my little soapbox on the street corner we're going to continue to cover film according to my interest in it and according to the percentage of our readers who like it. About 10% of TOP readers use film mainly or exclusively, and 35 or 40% use it occasionally. A larger proportion—numbers unknown—used to use it, and at least have memories of it one way or another. And a good proportion of the work we're interested in—exact numbers likewise unknown—was done on it, whether that matters or no.

And, take my word for it, I'm not deciding. I use both, and I'll be using both until the last nail goes into either my coffin or film's. Ctein, as you know, has switched entirely to digital and won't be using film again; I use both. That's not because I'm "deciding." That is my decision. Really.

So: film shooters welcome here. Digital shooters welcome here. No bias against either, no favor extended toward either. Posts about one are not implicit criticisms of the other; posts about either are not automatic invitations to "film versus digital" debates no matter the topic.

And no need to feel insecure!

Mike

P.S. Of course, as we all know, film is better.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding!!!

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave: "'The fight is over. Digital won.'

"Right. Except in the art market.

"Dealers, curators, and collectors still show an arguably strong preference for work that originated on film.

"The proof, in my opinion, is in the large percentage of recent MFA portfolios that continue to be shot on film. When you browse the web, take some time to make a mental note of the process that's called out for the portfolios you see. Then read the photographer's CV. Many of these recent grads were born in the digital age. By the time they were old enough to afford a camera, film was already on the way out. Yet, a large percentage of them are shooting film.

"I'd argue that it's not because there's any intrinsic advantage or superiority in the process, but that they've made a choice to work in a medium that's more highly valued by their target market. Maybe someday the typical art dealer, curator, or collector will become media-agnostic, but I don't think it will happen in my lifetime. I suspect that factors other than the ability of an image to affect the viewer will always take precedence in the art market. It is after all, a market."

William Barnett-Lewis: "Love my Oly E-PL1 but I'd go nuts without the Rolliecord III I got recently. There is much that the little digital camera does so much better. I can live without 35mm film now. But there is remains a hole in my world that only a 6x6 cm square of write-once flexible memory strip can fill."

Chris: "What a privilege and a pleasure it is to be a photographer, and to be able to learn from colleagues. I mainly shoot black and white, and I like film best for that. For colour, digital seems unbeatable to me. I'd like to hear from colleagues what they use film/digital for, and why, with examples if possible—this would help me to improve my own use of two superb media."

Stan B.: "If anyone should feel insecure, it's film users—we're dinosaurs (and we know it). It's a sinking ship we've happily chosen to keep playing on, but only the fool wouldn't pay attention to the digital waters fast closing in around us."

Daniel S. (partial comment): "...Your attempt at brokering peace might be well-intentioned, but people will be people so I'm afraid your quest was doomed from the start. Better to just smile and nod, smile and nod no matter what people say. Easier to keep your head attached to your neck, that way."

Nicholas Condon: "For my part, my distaste for the costs and annoyances of film made me give up photography for two decades; you couldn't make me use 35mm film again without a gun to my head. And yet I still find myself deeply interested in the articles on film photography. It almost seems like it's possible to be interested in learning about something that others have done (and do) well, even if one is not interested in doing it oneself...."

Ken White: "Need more traffic? Stir the pot. Sorry I have my marketing hat on today."

Mike replies: Actually, Ken, what I do to stimulate traffic is write posts about gear. That's what reliably brings in the eyes. Too many posts about photographs, aesthetics, working methods, monograph books, photographers, or photo history and the traffic starts to decline. I won't deny making efforts to attract traffic on occasion, but in this case this really is just what I happened to be thinking about when I wrote it.

Phil Maus: "I will continue to shoot film for many reasons and I make no apologies to anyone—Craft, Substance, Aesthetics, Value, Tradition, Exclusivity, Tactility (if that's a word)...for the love of beautiful, all mechanical cameras built to last a lifetime, for the quiet, contemplative time spent under the darkcloth and in the darkroom, for the beautiful, valuable prints rendered in pure silver, for the way my perception and vision changes and becomes more intense and more acute when I'm out photographing (as opposed to seeing a potential image and releasing the shutter 400 times from 400 different angles—I release the shutter once or twice) for the look of a gorgeous 8x10 silver negative, that I 100% made myself, through a loupe on a lightboard and for the way that same negative makes a contact print that nothing else in this world can match...for the fact that the negative will be right there, in a file that I can retrieve for years without worrying about power failures, drive corruption or 'bit rot.' (despite the risks of an airplane crashing into my darkroom and destroying everything). For these reasons and many more that can't be laid down in words, I make no apologies for my love affair with film."

