Color film suggestion for Grand Canyon and surrounding areas

[Alan Edward Klein]

A 24-70mm zoom would cover you. Ektar 100 for negative film with some "pop".

 

[mtnbkr]

A 24-70mm zoom would cover you. Ektar 100 for negative film with some "pop".

The film camera is a Canon VT "LTM" rangefinder, no zooms for that I'm aware of.

But, my digital camera will be equipped with a 12-40 f2.8 zoom which is the M43 equiv to a 24-70.

Chris

 

[abruzzi]

If you can get to the North Rim, do it. It is a different world. Not as dry and may conifer trees on the surrounding area.

If you’re really adventurous, try to get to Toroweap (also called Tuweap) on the north rim.

 

[DREW WILEY]

There goes most of the week, not including time spent changing a flat tire. At least the River itself is easily accessed from Toroweap within about a minute ......................sploosh!

 

[Dismayed]

I try to buy film when I arrive at my destination. That way I avoid one pass through x-rays or having to ask for hand inspections.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I try to buy film when I arrive at my destination. That way I avoid one pass through x-rays or having to ask for hand inspections.

That makes the assumptions that

• There will be a camera store in the destination,
  
• It will be open,
• It will have the wanted film in stock.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Heck. A lot of the places I go don't have cell phone coverage, a pizza delivery service unless via paratrooper, or a film store even in the same State. One time I passed a highway sign which stated, In case of an emergency, dial 911, yet with an out-of-state prefix in front of the 911, two and a half hours away going 80mph !

Let's see ..... Los Angeles is only a miserable long long day away, or maybe two. I remember a humorous incident out at the end of the road in Petrified Forest NP. A elderly Brooklyn couple spotted me with my Sinar 4x5 camera and tripod set up and stopped out of curiosity. They walked over and the wife asked, "Whatcha see out theah, See a beah? See a deah?" They apparent thought bears or deer would be around, since this was a National Park, despite the sun baked dry clay and salt washes all around. Then the man remarked, "Dang, I locked the keys in the car! It's the fault of that stupid photographer". The wife replied, "Na, it's because yeh an idiiiiiot." I smiled and told them a Ranger would swing through around sunset, and then the next day, they'd only need to pay for a four hour round trip for the locksmith to arrive from Flagstaff, probably $500 or so. (I actually told a Ranger on the way out, so at least they'd be taken to a motel in Holbrook for the night.)

But that's a lot faster than a courier with film could arrive. Long distances between Point A and Point B in that part of the world. I once stupidly ordered a Starbucks scone in dry Flagstaff, along with coffee. I don't know if it came from the Petrified Forest itself, but it needed a rock hammer to break up small enough to eat.

 

[abruzzi]

There goes most of the week, not including time spent changing a flat tire. At least the River itself is easily accessed from Toroweap within about a minute ......................sploosh!

I've hiked down to the bottom several times, and it takes so long. I was trying to find a quicker way down. Maybe I can use the dark cloth as a parachute?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I just called the general store there in the GC Village. They don't carry film nor does he know anyone in the park who does. He said to check with the hotels, maybe they have. He didn't sound confident.

 

[mtnbkr]

I just called the general store there in the GC Village. They don't carry film nor does he know anyone in the park who does. He said to check with the hotels, maybe they have. He didn't sound confident.

Based on what I've seen here in NoVA and various other places on my travels these last few years, I'm not going to gamble and just bring my own film.

Chris

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Based on what I've seen here in NoVA and various other places on my travels these last few years, I'm not going to gamble and just bring my own film.

Chris

Sounds sensible.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

I try to buy film when I arrive at my destination. That way I avoid one pass through x-rays or having to ask for hand inspections.

Looking for that camera store with the film.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Is that a little town in the middle of the desert? Film? What about water?

 

[Duceman]

if has to be a neg film, then I would go with ektar or portra 160.

^-- Seconded, with the preference being Portra 160.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

I try to buy film when I arrive at my destination. That way I avoid one pass through x-rays or having to ask for hand inspections.

Looking for that camera store with the film.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I've hiked down to the bottom several times, and it takes so long. I was trying to find a quicker way down. Maybe I can use the dark cloth as a parachute?

I hear that it is harder to go back up and the mass of the equipment increased with the third power of the distance in meters.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Looking for that camera store with the film.

View attachment 296819

Hot tomales.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yep. If you plan to shoot film, BRING IT. It's that simple. Whoever advises to find it on location evidently doesn't leave big cities very often. And it can be difficult to find a decent selection in many of those these days. Or else a city is so big, it takes you a day just to get to and from a store within it. Likewise, BRING WATER, extra food and fuel, appropriate clothing, sleeping bags, etc. It's easy to get stuck somewhere in the West where you wish you were better prepared to begin with.

