very bad result from my first film

Man from moon · Feb 16, 2011

hello evry one

i get my first film tody from lab, but the result very very very bad

no sharpness, no dynamic range Evey thing in the photo its bad

this is some photo , i need to now what the problem ,,? maybe process ? or scan ?

and this is a 100% crop from another photo

as you can see , the photo is very White and heave a black line , and this photo in original size from CD direct ,and i Sure about the exposure its very well in all picture, and my film is ilford xp2 400 35mm + nikon f5

Rick A · Feb 16, 2011

Is this chromegenic(c-41) or traditional B&W film. Looks okay to me. Printing on traditional photo paper can have different results, depending on contrast grade chosen. Its just a tad contrasty.

marco.taje · Feb 16, 2011

I've been photographing for a little while (yet much less than many others), and one little thing I learned is that there is no such thing as certainty of "good exposure". You may find out, especially working with b&w film, that the concept of exposure will vary greatly along your way.
That said, the results don't look like they're so wrong. If the light was VERY hard when you shot, what you see is probably what you got Maybe the high contrast is also made more severe by the scanning process?
Either way, this means that you have to carry on and practice, and learn what to expect. Maybe try shooting a roll in similar conditions (if possible) and send it to another lab.

brucemuir · Feb 16, 2011

That black line at the left is just the frame boundary that the lab didn't crop. Dont worry about it.

These dont look that bad but it's difficult to tell on a computer monitor.

I'm sure the negative contains more information than this scan represents. C41 films usually handle highlights/overexposure fairly well.

rphenning · Feb 16, 2011

no sharpness? that 100% crop looks sharp enough.

Vaughn · Feb 16, 2011

Are you planning on printing these using traditional (wet) photo process? Otherwise you are at the mercy of whatever scanning hardware and software was used to make the CD.

lns · Feb 16, 2011

Well, they do look a little weird to me, harsh and grainy. But they seem sharp enough. The first one, perhaps, is a victim of too great a dynamic range: if you've got harsh sun, it's hard to take a picture of white walls in the sun and also get detail in the shaded interior; you won't do it with regular exposure and development and 35mm film. The second one seems the worst, with excessive grain and harshness. Obviously the light wasn't ideal for any of these shots. But I'm wondering if the real issue is the scan? A low-resolution scan can look like that. How do the negatives and the prints look?

-Laura

Brian Legge · Feb 16, 2011

The scans look heavily sharpened. Chances are they also did some brute for exposure adjustment as well.

If you're going to use a lab for development, you may want to try scanning/printing yourself so you are in control of those stages. Without that control, it can be difficult to tell much about your negative quality due to the amount of 'fix up' they'll try to do for you.

R gould · Feb 16, 2011

Looks ok to me, you will never get the greatest results from chromegenic film lab printed, they are printed on colour paper and I have seen terrible results, printed on BlW paper by hand you should get better results, just standard lab machine printing, Richard

warden · Feb 16, 2011

The scans are bad, but I bet the negatives are fine.

Diapositivo · Feb 16, 2011

Who did the scan? At which resolution? With which configuration? Who processed the scans?

My absolutely unfounded intuitions, or prejudices (not many elements to propose well-founded reasoning):

- Scans done by automated machine or machine operated by couldn't-care-less operator;
- Too high contrast, burned highlights, blocked shadows, could be the result of wrong exposure, wrong scanning, wrong post-processing;
- If you don't have a proper film scanner and rely on laboratory's film scanner, maybe another laboratory would give better results;
- If you have a proper film scanner, you should post on DPUG what your settings are and what your workflow is.
- The final result is not good to my eyes, but maybe the scene wouldn't allow anything better; you should post exposure values registered in the highlights and in the lowlights with your spot meter. Films are not there to perform miracles, not even B&W negatives. If the contrast is too high for your film, is too high.
- Your negatives might be very printable regardless of the poor scanning - postprocessing procedures. Only printing will tell.
- Your scanner might give you better results with "multiexposure" on. That means two passes on the same picture, then merged in one picture. Look for "scanning" and "multiexposure" on some search engine.

