Film SLR

RollYerOwn

I am engaged in a project which requires both my Nikon DSLR and my old SLR cameras. I put in an old Kodak 200 colour film (been in the camera for about 3 years) - with a couple of new shots on as a test - for developing and they were put on CD. The shots were general outdoor shots with pretty good light.

The shots have come back and are unfortunately very grainy on screen - both the old shots and the new shots.

I'm concerned that my either the camera (Pentax MZ-50) or the developing process (1-hour job) is at fault, but I was also wondering whether the film might have degraded in that time. Would this cause the shots to be grainy?

Thanks

magicbastarder

would you be able to post an example with a full res crop?

ThOnda

It is usually the scanning, that makes balls from the pictures. Try to scan them on your own to see the difference. Or ask for high resolution scans.

RollYerOwn

Let's see if this works...

I thought they would automatically be high resolution scans...

PopeBuckfastXVI

Doesn't jump out at me as a scanning issue.

Try putting a new roll through, and compare the results?

If the the same try a different lab, if not it was the film.

Heebie

One thing to keep in mind is that "high resolution" from a lot of labs by default is 4x6" @300dpi.. the size they use to print a 4x6" print.
If you want higher resolution scans than that, you probably have to ask specifically for it..and pay more. (It takes more time to do the scans.)

Also.. you can see that the sharpening filters on those images actually sharpened the film grain. That really shouldn't be the case on iso 200 film in my experience.. unless it was fairly underexposed... but that doesn't look like the exposure would have been all that far off.

I'd definitely try another lab, get higher resolution, and ask them to turn off any sharpening filters they have control of.. you can sharpen it later in Photoshop.