Now the distinction between Portra 160 and Ektar : Portra 160 will be quite soft or pastel, but relatively forgiving, while Ektar is significantly more saturated and contrasty, needing to be exposed with nearly the same care as a slide film. In print, these two look quite different. Of course, people often scan these and PS alter the saturation to the point of ludicrous surreality; but if that's what they're after, why even bother visiting the actual location seeing the real colors in the first place? It's the experience which counts.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Yep. If you plan to shoot film, BRING IT. It's that simple. Whoever advises to find it on location evidently doesn't leave big cities very often. And it can be difficult to find a decent selection in many of those these days. Or else a city is so big, it takes you a day just to get to and from a store within it. Likewise, BRING WATER, extra food and fuel, appropriate clothing, sleeping bags, etc. It's easy to get stuck somewhere in the West where you wish you were better prepared to begin with.

Now the distinction between Portra 160 and Ektar : Portra 160 will be quite soft or pastel, but relatively forgiving, while Ektar is significantly more saturated and contrasty, needing to be exposed with nearly the same care as a slide film. In print, these two look quite different. Of course, people often scan these and PS alter the saturation to the point of ludicrous surreality; but if that's what they're after, why even bother visiting the actual location seeing the real colors in the first place? It's the experience which counts.

Why is pastel vs. contrasty/saturated OK when selecting a film but not OK if scanning and editing afterward to get these effects? Isn't that also done when selecting different types of paper, developers, etc?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Why is pastel vs. contrasty/saturated OK when selecting a film but not OK if scanning and editing afterward to get these effects? Isn't that also done when selecting different types of paper, developers, etc?

The pastels will look flat on the print versus contrasty-saturated will just look better from the start and easier to work with in the darkroom or on the computer. Since I have it in my freezer, I would use Kodak UltraColor 400 with Kodak VividColor the second choice, but that if for readers in general because it is doubtful the OP could find either on short notice.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Hi again, Alan. A low contrast portrait film like Portra handles hues differently than a relatively high contrast one like Ektar which is not artificially warmed like most color neg films. Some people like a generic bland almost flesh-tone veneer over desert warm tones. Richard Misrach, for example, exploited that tendency in old Vericolor L color neg film. The current Portra 160 is better corrected overall, but still shares in some of that propensity. Ektar resolves those various earthtone shades quite a bit better - the best in fact of any color neg film so far. But it struggles on the opposite, not ideally resolving nunances between blue and cyan. That can somewhat be corrected via filtration AT THE TIME OF THE SHOT. Any who claims it can be all cleaned up afterwards is PS is like a little farm kid who thinks he got cleaned up in a livestock trough, and never saw a real bar of soap in his life. And you, of all people, Alan, addicted to the very clean palette of Velvia, would probably not like the muddiness of traditional color neg output.

That being said, NO... just going back in after a scan and doing some PS saturation tweaks is not the same thing as capturing it clean to begin with. That's because, being engineered to dump certain hues into a "pleasing skintone" generic bin, they do the same to similar hues in nature as well, where it might not be as desirable. Some of this works on the premise of dye curve overlaps, which once mixed, aren't easily unmixed. It's like trying to take apart the ingredients of concrete after it's already mixed and set up. Yeah, there are certain awfully convoluted digital hoops some people know how to do; but it's a hundred times easier to do it right the first time with a more appropriate film selection, plus an appropriate correction filter if needed.

And it's not just about more saturation per se. I've sure done my homework with Ektar, and it's cost me a bundle since most of that "School of Hard Knocks" tuition was paid in 8X10 film price tags. The previous Portra 160 VC was awfully nice in the desert too, but its been out of production quite awhile now.

 

[Huss]

Yep. If you plan to shoot film, BRING IT. It's that simple. Whoever advises to find it on location evidently doesn't leave big cities very often...

I miss 1985. When the hot new band was Duran Duran and you could find film in any supermarket or drug store.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Heck. I grew up within barefoot walking distance of a town so small that the store was smaller than some motorhomes; and the couple who ran it lived in it too. I didn't change since in the 1940's until it burned down about 15 yrs ago. A mahogany crank phone on the back wall. Sodas in an ice water container. A little refrigerator with some half-melted ice cream bars and an occasional rancid pork chop or two. Jugs of fortified wine, a shelf of blue jeans and cowboy hats, a naughty magazine rack popular with the logging truck drivers. Some cans of soup and boxes of cereal. Most of the ammo people demanded - .22 shells, 30-30, 30/06, 12 gauge shotgun shells, plus numerous other options. And yes, Kodachrome and Kodacolor Gold film in 35mm and 127 sizes, always in stock. And at my request they even later stocked old-style Agfachrome too. On their weekly grocery run to the city in an old dilapidated pickup, they'd drop the film off for processing, and the next week reliably bring back previous orders of snapshots and slides.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I miss 1985. When the hot new band was Duran Duran and you could find film in any supermarket or drug store.

Back then words were clean and the air was dirty.

 

[MattKing]

Back then words were clean and the air was dirty.

And of course, girls were on film.