Clay Olmstead: "Digital gear makes you insecure. If you're not on the bleeding edge, you're envying those who are. If you've just bought the latest body, your lenses aren't up to the job any more. If you upgraded lens and body, you paid way too much. It's no wonder that some people go around all bent out of shape."

Goodbye Kodak T-Max P3200

Kodak is discontinuing Kodak T-Max P3200, the super-high-speed black-and-white film created by Sylvia Zawadski and Dick Dickerson of Eastman Kodak. (The two of them used to have a website; is it gone?)

Its passing makes me think yet again that I'm living the perfect lifespan for a photographer...something like a railfan living in the transition era between steam and diesel, with one foot planted firmly in each. The years of my interest in photography have spanned so much. I really am grateful to have seen and done the things I've seen and done.

Mike Johnston, Mary and Liz at Squilley's Funeral

When P3200 came out, I was shooting Tri-X at E.I. 200, the fastest film I'd shot till then. P3200 tested for me at E.I. 1000, more than two stops faster. (3200 was a "push" speed, hence the "P" in the name; 3200 was never an actual ISO rating.) It was a revelation, and tremendously energizing. I put it immediately into use, and it was just in time so that I could document my grandmother's funeral and my best friend's wedding, among other things. I took so many great pictures (I mean: pictures I like) with that film. I have virtually none of it scanned, but above is one exception.

I found only one paper that it printed on correctly, and that too is long gone.

The promise and excitement of P3200 is of course completely lost on photographers now, who complain when they can see noise in actual ISO 3200 pictures.

As with so many things from the film era, there is no more need for it. But it was a big deal in its day.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren)

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Today's P3200 and more:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Matt Weber: "I remember when it came out too...I think it was in 1988 and it was incredible. I was able to shoot at night with usable shutter speeds and still managed to get decent work done during the day. I'm sad because this film really mattered to me and enabled me to take many of my best pictures. Kodak has let us down so many times it's almost funny. I realize the company is in ruins now, so this time I'm not going to take it personally...Oh well."

Softie: "I knew this day would come, and find myself mourning a good friend's passing. I shot piles of this stuff, and used it as my standard film for years at E.I. 800. Lovely big rough grain."

Matt Mills: "Man, the memories...this was literally one of two films I used for black-and-white all through my early days in photography (the other being T-Max 400—judge if you will, but I loved the stuff in D-76). This was the film that made it possible to shoot inside and get handheld photos, really crucial if you're a people-in-their-habitat photographer. I miss it just thinking about it. Of course, right before I switch to digital, I learned to use sodium sulfite in the developer and borax solution after, which was amazingly rich."

Mike Plews: "I'm still pouting over the loss of TXP 120, but I tend to hold a grudge. DuPont is still getting stink eye from me over Velour Black #2 and Varigam. Gotta get over this stuff."

Crabby Umbo: "Plus One for Mike Plews! You're killing me—I'm still mad about DuPont papers as well! Bah!"

Mike adds: And for me, it's Verichrome Pan and Medalist paper. (I really wish Ilford or Fuji would make a genuinely retro emulsion or two.)

It's another thing we're losing: the fact that in every era, old timers grumped and moaned about the lovely old materials that had faded and gone. Michael A. Smith loved Azo so much that he started manufacturing a replacement after it was discontinued. Ansel Adams waxed elegiac about the passing of Dassonville Charcoal Black (did anyone know Will Dassonville had a book?! Me neither), and of course Frederick H. Evans, in England, quit photography altogether when they stopped making the papers he liked...in the nineteen-teens. I'm sure there were photographers decrying the passage of albumen printing ("it just had something special"), and others in the 1860s grousing bitterly about how tintypes didn't look nearly as good as Daguerreotypes, and who cares if they're cheaper and the fumes don't give you heavy metal poisoning?

I make light, but I really am going to miss the feeling of continuity in the craft and the sense of community it engendered with our "friends who went before."

Best Case Fate for a Negative?

