which film for my holga?

elven

Well, even though the arrival of my holga was overshadowed by the disappointment of not getting the lens, I'm still looking forward to getting started with it. Did a good bit of reading last night on all the fixy-uppy bits I need to do and that's fine - but I'm still wondering what film to get...?

If it's set at f13 (I haven't done the aperture mod), and the shutter speed is about 1/100th-ish, on a usual Irish overcast/patchy sun kind of day, what speed film should I get? Would 400 be about right?

I'm also swithering between doing black & white and slides - you can get provia 400 in 120 format it seems. I'm wondering what'll be easiest for processing - at the moment I'm not ready to do the darkroom thing, I just want to send 'em off for dev & scan and I know dlab7 don't do bw, or even c41 in medium format... I don't get into town much to be able to go into gunns either, so sending away would be easiest.

I think I will get my changing bag and dev tank from mum's loft when I'm over next month though, and do the E6 thing

Any suggestions?

DaireQuinlan

400 sounds about right. If anything that might overexpose a little. I'd throw a roll of print film through it first to get comfortable with what sort of situations you can take pictures in and which you can't. On the other hand there's nothing like a roll of slide to check your exposure technique !

As regards everyday usage, as a holga user I think you're obliged to only shoot expired slide film pushed a few stops and then x-processed :-)

magicbastarder

i ran 400 through mine, and it seemed fine.
slide hasn't got the exposure latitude of print, so you won't get as many usable shots from it.

elven

The x-processing is obligatory, of course! There'll be plenty of that to come

You do your developing at home or in a rented darkroom, Daire?

DaireQuinlan

elven wrote:

The x-processing is obligatory, of course! There'll be plenty of that to come

You do your developing at home or in a rented darkroom, Daire?

All my B&W film I develop at home, load up the film in my super advanced darkroom*. Color seems too expensive and too much hassle. For repeatable results you'd probably want to get one of those jobo development yokes, they don't come cheap. And E6 is apparently even more annoying. 6 different steps, chemicals are even more toxic than c-41. Pah. life is too short !

I have an enlarger languishing around at the moment so at some point I plan to start doing prints. Probably confined to B&W aswell. Should be fun :-)


*wardrobe

elven

I used to do E6 and it was tricky, but manageable - maybe black & white will seem easy in comparison, then...

DaireQuinlan

elven wrote:

I used to do E6 and it was tricky, but manageable - maybe black & white will seem easy in comparison, then...

Cool, you used to actually home-develop E6 ?? Water baths at the correct temperature, multiple solutions etc etc etc ? Everything I've read about it makes it out to be a complete pain in the ass. B&W is fun and easy :-) and you don't even have to really worry too much about your concentrations, times, or temperatures. Or at least I didn't when I was developing using that foul coffee mixture, I'm a little more organised now.

elven

Yep first time I just had water in the sink and had to keep it at temperature by adding hot & cold water, but then I got one of those bath thingies with a thermostat in it. It's that you have to keep the different chemicals at different temperatures thats a pain - and it simply isn't a 1 person job, for the first few times, anyway!!!

The tank that I've got, I'm sure I remember it saying it was a 'universal' one and the spool bits would slide up and down - do you think that means it'll take 120 film, instead of two rolls of 35mm?

Where's best to obtain the chemicals for b&w anyway?

Fajitas!

Anywhere really.

I have a few bits and bobs I could give you a loan of next time I'm up.Won't be dev'ing in Waterford.

And yep, the spools go up and down for 120 or 135mm.

DaireQuinlan

I just pick mine up in the camera-exchange on georges st, I think even jessops has its own brand developer, although I'd check the expiry date on their stuff, it all looks a smidgeon dusty and neglected ...

The only developer I've tried so far was Ilfosol because its a liquid concentrate and comes in relatively small bottles so I can't speak for any of the others. I'm moving house soon and plan on mixing up a big batch of XTol instead, its about the most non-toxic developer you can buy apparently (a lot of the others have hydroquinine in them which is not-good stuff). Add fixer and (optionally) wetting agent and you're good to go. I have a 2 litre bottle of the stuff, ought to last me a good while !

magicbastarder

kathy in gunns was telling me that rodinal is the developer they use, it's the most trustworthy or summat - though it does give contrasty results when used on neopan.

elven

Fajitas, just let me know when you're around in that case

I heard about rodinal giving serious contrast and golf ball sized grain... sounds excellent! Going to head in on saturday hopefully to pick up film, and I'll check it out then.

prox

magicbastarder wrote:

kathy in gunns was telling me that rodinal is the developer they use, it's the most trustworthy or summat - though it does give contrasty results when used on neopan.

You could ask them to underdevelop slightly on neopan, or shoot it one stop over and pull.

I use rodinal 1:25 on delta 100 and delta 400. It's known as high acutance, but on most 120 negs I'd be hard pressed to find grain enough to focus to under the enlarger never mind seeing in the actual print. Unless you're really cranking up the contrast, of course.

Fajitas!

If you want golf ball grain, use boiling water when developing...

prox

Not forgetting to reduce your developing time from nine minutes to twelve and a half seconds, agitating smoothly for 0.3 out of every 1.2 seconds.

That would work, but unfortunately all that 'golf ball' grain will remain at the bottom of the processing tank.