Portra Experience on Nikon One Touch

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2011

One of my APUG friends sent me a Nikon One Touch Non Zoom Camera.
I tried it with Portra 400 and negatives were nearly transparent and 4 may be more stop darker.
Lab man said to me that your film is tungsten and point shoot cameras dont identify dx code of tungsten films.
I know one thing about the film , it stayed in a heated room for 1 year.

What is the problem , sensor of camera , dx sensor of camera or the film.

Lab scanned the film and lighten the raw file and everything was super but I want normal negatives.

Thank you ,

Mustafa Umut Sarac

Istanbul

2F/2F · Feb 4, 2011

The DX code read by cameras will only tell a P&S camera what EI to use for its meter and how many exposures the cartridge has. The DX bar code is for film processing machines, and is not read by cameras.

In any case, what your lab told you makes zero sense whatsoever. It is ignorance, a lie, or both at once. Why would a film's color balance affect exposure?

It is possible that the film is old and heat damaged. The camera could also have a problem. I would check the DX code contacts for oxidation or corrosion, first of all, to get that possibility out of the way. Then I would try another roll of film, and develop it yourself, so you can rule out the lab. If there are still exposure problems, the problem is probably your light meter, and probably not worth paying to fix on a point and shoot.

Good luck.

Q.G. · Feb 4, 2011

And Portra 400 is not a "tungsten" balanced film.
So that line they gave you is nonsense just because of that alone.

Making up such a line is probably an indication of guilt, a cover up.
So perhaps the lab screwed up. Or at least they were hedging, knowing their own work, and so not ruling out that they did.

If the DX-'contacts' failed, the camera probably would revert to ISO 100, which would lead to overexposed negatives. Not thin negatives.
So there's perhaps another indication that the lab knew that it would be quite possible that they did something not the way they should have.

P.S.
I checked that, and the ISO value the camera defaults to is indeed ISO 100.
So saying the DX-code is to blame really is a bad smelling load of bovine excrement.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2011

I bringed him Leica negatives and he told me Leica protects its lenses under soil for 40 years ! What a .... idiot !
Thank you for your suggestion.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2011

Thank you 2F/2F and Q.G.

benjiboy · Feb 4, 2011

I have a Nikon One Touch L35 AF and it has no DX coding http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/models/compact-images/L35AFcompact.jpg you set the film speed on the lens.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2011

Benjiboy ,

My camera is little bit different , there is a open/close door in front of lens and nothing else. May be it is older or newer but not better. And it has dx sensor inside.

Umut

nickrapak · Feb 4, 2011

Umut,

You must have the L35AF-2. It does use DX coding from ISO 25-3200 in full stop increments. I have used one of these cameras for many years, and it has always worked well for me. It could be either the film or the lab. I would try with a fresh roll of film just to see whether it it is the lab.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 4, 2011

Nickrapak ,

Thank you. I will give a chance to camera. Now its winter and stores are heated like a hell. And there is no fridge at the stores for films. Its becoming more difficult to find my loved kodak films fresh but the Fuji films.
In my opinion , at this premature situation , Portra accepts photoshop tricks very well. I dont know why but there can be a reason on this cameras Sonnar generic also.
I have a Rollei 35 S with all mulfunctions a camera can have but I force it to take pictures. Half of the film comes burned , film cant be removed at daylight etc etc.
My last hopeless hope is this Nikon.
I hope camera or lab or film works this time.

Umut
I have two sonnars and two cameras are making me sad , not pictures but the mechanic failures

benjiboy · Feb 5, 2011

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
Benjiboy ,

My camera is little bit different , there is a open/close door in front of lens and nothing else. May be it is older or newer but not better. And it has dx sensor inside.

Umut

My One Touch is the first model that is in fact older that I prefer because you can up and down rate films with it Mustafa, but at the time I bought it it was the current model the version with DX coding wasn't yet out then.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 5, 2011

I bought a Fuji 100 asa negative ordinary film this morning and took photographs whatever I find and rushed to same lab again. I have no other place to go. Man said he doesnt fire up the machine because there are only two or three film customer per month ! Its 13.00 here and I will get the film at 16.30 if there is anything on the film. Fingers crossed , I wish he puts new developer to the machine.
Yes situation is insulting.

I want to talk about kodak negative film , they sell it at the big market and there are no worse quality paper package than the Kodak in whole market. It has a faded yellow with russian letters box and I am sorry I dont get it. I dont know may be it is Russian taste but It looks cheap , very cheap like 1990s Soviet packages.

Q.G. · Feb 5, 2011

It could be better, and even cheaper, Mustafa, to buy your film online in, for instance, Germany.
You then get fresh film, for a good price. The trip to Turkey is short enough, so it shouldn't take long.
I don't know though about import tax, and such, you may have to pay. Nor about how quick or slow your customs and postal services are. But still: worth a try?

As for processing: perhaps you could look into the possibility of doing it yourself?

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Feb 5, 2011

I have D76 , 100 feet Arista edu and a small Paterson but no fixer. I have to go to city center for fresh film and chemicals but I didnt go outside of my home more than 200 meters in 1 year.
I have been a APUG holic. All my pictures are the same trees , flowers , roads , scenes. And I dont even do it right. Yes , finally I have paypal and I will invest in Leica R4 with Telyt or C1 , C2 or Mini on APUG.
I bought goods from Alaska , Canada , USA to Australia with post and no customs applied , directly came to the door.
There is a huge Ilford Store at Istanbul and there are hundreds of films , chemicals , whatever they got.
I think I became a local person.

Q.G. · Feb 5, 2011

Ah!
Perhaps time, then, to become a world citizen again?

Athiril · Feb 5, 2011

I would highly suspicious of the lab...

"Man said he doesnt fire up the machine because there are only two or three film customer per month"

More than likely there is not much bother to take care of the chemicals and make control strips then either. Source some chemicals, its very economical to replenish.

2F/2F · Feb 5, 2011

So, you changed film speed and kept everything else the same, including the highly suspect lab?

It just will not narrow things down to the problem.

Why not buy a fresh roll of film at the big Ilford store, shoot it quickly outside, go back in and drop it off for processing?

wblynch · Feb 7, 2011

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
Yes , finally I have paypal and I will invest in Leica R4 with Telyt or C1 , C2 or Mini on APUG.

Be careful with the Leica C1 or C2. I have two C1's and they are unusable now because the control switches collapse inside. They are made of metal 'bubbles' and once collapsed I don't see how they can be repaired.

I might try to rewire them with larger micro switches just to return the C1's to service.

Sorry be be a downer but those C1/C2/C3 really don't deserve the Leica label.

-Bill

Rudeofus · Feb 8, 2011

If the camera misreads the ISO value of your film, exposure is off. But as someone mentioned: the camera accepts ISO values between 25 and 3200. If the ISO value the camera read from the DX field would have been below 400, your film would have been overexposed, hence dark, not transparent, as has already been argued here. But even if that camera misread the ISO as 3200, your film is only 3 stops underexposed. While this would certainly not yield perfect prints, you should see an image as the films latitude should cover 3 stops.

Secondly, film doesn't have to be refrigerated. Yes, it'll possibly change its color balance after a while, but it'll still work. I've shot color slide film which was 20 years old and never in a fridge all this time, and it still worked. It created a magenta color cast, but there were visible images.

All this, and also the arguments previous posters made, seems to point at either your camera or the lab as the main culprit. Chances are that the lab doesn't make the same mistake twice, so your second roll of film may come out ok regardless of what you changed. If the second roll still looks like the first one, chances are high that indeed your camera is defective.

Portra Experience on Nikon One Touch

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