Eugène Atget, Marchand de panier de fil de fer [merchant of baskets and wire]*, 1899/1900. The picture is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and appears in Vol. 4 of Szarkowski and Hambourg's
The Work of Atget, Modern Times.

Photo by Richard Alan Fox

Richard Alan Fox says, "I took this photo at the MoMA in NYC this past February, at a show of Atget prints that included one backlit negative. The bulb was not functioning and this gentleman was replacing the framed object after the electricians fixed the lamp."

He called it "the best any of us can possibly hope for our negatives or matrices."

Mike
(Thanks to Richard)

P.S. And just in case you're within shooting distance of New South Wales.... (Thanks to Keith Mallett for this.)

*In case you're wondering why you can't quite "read" his face, it's because it's obscured by a puff of smoke from his pipe.

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Ben: "I disagree that a lone representative negative on display is really the best one can hope for. The museum archive at which I volunteer prints from its large collection of negatives, the prints being available for sale to help support maintenance of the collection and future acquisitions. Remaining 'active,' so to speak, and useful strikes me as a much better outcome for a negative than static display—after all, negatives exist to be printed from, not just looked at."

What Do I Do With The Matrices?

Dye transfer matrices are the full-size sheet-film printing plates that are soaked in dyes and squeegeed against receiving paper to make dye transfer prints. Here's a set of matrices and the work print that goes with them.
They're unique; are they useless?

By Ctein

This is another one of those columns where I ask all of you for advice, because I have no answer to this question whatsoever. Here's the situation:

When I close down my darkroom sometime within the next year, I'm going to have some 300+ sets of dye transfer matrices and reference prints with my notes (see above) that will be of absolutely no use to me. What should I do with them?

Please don't suggest that I throw them out. That's simply not the way I'm wired. They only take up about five cu. ft. of space, and if I can't figure out anything useful to do with them, they'll just go in the back of the closet and stay there until I die, and then my heirs will deal with them...probably by throwing them out.

But I'm not going to be the one to toss them. They are a unique, albeit entirely intermediate, work product. The problem is that their uniqueness and intermediateness (is that even a word?) [yes —Ed.] makes them good for nothing else. It's not like Ansel Adams's collection of negatives that he passed on with the proviso that students be able to print from them as a learning experience. (Does anybody know if the beneficiaries of his generosity actually followed through on that?)

You can't strike prints from these unless you're doing dye transfer printing, and it's pretty damn certain that the handful of dye transfer printers who still exist will not have any interest in printing unsigned knockoffs of Ctein photographs, even with my blessing. It's not like my work is that much in demand. It also turns out to be surprisingly difficult for two dye transfer printers to produce similar prints, even when they work from the same sets of matrices.

You could scan the matrices on a flatbed scanner, assemble them into full-color images and print those. And, again, why? Who would care? Especially since high quality scans already exist of most of the negatives that those matrices were made from, and those scans are much better suited for making good prints.

I can imagine there would be institutions here and there that would like to have one set of matrices and a reference print as part of their photographic collections, to represent the craft. Are there 300–400 such institutions? I doubt it. Certainly, I am not so notable nor famous that I would think that any institution would want to acquire the entire set.

This isn't about making money. I'm not concerned about selling these; I'm more likely to make money selling clippings of my hair. I just can't imagine where they would even find a home.

What I am definitely not interested in doing is putting in a lot of effort on this. I'm not going to send out umpteen dozen cold inquiries in the vague hopes that I might get a nibble from someone who says that they're interested. If somebody is interested, they can reach out to me. If you know somebody who might be interested in this stuff for whatever reason, imaginable or un-, pass this column on to them and have them e-mail me (ctein@pobox.com). I will definitely respond to inquiries of interest. I'm just not putting myself out to solicit them.

Now, let's hear the brainstorms!

Ctein

Ctein ponders from within the Matrix on Wednesdays, not always in virtual 1999.

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Featured Comment by Hudson: "Would they work as replacement glass for a greenhouse?"

Mike replies: Wonderful comment, subtle. But who was that? My brain isn't coming up with it...and now it'll drive me crazy if you don't tell me....  :-)

Ah, got it from James Rhem's comment. Of course....

Featured Comment by Tom: "I remember seeing framed cels from Walt Disney animated films for sale. It seems you could do something similar: the matrices and proof mounted in a frame might be of interest to photo collectors."

