Old cameras, film, prints and processing odd films ??

unklian

Western Thunderer
After posting this picture of my granddad's camera ( on the right .....) in RobR's thread. I went looking for pictures .

RIMG0470.JPG

And found this, taken by me in the late 1970's with the same camera, and processed and printed at college .

V Old picture002.jpg

It set me wondering how to do it again . Wagonman suggested developing the film myself and I can get 120 B&W film and chemicals OK. But how to get prints done ? I have more 120 and 126 negs and some ancient glass negs too I would like printed . Are there labs still around with old fashioned enlargers ?
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
There are film processing laboratories around. It's best to do a google search for film processing laboratories and add in your local town in the search. Avoid the Tesco's, Max Speilmann type shops as they're only interested in 35mm and digital processing/printing.

For glass negatives I'd give a professional processing laboratory a call as they may know who can print from these.

I'm fortunate as I have a professional processing laboratory in my local town 2 miles away who can handle 120, 35mm, 126 and even 110. They've even printed 127 negatives for me (these being taken with a Baby Rollei TLR).

The Zeiss Ikon on the right was my dad's 120 camera which now has a pinhole in the bellows. My 127 Rollei is on the right and in good working order.
Rollei.jpg
 

76043

Western Thunderer
Hi Ian,
Ilford still make all the b/w chemicals and resin coated paper and they are still widely available, along with 120 film in all flavours, both colour and b/w. 126 went out of production some years back now, but there's a growing enthusiast market, which is similar in flavour to the vinyl revival. There are some crowd funded projects to revive old film so who knows, someone may have restarted 126 film production.

I picked up an enlarger from a work colleague for next to nothing, but have never set it up. Therein lies the rub, it's easier to go to one of the few remaining pro labs (Metro & Bayeux, in London for example) and get them to process the film, then digitally photograph the neg (scanning is soo old sckool now) and then print the result. Thousands will say inkjet is rubbish, but they haven't seen the results from an Epson wide format printer with 9 ink cartridges. My home Epson office thing on the other hand is rubbish, but then there is a £1000 difference between the two printers.

But that's a bit boring, and probably more expensive in the long run, so go for it and setup a darkroom, process your films and print the results!

I used to love my college darkroom too.

Tony
 
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76043

Western Thunderer
Glass plate printing can still probably be done, I know someone who works for John Rylands library photo studio in Manchester who knows all about that stuff. They digitise them with Phase One medium format digital cameras and get wonderful results.

But you can read a bit about old school scanning of them here, Townsweb are one of the mass cultural heritage digitisation companies that work to digitise our national heritage assets.

How to Digitise... Glass Plate Negatives | TownsWeb Archiving

Tony
 
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JimG

Western Thunderer
My 127 Rollei is on the right and in good working order.
View attachment 86401

There's a blast from the past. My first "real" camera was a Rollie 127 which I got around 1961 after I had started working and earning. However, the difficulty of getting a good choice of 127 film meant that it sat on the shelf in the 1970s and I gave it to friend who was an enthusiast. I also got a Mamiyaflex in the 1970s and I've still got that but it hasn't taken a shot for years. The most useful camera I found was the small Rollie 35B with its pull out lens.

Rollei B 35 – Camera Review – Casual Photophile

...a true pocket camera always on hand to grab a shot and it probably took most of the shots I took in the 1970s and 80s. A Canon SLR followed but digital cameras arrived on the scene about the same time and the SLR has sat on the shelf for years as well.

Jim.
 

Len Cattley

Western Thunderer
My father had a Rollieflex when he was a professional photographer and other camera's as well, he also owned a camera shop and a studio as well as printing his film's. I wish I followed in his business :(

Len
 

iak63

Western Thunderer
Some fine cameras on this thread.
If one is looking for the means to process some auld film, here are some suggestions:

Black & White Chemicals
Film developing, processing, printing, film scanning, digital photo printing

https://www.silverprint.co.uk/

Both stores are decent places to deal with from experience and the Ag Photo Lab has a very good reputation.

