It's my first time really getting into 120! I've only shot it sparingly in the past with meh results developing (the two-rolls-on-one-spool trick caused overlapping and screwed development)
I develop at home with a AGO film processor. This lets me use a larger 5-roll paterson tank so i can do 5 rolls of 35mm at a time, or 3 rolls of 120. You might notice some artifacts on the left of the frame -- I think that was moisture from difficulty getting the film on the roll in the darkbag. I used a not-completely-dry spool (i did a 35mm dev sesh leading up to loading) so i think some water got on the film and caused that.
I hang all the film in the bathroom to dry for a couple hours, then scan it with my olympus OM-1 with a 30mm macro lens. this works great for 35mm, since the negative fills the frame for the most part, and I can deal with ~15-20mp scans for 35mm. For 120, in the past I just accepted lower res scans. but this time I figured I'd try the OM-1's 100MP feature, where it stitches together multiple images to reach a higher resolution. I don't know why, but in the past I had bad blurry results from this, but this time it turned out great i think. I use manual focus assist, which zooms in while focusing, and i adjust til i can see the grain. Then i put the camera in aperture priority and start shooting.
I use negadoctor in darktable to reverse the color and then manually adjust rgb sliders. the colors are the most difficult to get right, but I've improved my workflow quite a bit over the past 2 years.
You might notice some artifacts on the left of the frame
I didn't, but you went and made me look! You totally could have gotten away with that! :D
scan it with my olympus OM-1
Oh! Can you you share or show what your setup is for that? I have a bunch of negatives and chrome I would love to digitize. I bought a 1200dpi film scanner some years ago but I'm unhappy with the results. Also, it doesn't have 120 carrier, only 35mm.
So it's a bit involved. I have a valoi 360 scanning kit that includes an advancing mechanism for a roll of film. It helps a lot, even though its dumb expensive. I had an enlarger that i took the head off of, which essentially made it into a copystand, and i got a tripod head to mount my camera on to. the valoi system comes with a mirror to make sure the camera is level, and then basically you feed the film through the advancer, take a shot, and then advance to the next frame.
you can definitely get by with other scanning kits, or even just a cheap lighttable off scamazon. But i had a bad experience with the lomo one and my brain broke and I shelled out the cash. Plus I develop and scan a lot of film and im not too at risk of dropping this hobby, so i figured in a couple years it will have been worth it.
6 replies
That's a lot of gloom
well its pretty gloomy out there
weather changes though. i have more hope than i used to.
Gawd, I miss 120 6x6. What was your printing and scan process?
It's my first time really getting into 120! I've only shot it sparingly in the past with meh results developing (the two-rolls-on-one-spool trick caused overlapping and screwed development)
I develop at home with a AGO film processor. This lets me use a larger 5-roll paterson tank so i can do 5 rolls of 35mm at a time, or 3 rolls of 120. You might notice some artifacts on the left of the frame -- I think that was moisture from difficulty getting the film on the roll in the darkbag. I used a not-completely-dry spool (i did a 35mm dev sesh leading up to loading) so i think some water got on the film and caused that.
I hang all the film in the bathroom to dry for a couple hours, then scan it with my olympus OM-1 with a 30mm macro lens. this works great for 35mm, since the negative fills the frame for the most part, and I can deal with ~15-20mp scans for 35mm. For 120, in the past I just accepted lower res scans. but this time I figured I'd try the OM-1's 100MP feature, where it stitches together multiple images to reach a higher resolution. I don't know why, but in the past I had bad blurry results from this, but this time it turned out great i think. I use manual focus assist, which zooms in while focusing, and i adjust til i can see the grain. Then i put the camera in aperture priority and start shooting.
I use negadoctor in darktable to reverse the color and then manually adjust rgb sliders. the colors are the most difficult to get right, but I've improved my workflow quite a bit over the past 2 years.
Thanks for the info!
I didn't, but you went and made me look! You totally could have gotten away with that! :D
Oh! Can you you share or show what your setup is for that? I have a bunch of negatives and chrome I would love to digitize. I bought a 1200dpi film scanner some years ago but I'm unhappy with the results. Also, it doesn't have 120 carrier, only 35mm.
And heeeelllll YES Darktable!
So it's a bit involved. I have a valoi 360 scanning kit that includes an advancing mechanism for a roll of film. It helps a lot, even though its dumb expensive. I had an enlarger that i took the head off of, which essentially made it into a copystand, and i got a tripod head to mount my camera on to. the valoi system comes with a mirror to make sure the camera is level, and then basically you feed the film through the advancer, take a shot, and then advance to the next frame.
you can definitely get by with other scanning kits, or even just a cheap lighttable off scamazon. But i had a bad experience with the lomo one and my brain broke and I shelled out the cash. Plus I develop and scan a lot of film and im not too at risk of dropping this hobby, so i figured in a couple years it will have been worth it.
and yeah, Darktable is amazing.