Featured Comment by Ed Kirkpatrick: "Donate them to the Library of Congress in Washington. That kills all your birds with one stone. They will be kept safe, available to any who might wish to look at them and possibly available for use in the future after you are gone. Oh and it saves your heirs the pain of tossing out all your work."

Featured Comment by Geoff Wittig: "I have to think that George Eastman House might be interested in your matrices and work prints, given the vast size and eclectic nature of their collection. That and Kodak's long involvement in the dye-transfer process. Given their current financial straits, they might even want to (inexpensively) mount an exhibition based on their extensive holdings of beautiful dye transfer prints."

Featured Comment by David Paterson: "Isn't this essentially the same problem which every photographer eventually has to face—getting older, wondering what to do with a lifetime's collection of material which has served its purpose and which the future will have no interest in? I am 67 and not getting noticeably younger, with a remaining collection of some 60,000 transparencies and negs in every size from 35mm to 10x8", plus a plan-chest full of prints. I can't see any way out of this except maybe drinking some good beer around a large bonfire some fine afternoon quite soon."

Featured Comment by ault: "Why not offer them to owner(s) of the print(s)? If they value the prints enough to have bought them, they may appreciate and care for the intermediate states...."

My Darkroom Mascot

...A Film Dinosaur, of course. ~*rimshot*~

Good mascot for a darkroom, doncha think? (I couldn't resist filling part of his shadow with safelight. Just playin' around.)

His name? It would have to be "T-Max," I suppose....

Mike

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Featured Comment by Stephen Gilbert: "Can a T-Rex lift the viewfinder to his eye?"

Mike replies: Actually he can't. He's waiting for the LCD viewing screen to evolve.

Featured Comment by Timothy: "I don't think he has the dexterity to put the film on the developing reel without using his teeth. After a few scratched rolls he'll probably just send it out to a lab."

Mike replies: The real film dinosaur had a surprisingly amount of difficulty re-learning how to load 120 reels. Turns out it's not like riding a bike.

Featured Comment by Roger Bradbury: "Watch out! He's got a 'big' camera! He is obviously up to no good; fetch a security guard!"

Mike replies: Won't do any good. He eats security guards.

Featured Comment by Francis E: "He can't process colour because he hasn't evolved temperature regulation yet."

Old Ways

Veteran French photographer, photojournalist, and documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon used three cameras to shoot the official portrait of new French President François Hollande. The portrait that was selected was shot with Raymond's vintage 1962 Rolleiflex, which he's seen using here.

A brief visit to the set in pictures, plus the result.

Mike
(Thanks to Chris Lucianu)

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Featured Comment by Edward Taylor: "I like the photo just fine, but there seems to be nothing extraordinary about it. Is's just a photo. The previous portraits of previous presidents are not anything special either. I don't think the intent is to make a work of art. These are documentary portraits with the purpose of looking dignified, well dressed, respectable, patriotic, etc.

"The real danger here is having a 'green screen' look. This portrait does look green screened because of the lighting difference between the subject and the background. Diffusers and reflectors, as well as flashes or artificial lighting can create a disconnect between the subject and the background that makes the viewer wonder if the subject was really there at all.

"I'm not sure Karsh would be happy with these results."

Featured Comment by Bill Bresler: "You've all missed the real significance of these photos. The last photo I saw of Depardon was probably made in the late 1970s. He looked like a skinny, depressed little French guy. Now he looks like me!"

Featured Comment by ankylosaurus: "Nobody cares how hard you tried and what equipment you used—well in this particular case this isn't true....

"I happen to live in France and the media here never omits the fact that the image is taken by a 50 year old camera.

"For journalists it certainly adds some flair and a 'touche artistique,' Vous vous rendez compte...un Rollei de 1962. Mon dieu.

"Depardon explained that he only had the time to take 12 images with the Rollei before the president vaporized...his assistant didn't have time to load another roll. So he had to make do with what he had.

"To me the president looks rather uncomfortable and tensed. It's like somebody just shouted:

"—Hey Fraçois, You have a wasp under your collar. Whatever you do, don't move because he sure do look angry....

"But I guess that the vintage camera more than compensates for the wasp look...."

