A hello and a question or 3

mata.morrison

mata.morrison

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Matthew
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Hi all, To start I'm new to the forum. Alsonim even newer to this section.

Some of yous may have seenmybthred in the equipment section, clicky so I have just acquired a film camera.

It's my first, looking to have some good times with it, however I need film, is it as easy as just picking any one from a shop or are there different ones? what would be best? Also where could I get it developed, would prefer on,one and only get negatives and cd.

Could I buy a negative scanner and scan them myself?

Anyway hoping to be in this section quite abit as I am still a novice with my dslr let alone my film :D
 
The first thing is whether you wish to use colour or black & white. I don't shoot in colour any longer, but the Fuji films are certainly excellent quality. To start with, I'd recommend a speed of around 200 or even 400 ISO which is more sensitive to light - especially useful at this time of year.

For processing in a high street shop, Boots for example will develop your films and put them onto a CD if you wish. However I don't think every branch has a lab, but that being the case I would think they will send them away for you. Alternatively, there are labs such as Peak Imaging where you could send them to.

If you fancy a go at black & white, I can personally recommend the Ilford range. To begin with, try some FP4 (125 ISO) or HP5 (400 ISO) - both are excellent films. Most users of black & white tend to process and print the films themselves, but Ilford have their own labs who can do whatever you require.

Your final question - yes, you can buy a film scanner. There are a number of 35mm scanners available and the Epson range are highly regarded.
 
There are a lot of different types of film. Ilford, Kodak & Fuji are the 3 big ones, but that's just the companies, each of them has their own types of film. Ilford only do black & white films, Kodak & Fuji do colour & B&W.

Since you're just starting out with film the biggest & nearly the only decision you need to make at this point is whether you want colour or black & white. They cost roughly the same. The 2nd is speed - same as the ISO on your DSLR, but you can't change it mid-roll. 400 is probably what you want to go for.

You can get it developed at Snappity Happy Snappy Chaps, Boots or Jessops. They all do roughly the same, but probably differ a bit in cost. You can either just get them to dev it & scan yourself, which would be cheaper in the long run & gives you much better quality scans & more control, or you can get them to scan & print as well. There's a big thread somewhere in this section about scanners.

If you don't want to spend ages looking at different films, etc, just get this if you want B&W, or this if you want colour.

Feel free to send me a PM or reply here or whatever if you have any other questions :)

Oh, & welcome to the forum!

-J
 
There are a few one-stop options on the High Street, the big two would be Boots and Jessops. To get started pick any cheap colour negative film - Fuji C200 is cheap enough, and whilst not brilliant it will do well enough to get you started, test the camera works and that you know how to work it. Then switch to something better (like the Portra suggested by Joe above).

Did I mention it's cheap? PM me your address and I'll send you a roll. If you use Jessops it's the film you get for free when you get any other film developed. I have a spare or two lying around. They even give me one if I remember to ask when I get medium format film developed.. :thinking:
 
They really do throw that stuff away in Jessops. They gave me somewhere near 10 rolls of it once because they made a mistake developing my film. Just imagine how much profit you'd make by selling it on :exit:
 
For your first test of the camera.....the cheapest way is Kodak film from the pound shop for £1 then use an Asda super store and get dev and scanned to CD for only £2.98 (good enough for a computer screen). If you are happy with the camera then find where you can get Fuji superia 200 cheap and also use Asda again, once you are confident in using the camera you can then expand to different films or B/W and if you want to, labs or whatever.

CZJ 28mm fuji superia 200 OOD bought in bulk for 35p a roll, Asda dev and scanned and touched up for spots etc in Photoshop.
CZJ28mm71000px.jpg


Kiron Zoom for £4, Fuji Reala 100asa bought in bulk for 70p a roll, Asda dev and scanned and touched up for spots etc in Photoshop.
80-200mm51000px.jpg
 
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Alastair said:
There are a few one-stop options on the High Street, the big two would be Boots and Jessops.
Click to expand...

I was wondering if all Jessops stores with in-store processing facilities actually develop film, or whether some will and others won't. The reason I say this is because I recently took a roll of Ilford XP-2 in to my local Jessops (Northwich), and even though they have their own printing service, they said the film would have to be sent away. That's one of the reasons I took it into Boots as they developed the film in an hour.
 
Carl V said:
I was wondering if all Jessops stores with in-store processing facilities actually develop film, or whether some will and others won't. The reason I say this is because I recently took a roll of Ilford XP-2 in to my local Jessops (Northwich), and even though they have their own printing service, they said the film would have to be sent away. That's one of the reasons I took it into Boots as they developed the film in an hour.
Click to expand...

If you're shooting colour negative or C41 b&w you won't have a problem. I wasn't aware that all (or indeed any) Boots could develop standard b&w? They are probably the only developer in town I haven't asked about b&w as all the others in town (Jessops, Snappy) had already said thay would have to send it away.

Starting out and using the High Street, it's much easier to stick to C41 process films.
 
Can I just point out that despite all the various mentions of high street brands, the best labs (and often the labs that the high street send out to) tend to be the mail order ones now - although some of them may be close enough for you to pick up and drop off in person.

The thread is at the top of the forum - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=341566

Additionally, whilst there has been a lot of mention of "picking colour or B&W", you can shoot whatever you want, colour negative, slide film, B&W, it's just that colour negative tends to be the easiest to find developing services for.
 
Alastair said:
If you're shooting colour negative or C41 b&w you won't have a problem. I wasn't aware that all (or indeed any) Boots could develop standard b&w?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. The Boots branch here in Northwich will develop C41 black & white on the spot, but I'd imagine standard black & white would have to be sent away. I normally do my own B&W developing, but in this particular case I had to test a camera for light leaks and needed the film doing right away. I chose XP-2 as it wasn't worth me setting everything up at home just to process one film, so I chose this film instead as it was a C41 process.
 
I forgot XP-2 was C41.. Jessops staff aren't always clued up on non-standard films, if you show them where it says C41 on the film they will accept it, I often have a similar problem with C41 120 films if I get a different person to usual on the counter. They will develop any C41 film on the spot, it's just they don't always recognise them until you point it out!

Mail order labs are great, but I'm generally impatient.. particularly when testing, so 1hr High Street is perfect for rapid feedback.
 
Just managed to get on to read what's happened he since last night! Thanks for all the responses, will have to go through this a few times to get everything I need out of it all :)

May take you up on the offer alsidair thanks very much.

As for getting film developed, where I live I have the optin of me local place, and to be honest I they don't hold a brilliant rerputation, so mail order is probably the best bet for me. There are no '1 hour ' places maybe a 1-2-3 days depending on when you go in.

Just looking forward to getting my first shots with this taken over the next week or so :)
 
You'll be shooting film, which inherently is a photographic medium where there is some waiting before you get your images. A few days won't hurt :D

Enjoy, and make sure you post them in our Show us yer film shots then! thread!
 
I know I think I'm far to used to get my photos instant, preview, delete if necessary and take more. It's going to be hard to get my head around film, trying to make every shot count and think about composition and making the picture work before taking it.

Should be fun!
 
Well it has been a while since I showed face in here. It's all down to Light_painting that I discovered back in February time. Anyway this weekend I managed to load up the AV-1 with some Kodak Colour Plus 200 (I think) So finished the film yesterday, now to find out where best to get it developed.

I really enjoyed using the camera, its a totally different way of camera life. I know its not a full manual camera but you really have to think and make sure you have everything right, focus, F number, framing... great fun.

Will hopefully get some of the results up soon.
 
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