With regards to scanning/digitizing negatives? A good flatbed can be obtained without breaking the bank, mind I am not up to speed with modern standards. My dedicated film scanner is nigh on 15/20 years auld and still wheezing away.
The software to tweak images can be any price you like, including no cost at all - open source software these days is very good.

darktable - the photo workflow software
LightZone | Open-source digital darkroom software for Windows/Mac/Linux
GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program

All this is making me realise that I have a few hundred digital images to engage with - wibble...
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
I've scanned black and white glass plates on my flat bed scanner with great results. After all, it's only a supremely flat bit of film!

The only down side is that you may have to create your own mask. You'll also need to raise the plate slightly off the platen to avoid Newtons Rings.

This is a low res copy of a high res scan.

Brian

2306.  See Properties - Details - Comments for information.  FINAL - Copy.jpg
 

fenman

Active Member
I've scanned black and white glass plates on my flat bed scanner with great results. After all, it's only a supremely flat bit of film!

The only down side is that you may have to create your own mask. You'll also need to raise the plate slightly off the platen to avoid Newtons Rings.

This is a low res copy of a high res scan.

Brian

View attachment 86408
Brian,
Did you ever get sent out to buy a packet of Newton rings?
Peter
 

Wagonman

Western Thunderer
Processing B&W can be done at home quite easily – colour is rather more of a problem but there are labs still functioning. If you don't want to set up a darkroom or go down the scanning route, there are various organisations that have darkrooms to rent. My local Arts Centre in Norwich used to have one though alas no longer, but there is another organisation Home who have taken over the role.

My old film scanner (Nikon Coolscan) died on me some years ago, along with the SCSI equipped computer it worked with, so I use my Epson flatbed (V750) which comes with various masks for different size films – up to 10x8!
 

Stuart

New Member
I dabbled with 120/620 Box Brownies a few years ago and bought a Canoscan 9000f to scan the negatives, which it does rather well:- Box Brownie

I subsequently discovered that you can use the 120 settings to scan magic lantern slides directly on the glass, as the carrier glass lifts the image up into approximately the same position as the film carrier for 120 negatives:- Lantern Slides
 

unklian

Western Thunderer
Thanks for all the helpful replies. Whilst I would love to process my own pictures, it sounds like starting a whole new hobby and life is too short for that I am afraid . I will continue to explore getting it done for me .
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Thanks for all the helpful replies. Whilst I would love to process my own pictures, it sounds like starting a whole new hobby and life is too short for that I am afraid . I will continue to explore getting it done for me .
Just as an observation......

I've prepared a couple of photographic displays for the GCR and have just started on one drawing from several photo collections to fit with the gala on 4th/11th August to commemorate the last day of BR steam. Personally I've never had any of my scans printed professionally but during a hiatus in my availability late last year a display was organised using commercially produced prints. I suspect that these were not the most expensive available but there is no doubt that they were far inferior to those I have produced in terms of both sharpness and colour and were, frankly, a great disappointment. Somewhat surprising to me was that, even with modern digital processing and printing techniques the results available nowadays mirror those of years ago when professionally produced paper prints from film would blow regular prints out of the water every time, but at many times the cost.

I am well aware that photos made on my ink jet printer are comparatively expensive but I have no doubt that the control one can exercise in Photoshopping and printing if one does it for oneself can produce results which far exceed those commonly available. My machine is a, probably ten year old, Epson RX560 which was bought partially with colour printing in mind. (Doubtless there will follow correspondence regarding which type of machine produces the best results, and I may have hit upon a happy combination of scanner and printer - who knows). However, my point is that the results which can be achieved in home printing will, on the whole, be far more satisfactory.

I appreciate that there are many who will prefer to spend their time building models rather than learning yet another new skill. For the last display I printed I found that I could make at least thirty A4 or 8 x 10" prints in a day which, for the quality achievable, I regarded as time very well spent.

Brian
 
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