Mike replies: That's interesting that Raymond only got one roll in, because that was exactly my reading of the picture when I first saw it—that the subject didn't have sufficient opportunity to relax and the photographer didn't have enough time to shoot as much as he needed.

I used to demand of my subjects that they not only give me an hour of their time at a minimum, but that they not schedule anything else for at least two hours after our session ended—and preferably nothing else for the remainder of the day. My feeling was that the pressure of "I've got somewhere to go" would show up in the picture otherwise.

Of course one does not have the luxury to make such demands with the President of France!

It's LF Film Open Season Again

By Oren Grad

Once again this year, Harman Technology is offering an open order window for ultralarge and other non-stock sizes of Ilford sheet film. These sizes are available at other times as well, but only to special order with a very substantial minimum—generally a few thousand dollars' worth. During the brief open season Harman will accept orders of any quantity, and commits to cutting all sizes ordered, even if only a single box in a given size.

In addition to offering FP4 Plus and HP5 Plus in a blizzard of sizes from 2 1/4 x 3 1/4" to 20x24" as in prior years, this year Harman is adding Delta 100 in two standard sizes that are not normally stock items for that emulsion (13x18 cm, 5x7") as well as in four non-standard sizes: 4x10", whole plate (WP) (6 1/2 x 8 1/2"), 7x17", and 16x20". Simon Galley of Harman Technology reports that these correspond to the non-stock sizes that have been the most popular over the past four years of the open order program. Note that popularity in this case is measured as total volume—i.e., the total sheet film surface area—ordered. (Of course, it takes far fewer sheets of, say, 16x20" to account for a given volume than of 4x10".

Chamonix whole plate camera of the type owned by both Oren and Mike.

As a whole plate fan, I'm happy to see that the WP renaissance (reported in these precincts here and here) has some "legs." But I'm surprised that 16x20 is up there, too—it's been running about $16 per sheet—$400 per box of 25!—and that it's more popular than the classic banquet format 12x20.

The 2012 Ilford open order window begins April 30 and runs until June 22. Details, including a complete list of emulsions/sizes offered and of participating dealers, can be found at the Ilford Photo website.

Oren

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Featured Comment by Sal Santamaura: "Oren's a declared HP5 Plus fan, but my whole plate (WP) shooting has trailed off because neither it nor Ilford's FP4 Plus emulsions are really my cup of tea, though the latter can be acceptable to me some of the time. Since late 2006 I've been begging Simon Galley to include Delta 100 among Ilford's annual special order sizes. That he and the other Directors finally decided they would do so this time is, to me, extraordinarily good news. In fact, my response to his announcement post was "Simon, you've made my day/week/month/year!" Availability of WP Delta 100 will definitely motivate a second renaissance within the WP renaissance at my house. :-)"

End Game

By Ctein

Mike and I have been discussing plans for one last dye transfer sale on TOP next year (we're not ready yet to divulge the details), which required me to go through my supply of dye transfer paper and inventory it. This is a remarkably tedious, repetitive process of closely examining each large sheet of paper by both reflected and transmitted light to catch any surface flaws or inclusions. Kodak's quality control was not the best in the waning days of dye transfer, so such precautions are necessary; half or more of the sheets in a box turn out to be unsellable.

When all was said and done, I discovered that my supplies of good paper were rather smaller than I had thought. By the end of next year and quite possibly sooner, I will have used up all my good dye transfer paper. Well, good riddance, I say. I've been bored with doing dye transfers some time now. I keep doing it because it's a profitable part of my business, but I won't cry at all at being forced out of it from lack of supplies.

This slightly surprising result had two immediate consequences. The first is that I stopped offering commercial dye transfer printing services the day after I finished my inventory. I can't afford to devote paper to new clients at the expense of existing obligations or making and selling prints of my own work.

I believe that leaves exactly one purveyor of dye transfer printing services in North America: Jim Browning in New Hampshire.

The second repercussion is more interesting to me. Psychologically, I'm now in the end game when it comes to my darkroom. I've been talking and mentally planning for a while about closing it down, by the end of next year at the latest. But the details of those plans were indefinite, and that made it feel a bit less real. Now I have a well-defined endpoint that will come with the exhaustion of limited supplies, even if I don't know the precise date of closure.

Ctein's not-long-for-this-world darkroom, in its day.

