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How about more and more fun with Leica M? (Film)

pegelli

Well-known member
And there is no antidote! :shocked: ;)
Fortunately not. It's nice going out and limiting yourself to 36 shots which asks for better planning than a big memory card (I just go out to shoot one roll, no spare with me). Then no possibility for chimping but replaced by the excitement and first impression when the film comes from the tank and is hung to dry. And finally scanning to see how the details and sharpness look. And for sure the M2 is still a great camera and my lenses still operate very smooth, so the shooting itself is nice as well.

Somehow I'm not missing the darkroom printing, sitting in a dark smelly room all day to produce a handful of prints is now converted to a digital workflow after the film is developed, which does wonders for the speed as well as consistency of the end result (I never really mastered darkroom printing well)
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Another experiment that would have been very hard to pull off in a printing darkroom, a pano of two handheld shots

De schans van Schilde, built in 1905, partly blown up by the commander on oktober 9, 1914 when the Germans came too close with their "Fat Bertha" 42 cm mortar.
Left "as is" for 105 years now :bugeyes:


Leica M2 + Summicron 50/2 DR on HP5, f8, 1/250, stitched in Lightroom
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Someone could not wait... M7, 35mm Summaron f2.8, Portra 400.
Looks like the holes in the window are only big enough to pull some minced meat through :shocked:

Question: how do you process your porta 400? Do you develop it yourself or do you bring it to a lab? Do they print or scan it for you, or do you scan it yourself (from prints or negatives)? I'm currently only doing B&W, but if there is a managable workflow I'd be willing to try some colour film as well.
 

KeithDM

Well-known member
Pieter, with colour films (C41 & E6) I send them to a lab for 'dev only'. When I have received the negs or transparencies, I scan them on my Epson V700. Post-processing is in LR CC. So really, very little difference at all between b&w and colour in terms of PP'ing.
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Thanks Keith, I still have some colour negatives somewhere from my old film days, never tried scanning any of them on my V700. Given the coloured base I always assumed getting the colours right would be a nightmare (like colour printing in the darkroom). You make it sound relatively easy, so I just need to try how it works and see for myself.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Thanks Keith, I still have some colour negatives somewhere from my old film days, never tried scanning any of them on my V700. Given the coloured base I always assumed getting the colours right would be a nightmare (like colour printing in the darkroom). You make it sound relatively easy, so I just need to try how it works and see for myself.
Good film scanning software has a setting for each film type. I believe that's what takes care of the coloured base. I use Silverfast 8 (came with my Plustek 35mm scanner), and I'm quite happy with that.
 

MartinN

Well-known member
Good film scanning software has a setting for each film type. I believe that's what takes care of the coloured base. I use Silverfast 8 (came with my Plustek 35mm scanner), and I'm quite happy with that.
I use both Silverfast 8 and VueScan. When I use Silverfast for colornegs, I try different colorfilm settings and try to get the most neutral colors from start because correcting crossed color curves in post is almost impossible. This means that for Kodak colornegs I play around with the different Kodak profiles until the colors are mostly neutral and I don't do any color tweaking at this stage other than selecting different color profiles and watching neutral gray. However, I strongly recommend trying different film types in Negafix AND trying out the different basic options before starting a scan of the whole film. That's pretty much a good starting point for the film being scanned and after testing I stick to that.

VueScan doesn't have the likes of color negative profiles/curves so there I am using the Color Tab and use settings like Color balance Neutral or Auto Levels. I also use the color tab for best exposure/contrast. In my opinion Vuescan is faster to use and gives somewhat better results with color negative film. Slide film is IMO a real PITA and to get neutral colors I have to manually adjust colors in Silverfast and in post in Lightroom. For slide film I use Silverfast because of the extensive color editing features.
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Look who's lurking in the bushes


Leica M2 + Summicron 50/2 DR or Elmar 90/4 (can't remember), FP4, Microphen, slight crop

It's a shot I took in our garden in 1994 or 1995 when we lived in League City (Texas). I developed the film then but never printed or scanned it until today. Can't remember which lens I shot it with but I do remember trying to focus with a rangefinder on the eye of this creature was very difficult and inconsistent. This is about the best I got out of a total of more than 10 (mostly out of focus) shots.
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Two more from the same film, from a visit to the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings in 1994. The only two B&W pictures I took that vacation, all others were colour slides with an OM2 or colour negatives with my wife's OM10.

Overview while walking the trail down



Inside the settlement, the entrance to a kiva on the left


Both Leica M2 + Summicron 50/2 DR
 

pegelli

Well-known member
I scanned and processed this image for other reasons, but that shouldn't stop me from posting it here I think.

From our visit to the Grand Canyon north rim in 1982 at sunrise. The camera is an M2 but I forgot which lens, but I had a Summaron 35/2.8, Elmar 50/3.5 and Elmar 90/4 with me.



Film was FP4, probably pushed 1 or 2 stops in development (looking at the grain)
 

pegelli

Well-known member
I'm very slowly working on a project to document the remains of the pre-WW1 fortifications around Antwerp on B&W film. I'm probably less than 5% done, but it gives me a fun challenge to use film in a way that has some purpose to keep me going.

For daylight I mainly use my Leica M2 (with 35, 50 and 90 mm lenses) and inside with a Minolta 505si (with 20, 24 and 35 mm lenses). I've now pretty much standarised on mildly pushed FP4 for outside and either pushed HP5 (to iso 1600) or Delta 3200 for inside.

Here's an early result with the M2, a Summaron 35/2.8 @ f5.6 and FP4 pushed to 200 iso in Fort Ertbrand

 
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