When both the highlights are burned and the lowlights are blocked, something went deeply wrong. You can certainly obtain much better than that UNLESS the scene really had a contrast beyond cure.

Fabrizio

Man from moon · Feb 16, 2011

thanks you very Mach

i show the photo in a seravel screen (ELD Screen , CRT) and No improvement

gays , i think the problem in the scan only , not from me or Process or film , see photo number 3 , i make a 100% crop to show you the spots in the sky

and see this photo (100% crop)

and the problem its in my city we have only one lap make Process and scan

I am thinking to buy a film Scan (like a plustek 7600) but iam Afraid to spend my money on the scan and the relay problem in the Process

are you recommended with me ?

stillsilver · Feb 16, 2011

One thing that is also the problem is the contrast level of your scenes. You are asking too much from your film. Without hand printing it will be impossible to get shadow AND highlight detail. For the first shots if you can go back and shoot very early in the a.m. or late in the p.m. try that. For building interior, try shooting those scenes on overcast days.

Mike

jp498 · Feb 16, 2011

put a digital photo of your negatives backlit, such as taped to a window or something. No telling if it's the negatives or the scans at this point. Get a little closer than I did.

Sort of like this:

holmburgers · Feb 16, 2011

I would nearly guarantee it's the scans. They look awful; like someone went crazy with post-processing. Sharpening, contrast, etc. are all taste-lessly done.

Check the negatives and show us or tell us what they look like, and then I would suggest that you ask the lab do change what they're doing.

Man from moon · Feb 16, 2011

jp498 said:
put a digital photo of your negatives backlit, such as taped to a window or something. No telling if it's the negatives or the scans at this point. Get a little closer than I did.

Sort of like this:

I did not understand clearly

Man from moon · Feb 16, 2011

ok

now i am understand

jp498 · Feb 16, 2011

Thanks. It looks like a combination of bad scans and inconsistent negatives.

20,21,24 look great. The other ones seriously lack shadow detail. Sort of a combination of contrasty and weak. 21 would print nicely at grade 3 or 4.

25 looks underexposed and overdeveloped. I really don't know if it's the film that can't handle that much range in the image, or how it was developed as I don't use that film. I'd shoot that with TMY2 and develop in PMK to compress the range and it'd be something easy to scan and almost as easy to print. Basically you choose exposure based on the shadows rather than averages or highlights, and trust the film's range to handle the highlights well. You can't do that so easily with digital.

22,23 looks plain underexposed.

As far as me also faulting the scanning, many automatic scanning software clip the highlights and shadow detail right out and produce more contrast than you want. How to scan well is apparently off topic for APUG, but it involves using the professional mode on an epson and moving things around on a scale and graph to not clip the extremes of the image, then after scanning it, applying a curve to make a natural looking contrast. Your scans looked very contrasty at all times even when the images is not, meaning the automatic scanning is on crack.

An F5 is the best metering camera there is. Period. Some of those weirdly lit scenes like your interior and high contrast ones, it might help to bracket a shot and see which you like better later. If you were shooting manual without metering, I might lay some blame on sloppy metering. It's probably partly bad developing and partly difficult exposure choices.

For normal stuff, you can't go wrong with an F5 on matrix metering. Shoot a roll of everyday stuff with the F5 and see how the lab handles things. That will tell you how consistent the lab is.

If you continue to get bad stuff from the lab, for less than $100 you can get everything you need to properly develop your negatives. Scanner is extra of course.

Man from moon · Feb 16, 2011

jp498 said:
Thanks. It looks like a combination of bad scans and inconsistent negatives.

20,21,24 look great. The other ones seriously lack shadow detail. Sort of a combination of contrasty and weak. 21 would print nicely at grade 3 or 4.

25 looks underexposed and overdeveloped. I really don't know if it's the film that can't handle that much range in the image, or how it was developed as I don't use that film. I'd shoot that with TMY2 and develop in PMK to compress the range and it'd be something easy to scan and almost as easy to print. Basically you choose exposure based on the shadows rather than averages or highlights, and trust the film's range to handle the highlights well. You can't do that so easily with digital.