This has made it very real for me. When I recently went into the darkroom to make some dye transfer prints, I no longer found myself reflexively thinking about what maintenance, upkeep, and improvements I wanted to be doing, but about what will last for the next 12 to 20 months. If it's good for that long, and it hasn't been driving me totally crazy so far, then it's ignorable. That's a distinct change in my head.

In truth, it's a much more profound change then me "officially" giving up film for digital photography. Photography is photography, so far as I'm concerned; there is no significant difference for me between making a film photograph or a digital one. I honestly don't care about the medium, just the message.

But a darkroom? That has a substantial, tangible physical presence. For as long as I've had my own place to live, I have always had a permanent darkroom space, starting with my first apartment in 1972. By the end of next year, for the first time in 40 years, that will not be true. Do I mind? Not in the least! Finances permitting (fingers hugely crossed, here, hoping for a good sale), Paula and I will be able to take the garage space that currently includes or caters to my darkroom and build a couple of more rooms into this house. It would be nice to have a real guest room among other things. And an actual printing studio that can handle my humongous digital printer and its supplies and output in a convenient way.

Will I miss the darkroom, even one bit? Not once, not for a moment. But, man, it's sure a huge change.

Ctein

Longtime columnist Ctein sheds light into the darkness every Wednesday on TOP.

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Featured Comment by Geoff Wittig: "As someone who never made a darkroom print and who loves my large format inkjet, it still saddens me just a bit to see a truly expert darkroom printer hanging up his spurs. Watching the Luminous Landscape videos of Ctein making a dye transfer print, or Clyde Butcher making a huge black & white darkroom print, reassured me that there was still a living tradition stretching back to Edward Weston's contact prints and Paul Outerbridge's carbro color prints. It's becoming a more tenuous connection with every passing year. By the end of the decade, darkroom printing is likely to be as arcane and deliberately retro as self-coated glass plate capture."

Featured Comment by Walter Glover: "Been there and done that six years ago Ctein...and now find I have lived to regret it. Think long and hard before you reduce your darkroom option to zero. Old habits die hard and the darkroom was always more than just a production facility; it was a haven for a very special kind of contemplation, even therapy. I miss mine and am forever trying to come up with ways to even set-up to contact print some 8x10s."

Featured Comment by Jeff: "I found that selling off and donating my last darkroom four years ago was a liberating, and motivating, experience. After four darkrooms in four houses over 24 years, and after only using film, I finally decided to go all-digital prior to another house move. Only by getting rid of it all could I be all-in. Two people were perhaps happier than I: my home design friend, whom I've known for 25 years, finally able to not sacrifice her aesthetic choices due to my darkroom requirements (but still my stereo speakers and equipment); and a longtime friend and photo bud whom I gifted a nice Leica Focomat enlarger (in exchange for some much needed guidance in the digital realm). No regrets."

Featured Comment by MM: "I did the film-and-darkroom thing for 25 years. Then I stayed out of my darkroom for a few years in the mid-2000s when I was only shooting digital.

"Then about four years ago, after shooting and printing another pile of digital photographs that the client regarded as technically perfect but felt clinically bland to me, I made a realization that seems obvious in retrospect but was a huge leap at the time: darkroom printing, like shooting film, 'means' something completely different in an age when there's digital than it meant when film and darkroom was the only way to make photographs.

"I say this observation is 'obvious in retrospect' because I've since realized that there are countless analogous activities that took on new meaning in the face of new technologies: playing acoustic instruments after synthesizers were invented; driving a stick shift after automatics were invented; gardening after grocery stores were invented; walking after bicycles and cars were invented; woodworking after Ikea was invented; sending snail-mail cards after e-mail was invented; sailing after powerboats were invented; making paintings  after photography was invented....

"In all of these cases having a new, more efficient way of doing a task didn't satisfactorily replace the old way for everybody. Instead, the new way gave the old way a different meaning to those who still chose to do it the old way for the inherent satisfaction of the activity, even as they knew that their final product wasn't necessarily going to be 'better' as judged by whatever metric. (My large inkjet prints are usually far superior—and far, far easier to make—than my darkroom prints are. So?)

"Needless to say, and I've said it here before, I'm happily shooting both film and digital now (the former for personal satisfaction, the latter for my profession)—I try to keep a 50/50 balance—and I'm happily printing with inkjet and with my reborn darkroom.

