my first roll of ektar

WGibsonPhotography · Apr 8, 2009

I shot my first roll of 35mm Ektar yesterday and had it processed at Wal-Mart. I didnt shoot anything special with it. I just walked around in the yard looking for colorful stuff. Just for fun, I exposed one shot normally, one shot a stop underexposed, and one shot a stop overexposed. I did that for everything that I shot.

I noticed that the overexposed shots were a bit bluish. Is that normal or was it just Wal-Mart Printing?

driver8 · Apr 8, 2009

Would be interesting to see. I suppose it's Wal-Mart. May you post any examples? 'Coz I consider buying a roll but can't see what's all this hype about.

PHOTOTONE · Apr 8, 2009

You can't judge a films quality by evaluating prints made at a mini-lab. It is all up to the operators skill at operating his scanning station.

dwdmguy · Apr 8, 2009

Phototone is bang on, Wally mart's prints are way, way off. Do you have a scanner? This would give you a much better indication of what's going on.
You may want to invest in a film scanner but also you can take your roll to Target, choose "PROCESS ONLY / NEXT DAY" for .99 and get a disc of your prints if you'd like.

WGibsonPhotography · Apr 8, 2009

We have a Nikon negative scanner here at school, but I dont have the film with me, so I wont be scanning any today :/

I figured it was probably Wal-mart's scanning, but I thought I'd go ahead and ask here. I thought if it was the film, someone else would have had the problem. What's weird to me is the "properly' exposed shots look fine to my eyes.

srs5694 · Apr 8, 2009

Be aware that scanners (or more precisely, the software they use) can also do weird things. After all, photofinishers these days just scan negatives and let the software do what it does, then make digital prints. In days of yore, photofinishers made direct analog prints, but they set the parameters based on computerized analysis of the negatives (with decreasing sophistication the longer ago you go). That said, if you understand the scanner software and its color options, you can get scans with a consistent set of color settings for frame-by-frame or roll-by-roll comparisons. OTOH, sometimes you need to tweak the settings, whether scanning or making direct prints, to adjust for things like changes to the light source.

All in all, judging the color in color print films can be tricky; a lot of what you see is strongly influenced by post-negative effects (scanning, the paper used, photochemicals for RA-4 paper processing, etc.).

WGibsonPhotography · Apr 8, 2009

srs5694 said:
Be aware that scanners (or more precisely, the software they use) can also do weird things. After all, photofinishers these days just scan negatives and let the software do what it does, then make digital prints. In days of yore, photofinishers made direct analog prints, but they set the parameters based on computerized analysis of the negatives (with decreasing sophistication the longer ago you go). That said, if you understand the scanner software and its color options, you can get scans with a consistent set of color settings for frame-by-frame or roll-by-roll comparisons. OTOH, sometimes you need to tweak the settings, whether scanning or making direct prints, to adjust for things like changes to the light source.

All in all, judging the color in color print films can be tricky; a lot of what you see is strongly influenced by post-negative effects (scanning, the paper used, photochemicals for RA-4 paper processing, etc.).

I'm not an expert with the scanner, but I know enough to tweak the settings to get what I want. Usually I turn the ICE on the fine setting to get any dust or small scratches out (which doesnt affect color any to my knowledge) and turn the GEM and ROC off. That actually seems to work pretty well in getting the colors "right" unless I'm scanning something shot under weird lights like a concert or something.

I know that is more of a hybridphoto.com method of shooting color, but I'd do it in the darkroom if I had color paper and chemicals. Unfortunately I sold what was left of my color paper and chems at the end of my color class last semester.

bob100684 · Apr 8, 2009

WGibsonPhotography said:
I'm not an expert with the scanner, but I know enough to tweak the settings to get what I want. Usually I turn the ICE on the fine setting to get any dust or small scratches out (which doesnt affect color any to my knowledge) and turn the GEM and ROC off. That actually seems to work pretty well in getting the colors "right" unless I'm scanning something shot under weird lights like a concert or something.

I know that is more of a hybridphoto.com method of shooting color, but I'd do it in the darkroom if I had color paper and chemicals. Unfortunately I sold what was left of my color paper and chems at the end of my color class last semester.

I'd put ICE on normal instead of fine. It seems to me setting it on fine softens the image a bit.

WGibsonPhotography · Apr 9, 2009

bob100684 said:
I'd put ICE on normal instead of fine. It seems to me setting it on fine softens the image a bit.

It does soften it a little, but I do sharpen a little it in the RAW editor. If I had the patience to fix the dust specks and scratches that somehow get in to the negative everytime I try to save money by going to wal mart for film processing then I would leave ICE on normal

k_jupiter · Apr 9, 2009

http://www.hybridphoto.com/forums/home.php

bob100684 · Apr 10, 2009

WGibsonPhotography said:
It does soften it a little, but I do sharpen a little it in the RAW editor. If I had the patience to fix the dust specks and scratches that somehow get in to the negative everytime I try to save money by going to wal mart for film processing then I would leave ICE on normal

haha those must be some pretty big scratches if you need ice on fine to get rid of them. Either way, I'm impressed with the new ektar.

jd callow · Apr 10, 2009

If you want to talk scanners you'll need to take it outside (http://www.hybridphoto.com) if you want to talk film please carry on. If you want to know whether or not +1, -1 or exposed at box speed is better get optical prints made by a human.

my first roll of ektar

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