22,23 looks plain underexposed.

As far as me also faulting the scanning, many automatic scanning software clip the highlights and shadow detail right out and produce more contrast than you want. How to scan well is apparently off topic for APUG, but it involves using the professional mode on an epson and moving things around on a scale and graph to not clip the extremes of the image, then after scanning it, applying a curve to make a natural looking contrast. Your scans looked very contrasty at all times even when the images is not, meaning the automatic scanning is on crack.

An F5 is the best metering camera there is. Period. Some of those weirdly lit scenes like your interior and high contrast ones, it might help to bracket a shot and see which you like better later. If you were shooting manual without metering, I might lay some blame on sloppy metering. It's probably partly bad developing and partly difficult exposure choices.

For normal stuff, you can't go wrong with an F5 on matrix metering. Shoot a roll of everyday stuff with the F5 and see how the lab handles things. That will tell you how consistent the lab is.

If you continue to get bad stuff from the lab, for less than $100 you can get everything you need to properly develop your negatives. Scanner is extra of course.

thank you my friend

so , about metering and exposure

i shot before this film , tow color film from kodak to test my camera , and the result so good , but tihs is first time i use b&w film

and before i bay the f5 , i shot with digitel from 3 yers a go , and i now how make a good exposure

But with this experiment
I have my hopes dashed

so , You can say the main reason is the scan ,,,?

jp498 · Feb 16, 2011

The scanning is about 75% of the problem. The remainder is room for improvement with exposure and/or developing. Not bad for a casual first try as you've got some technically challenging scenes not well suited to a first roll B&W experience.

If you want something to test exposure / metering of the f5, run a roll of slide film. What you see is what was run through the camera. (Unless the lab develops it with worn out chemicals or wrong temperature)

Paul Sorensen · Feb 16, 2011

jp498 said:
An F5 is the best metering camera there is. Period. Some of those weirdly lit scenes like your interior and high contrast ones, it might help to bracket a shot and see which you like better later. If you were shooting manual without metering, I might lay some blame on sloppy metering. It's probably partly bad developing and partly difficult exposure choices.

For normal stuff, you can't go wrong with an F5 on matrix metering. Shoot a roll of everyday stuff with the F5 and see how the lab handles things. That will tell you how consistent the lab is.

I would add, that while the quality of the F5 metering system is amazing, it will not correct for incorrect usage. Number 25 on the top strip looks to me like it was metered with a spot meter on the exterior out the doorway or window, whichever it is. This would easily cause this kind of underexposure. I suspect that the camera would not have done that with matrix metering on, but I could certainly be wrong.

I also agree that it is probably an issue with scanning primarily and secondarily some exposure issues. I highly doubt that there are major development issues here since it is C41 film.

Man from moon · Feb 16, 2011

ok guys

i well show you another tow photo

both of him from one scan, but different lab and different film

photo #A (kodak film) when iam test my new cam nikon f5

photo #B ( ilford Xp 2 )

Differences are very clear (Please see photo in original size )

jp498 · Feb 16, 2011

Just for a clear contrast in handling tones. Here is what happens when you can develop your own B&W film. Bright sun and deep shadows? No problem.

Kodak TMY2 with PMK developer. Epson scanner, epson & gimp software. All very standard, inexpensive, and common stuff. I am not trying to boast, but most normal labs do a serious injustice to B&W photography with bad scans, bad prints, etc... Anyone who can be 80% right on exposure time and follow basic directions for developing can make nice B&W exposures. I had lots of experience with B&W, but this was one of my first shots using PMK developer, so I was just following instructions like a new student during the critical step of developing.

removed account4 · Feb 16, 2011

some labs care and some just run it through ..
it seems that your lab a bit overzealous with the scanning ..
i am sure if you get the bug to
print them, they will be fine,
processing film isn't hard, its putting the
film on the reel that can sometimes be a pain ..

good luc k !
john

onnect17 · Feb 16, 2011

jawarden said:
The scans are bad, but I bet the negatives are fine.

Same here.

very bad result from my first film

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