"I'm not saying Ctein ever would or should consider anything similar; he knows himself and it's very clear he's done with film and darkroom. In part this could be because unlike a hobbyist he may associate the darkroom more with professional work than with low-stress personal enjoyment. And anyone who gets no more feeling of accomplishment from nailing a difficult shot with film than with digital should definitely shoot digital (it's the same principle as gardening, walking, sailing, painting, driving a stick shift, and playing acoustic instruments: if the process doesn't matter to you, do whatever gives you the best results).

"But it could also be because Ctein was born too early. In my observation, 1957 or 1958 is about the cutoff point for long-time photographers who are willing to return to analog photography. It seems that people born before then usually say, 'Did that for too long, will never do it again,' while those born after that date seem much more open to giving film and/or darkroom a(nother) go."

A Digital Photographer's Ode to Slide Film

Mahesh Venkitachalam's "What Slide Film Taught Me" on tat tvam asi.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Tom Kwas: "...Actually many things to love in this article, and I certainly feel a companionship with the idea that going from film to digital is going from discipline to confusion. As a professional, it was certainly easier and cheaper, at least from an equipment investment standpoint, to shoot and 'nail' color transparency than is is to shoot digital. And there was more 'joy' in seeing the result. What I realized from going to digital is it wasn't just getting a beautiful or impactful image that made it for me, it was getting that and viewing it on transparency or in a full-scale black and white print. Viewing it on a computer screen? Not so much....

"And therein lies the 'rub.' If Mahesh is not a professional photographer, or using his work in some sort of media capacity for his employment, why change at all? If he is shooting for his own joy, there will be someplace, at least for the rest of the time they make transparency film, that will do pro processing for him.

"I only got involved in digital years ago at the behest of my clients and because I wanted to keep shooting professionally, if I hadn't been a pro photographer, believe me, I would have never stopped shooting transparency, and in fact, I still shoot it today on certain projects that I deem 'legacy' projects: where it would be important to have the physical film in perpetuity.

"One only wonders how many pro photographers fell off the edge of employment during the film/digital change-over. How many were at an age where they just figured it wasn't worth the trouble, or expenses, to end up with that image on a computer screen. How many ended up looking for that Home Depot retirement job in their mid-late fifties rather than go back to a far steeper—and moving—learning curve, and start over again, like they did in their late teens/early twenties.

"Even for me, I'm one interesting job offer away from never taking a professional photo again; mostly because with the change-over from film to digital, it just isn't fun anymore. Everything I interact with other photographers about now has nothing to do with looking at someones photos and oohing and ahhing about composition or 'decisive moment,' and everything to do with digital equipment speak and trying to fix some sort of digital-related problem.

"It reminds me of an art director I knew once back in the late '80s early '90s. She told me that one day she showed up at work, and there was a computer on her desk, and the production department was gone. From that day forward, she spent her time learning and relearning design programs and the constant change in the design programs; and never again went to a paper warehouse to dig through old stock to find the perfect surface to print on, and look through old books and magazines at a library to try and find beautiful but forgotten type-styles. She was now never again paid for her taste, inquisitiveness, or enthusiasm. She was paid to do 10% of what she used to do and 90% of what the production department used to do."

Mike replies: My son's grandfather, and old studio partner—and onetime teacher—quit photography when digital came along. He is badly dyslexic and has a real feel (almost a genius) for physical and mechanical things, but couldn't cope with computers. He used to have a good business as a professional in Washington, D.C.

As far as "why change at all?", I've given this matter a great deal of thought and I think the reason most people don't shoot film any more is: we don't have to. That sounds very simplistic but that's what it comes down to for me. On the other hand, like Mahesh, I'm very glad I had to shoot film for a couple of decades first. (I do wish I'd been more focused about it, but that's just me—that is, it's characterological.)

Featured Comment by David Bostedo: "If it weren't for digital coming along, I'm pretty sure I'd have never gotten into photography. Not being able to play with exposure settings and see instant results would have killed it for me. So it's likely that for every photographer that laments the loss of film, there's a whole new generation of photographers who are only doing it because digital exists. I do wonder if shooting film would help me become better in some way...but it just seems so painfully slow and error prone."

Mike replies: I'm sure a lot of photographers agree with that.

