Recently in Photography Category

Yesterday was a rough day for my photographically. I couldn’t manage to get myself to really get into it for a while, mostly because I felt redundant and my images felt only mediocre, leaving me feeling kind of empty. After a while (and some brief counseling of a friend) I managed to get myself into a somewhat more photographic mood, taking over 600 images of various buildings, plants and athletes. Some of the images turned out nice, some didn’t. It doesn’t really matter, because I enjoyed doing it, and it got me to be outside and around people. That still doesn’t fix my artistic need to feel as though my photography is interesting or that it matters in some way or is in some way unique. I upload a lot of my images to Flickr, but that isn’t really useful since I upload so many for general viewing, and it is really just a mess to dig through unless things are sorted properly, and I don’t really sort much. My general photostream is a mismatched set of images from various perspectives on the world with no consistent meaning, and the images are of varying quality.

This morning after becoming annoyed with the fact that my photostream is so cluttered, I created a new set, called “Portfolio”, although its intentions are a little more vague than its name. I have presently placed several images taken from the time I started using Flickr through present that I find interesting or that I feel showcase a special part of what I like to do with photography. I came up with 41 photos so far, but I intend to add to it as I have more images that I really like.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kularski/sets/72157623680948821/

As of Monday, ExIf 35 had its first major release. With the release of "Milestone 1", daily build number 20100405, I decided that the application was feature complete and stable. The entire build package contained the released executable for the Windows version of the application, as well as two different mobile platforms (PocketPC 2003, Windows Mobile 5). The application works quite well for what its designed for, which is nothing more than tagging scanned negatives or prints with proper information that was recorded when the image was taken. This comes with several major problems, the least of which is that every film photographer in the world except me runs a Mac. The worst of the problems is that the majority of film photographers are not in it for the art of it, or any nostalgic purpose, they are just lazy and un-adaptive, which means that they are avoiding the digital side of things for convenience and in general do not record exposure details. In my opinion, there is as much science as art in photography, especially in film (we can say for certain that there is chemistry), and as scientists of light and optics it is our responsibility to record details about each "experiment" we capture.

Now, off of my film soapbox, I am finding that the level of precision and care I take to tagging and keeping orderly my film information I wish to apply at least partially to my digital work. Of course the exif portion is already handled for me (thank the great maker for that), but I will be working on ExIfDSC to further manage this information. This will allow for manual adjustment of orientation, adding of tags, titles and descriptions. I plan to make the application function in two ways, first, just an image-by-image view that will let the user easily make adjustments without being distracted by 36 thumbnails on screen. Next there is to be a gallery view that will allow multiple image manipulation, mass rotations and such. ExIf35 works from its XML files, so will ExIfDSC, but it won't be limited by them. ExIfDSC will support a majority of its processes by way of interacting directly with the image files. On the other hand, the gallery view will support forming gallery files, which will be images selected by the user that are important, have significance or are display-worthy. Sort of a more polished way of viewing images, eliminating much of the clutter that is associated with digital photography.

I am not abandoning ExIf35 and intend to actively support and promote it (as well as poke at it frequently for minor tweaks), but I need to change my focus to ExIfDSC so that all of the processes can be streamlined and my photographic world can be a happier place (but my happy place is a topic for another blog entry).

I am having a little trouble understanding the way that film sleeves were designed. Most are designed to hold 7 strips of 5 frames each. That means 35 frames per sheet. Most 35mm rolls are 24 or 36 exposures by standard. The fun part is that in most situations a camera will use 37 to 38 frames on a 36 exposure roll. For me it seems to be 37. Either way, I will always have at least 1 frame hanging off, but in most cases I will have 2. Would it not have made sense for there to be 6 places for strips of 6 on these things? I wouldn't be opposed to sticking a single exposure in the holder backward so that all of them fit, but at least if the thing had 36 spaces I would have a fighting chance. When I had a very nice friend cutting my film for me I at first told him to cut the strips 6 frames, since that is what most things now handle (because of the move away from 24 exp rolls). At this point in time, film is a rare thing, no one really uses it anymore, so wouldn't it make sense for the companies that are still making products for film to make them the best that they can to fit the needs of people still using film (or going back to film)?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kularski/sets/72157623654258769/ 

