Guy at the local camera shop said I should run my developer at 75F instead of 68F for Tri-X. He swore it would give better contrast without losing grain. I blew him off for like 3 months because I thought he was just messing with my process. Finally tried it last weekend on a roll I shot in bad lighting and honestly the negatives look way better. Anyone else had a tip that sounded dumb but actually worked?
Honestly I didn't even realize I was tracking until last weekend when I was cleaning out my drying closet. I counted up all the film canisters from this year and it came out to exactly 201 rolls. That number caught me off guard because back in 2018 I maybe shot 15 rolls total. Most of it is just me messing around in my neighborhood in Portland or taking pictures of my friend's band at dive bars. I think what surprised me is how many of those rolls are just crap exposures or double exposures that didn't work. But there's maybe 20 frames from the whole bunch that I actually love and would print. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize you're shooting way more than you ever thought you would but the keeper rate is still tiny?
I was picking up some Tri-X 400 last Saturday and this dude was telling the cashier that medium format is the only way to shoot street now. Took everything I had not to chime in, but I've been shooting 35mm Leica on the Lower East Side for 3 years and my keeper rate is way higher because I can actually move fast. Has anyone else had to bite their tongue when someone gets elitist about formats?
Spent 2 hours trying to figure out why my test roll came back blank. I loaded a roll of Ilford HP5 into my Pentax K1000, shot a whole afternoon at Zilker Park in Austin, then developed it and got clear strips of film. Turns out the spool never caught and I never advanced the film once. Anyone else waste a whole day on a rookie mistake?
I was at the City Wide Camera Swap in Denver back in April. This older woman, Hazel, was selling a bunch of old film gear. I was bragging about my new-to-me Olympus OM-1 and how I shot a whole roll of Portra 400 without even metering. She just looked at me and said 'sounds like you wasted $12 on film and processing.' She was right. I got back 36 shots of pure garbage. Overexposed, underexposed, all over the place. Now I actually test my light meter with a known good roll before I trust it. Has anyone else had their pride dented by a stranger at a show?
I was at this garage sale in Eugene back in May, and this older guy was selling off his darkroom gear. He showed me his method for hanging negatives to dry using wooden clothespins and fishing line, nothing fancy. Tried it myself that weekend and realized I had been overcomplicating my drying process for years. Anyone else pick up a strange habit from a random stranger at a sale?
Spent $60 on a Hewes stainless reel because everyone said plastic reels jam, but after three rolls I went back to the Paterson and realized I was just rushing the drying step - has anyone else found that the expensive gear barely matters once you get the basics down?
I just finished developing my 100th roll of 35mm in my bathroom sink. Started in March 2020 when I was bored during lockdown and bought a cheap tank and some chemicals off Craigslist. Out of those 100, I think I messed up maybe 4 or 5 really bad with streaks or blank frames. The biggest shock was how much money I saved compared to paying a lab, probably around $800 total over 3 years. Has anyone else tracked their home developing numbers and been surprised by something?
I was in my basement last Saturday trying to print a 16x20 from a roll I shot in Acadia. The old GraLab timer clicked off at 8 seconds into my exposure and just sat there dead. I grabbed my phone, opened a stopwatch app, and finished the burn-in by counting out loud while my wife yelled the seconds from the doorway. The print came out fine, but has anyone else had a mechanical timer just give up like that?
I was at a coffee shop in Raleigh last month shooting some rolls of HP5 on my old Pentax K1000. Some older dude walks up and asks what I'm shooting. I show him the camera and he asks to see a roll. I pop the back open and he just says 'you been ripping the sprocket holes this whole time?' I had no idea what he meant. He showed me how the film was sitting crooked on the spool because I was forcing it in at a bad angle. Fixed it on the next roll and my negs came out way tighter. Has anyone else had some random stranger point out a dumb basic mistake you were making?
I kept seeing people online say you can just let your film sit in developer for an hour with no agitation and get great results. Sounded too lazy to be true honestly. Tried it with a roll of Tri-X 400 last month using Rodinal at 1:100 dilution. Just let it sit for 60 minutes in my bathroom and poured it out. The negatives came out with way less grain than my usual agitation method and the contrast was perfect. Made me wonder how many other shortcuts I dismissed without testing.
I was at a coffee shop last week and this teenager pointed at my Pentax K1000 and called it a vintage camera. Made me feel old since I learned on that exact model in high school. But I guess 30 years is a long time in tech years. Do you guys ever have moments where you forget how much time has passed since film was the standard?