Featured Comment by Steve Jones: "I pretty much avoided photography for nearly four decades, partially because the process, particularly the thought of the seemingly arcane darkroom, appeared intimidating. Digital changed that, and as a learning tool, its cost effective and forgiving character (with a histogram to boot!) was certainly beneficial.

"However, less then three years in, I switched to film, and this also proved instructive, albeit in a different way. I'm glad digital was around to draw me into photography, helping me get a grip on the fundamentals, but moving over to film helped bolster the visualization process; it slowed me down. I believe I would have acquired such skill through digital, but film, by its restrictive nature, expedited the process. Anyway, I enjoy shooting film more so than digital, and I have no plans to return to digital cameras...although I still use digital scanners."

Featured Comment by Mahesh Venkitachalam: "Thank you all, for the kind comments. Unfortunately, shooting film is no longer an option for me, since I live in India and I don't see any local labs that sell or process slide film. The costs are also exorbitant."

Kodak: All Slide Films Are Now Gone

Yet more Kodak products have dropped off the precipice.

Citing a decline in demand that has been "pretty acute," according to a Kodak spokesperson quoted in the BJP, Kodak has announced that it will discontinue Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100G, Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100VS, and Kodak Professional Elite Chrome Extra Color 100.

Existing stocks are expected to last another six to nine months, depending on demand.

Slide (transparency) films have accounted for only a single-digit percentage of color film production for many decades. But these discontinuations mean that Kodak will no longer make any slide films at all.

The announcement does not affect Portra or Ektar color negative films, or the remaining Kodak black-and-white films.

Mike
(Thanks to Kevin Purcell)

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Sensitometry and the Plotter/Matcher, Part II

You probably remember Part I, from a week ago Saturday. You might want to go back and re-read that before diving into this part. First, to reiterate: no B&W film photographer needs to practice sensitometry. It's absolutely not necessary for doing good work. This article does, however, contain information of real value for all APUG-type B&W photographers, so don't skip it if you're one of those—even if you have no intention whatsoever of buying a densitometer or practicing sensitometry.

As an aside, since a week ago Saturday I have acquired not one but two densitometers...

Comment o' the Week: Good Ol' Days

From Dogman:

Among the wonderful memories of doing daily newspaper photography in the '70s & '80s was the hurried darkroom work. NOT!

You have never lived a full life until you have faced an 80-mile round trip night sports assignment to a barely lit high school football field where you were expected to obtain outstanding action photos in less than 20 minutes so you could meet an early deadline for the regional edition. Shoot your Tri-X at 1600 although the Luna Pro is showing that is almost two stops under, hit the country road and exceed the speed limit while trying to avoid the deer wandering around the route, get to the darkroom to constantly agitate the film for 3–4 minutes, give it a water soak for another few minutes, print it wet in an autofocus Leitz that's constantly shifting focus due to the wet negatives buckling, print a soft and crappy shot with equally crappy print quality on #5 Kodabromide or #6 Brovira (whichever is available) and give it to the sports desk dripping wet to barely make the deadline.

...and then go to your next assignment for the weekend edition society page.

Boy howdy!  Those were the Good Ol' Days.

Great one.

I've long subscribed to Carl Weese's late '90s idea that B&W film photography was already perfect but that digital represented the real coming-of-age of color photography. Now I also like the idea that digital frees film photography...frees it from all its heretofore onerous practical and quotidian duties such as Dogman so vividly describes above. Now we can use B&W film only when we really want to.

It was Ron Wisner who said, also in the '90s, that B&W film photography would eventually join all the other obsoleted methods of graphical reproduction as a much smaller but greatly more prestigious fine-art printmaking medium. Nobody needs stone lithography, or woodcut, or copperplate etching any more for commercial image reproduction, but none of those things has gone away. (Just like view cameras or, say, platinum-palladium printing have not gone away.)

Could've been worse, Dogman. You could have had to use something like this.

Those media can move over now, and make room; there's a new one about to join their club. Digital does the utility work (and, I'd say, color, too, although some might still argue that) better. Optical/chemical monochrome film photography—highly evolved, completely mature, fully worked out, and beautiful in its own right—might finally get what its proponents have always sought...an elevation in its status as an art medium.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Walter Glover: "My sentiments entirely, as one who uses digital capture for the sake of commercial expediency and B&W sheet film for the soul and contentment of producing fine crafted work."