My first roll has now been developed and scanned. I am happy for the most part, since this was just a test roll, I am happy to be able to identify the subject in each shot. I am a little disappointed that the shots came out as bright as they did. They could have been a little more even in my opinion. I believe the problem lies in that I was using an average exposure meter mode (it looks for 17% grey over the frame). I am considering using a spot metering or center weighted metering for the new roll. I feel a bit like I am starting over with photography. I have become too reliant on the instant gratification method of shooting photos. If something doesn’t look right, just adjust and shoot again, simple. Unfortunately I did not get that benefit with these and therefore all I can do is try to do better with other rolls. Another thing I did not anticipate was the impact of depth of field on film. On some images using f/1.8 mattered, making them almost indistinguishable, but on others, because of subject position, it wouldn’t have mattered if i was at 1.8 or f4, most of the object was focused. Finally, my scanning sucked. I need to go back and redo like the first 20 or so exposures. First some were scanned at 1200 DPI, others have an issue with their colorspace (scanned as color), and yet others are just off-center with the negative scanning frame. There is room for improvement there, but so far I have uploaded everything as it was first run through the process.

I am looking forward to the 2nd roll. I have no intention on taking an entire month again for the new roll. I intend to get started on it soon and spend at most a week filling it up. I have all of my software ready now, so there is no excuse for not going out with the camera and enjoying it just as I do my digital camera (even if i do need to be anal about records).

I finished shooting my first roll of film around 7pm on the 4^th (like 6 hours ago), and now I have developed my first roll. I was a little worried at first because I had never developed film before or anything even close.

I mixed 1 liter of working solution of developer, indicator stop bath and fixer, and 1 quart of the Hypo Clearing Agent (enough to make a full gallon of working solution).

Originally I had intended to wait until I had finished securing light away from my bathroom, but then tonight I discovered that my closet was even darker already, so for the first roll I decided to give it a shot. I set up my table with everything I needed in the closet, my reel and tank on the left, film, opener and scissors in the middle, and my tank lid on the right. Just as with my practice roll, the hardest part was getting the film canister open. It took a little while, but I got it (although, the canister didn't fully survive). I popped the roll out with minimal trouble (although, it was more "springy" than my 9 year old practice roll of Kodak C-41). Cutting the leader of was easy enough, got it pretty straight too, but had to do it twice, as I didn't get it all on the first attempt (another area the Kodak C-41 is different). I fumbled around with the reel for what seemed like 5 minutes, but was probably more like 30 seconds, trying to get the feeding started. In my trial runs in the daylight the Kodak C-41 tried to curl and refuse to go onto the reel, but in the actual loading the Fujifilm Neopan 400 there were no such problems. There was some hesitation at the end from the film being tight on the spool and of the reel getting full (practice was 24 exposures, actual is 37). Right as I was getting the reel into the tank I realized something, I could see the white hangers in the closet, and make out shapes of my shoe boxes on the shelf. "Uh oh" was my thought, I was sure that because I could see the hangers that the film had been ruined by the tiny bit of light that was coming in from one corner of the door. I decided to finish up, putting the funnel in place and the lid tightly on the tank. I moved into the light to collect myself and prepare my work area for the developing process. I mostly used my own blog entry as a guide, that and my handy stop-watch on my Casio G-Shock (I'm a nerd). I worked through the process, although partially wondering how such a crude system as a daylight developing tank could actually keep light out (since mine has the funnel thing inside for even-filling, and not the lid with the cap). I was super diligent in my agitation, which I also worried about potentially being too much agitation. I worked through the steps, pretty much worrying about light until I had finished off a full 10 minutes of fixing. After that point it was mostly just following the procedure and trying to not worry about what the final result would look like.

I finished off by adding 8 ounces of water to the tank and adding a splash of wetting agent, then swirling it for 30 seconds. At that point I dumped the tank and pulled out the reel. I was a little scared of what I saw at first, because things looked very dark. Apparently wet film looks dark when there are multiple layers of it. I nervously pulled the film off of the reel and began to notice that my pictures were there, exactly as I had framed them over the last 30 days, almost perfect it seemed. I had a little trouble with frame 36 coming off of the reel, it tried to hang on, but I managed to right it and get all 37 off without a problem. The roll is now hanging in my bathroom from a shelf by its clips (and weights), patiently drying.

In the morning someone will need to cut them film, then I will sleeve it and consider scanning it.

To get myself prepared for developing my first roll of film I am outlining the steps required here.

Step 1:

• Set up tank (cleaned), reel, bottle opener, film and scissors in light-proof room
• Turn off the lights
• Open film canister and gently remove film roll
• Cut off half-width leader on front of roll
• Load film on to reel
• Cut end of film off of the roll
• Insert reel into tank
• Insert center column and funnel
• Lid tank tightly
• Turn lights back on

Step 2:

• Fill tank with clean water, agitate for about 1 minute.
• Pour out the water
• Load the developer. Start developer timer. For my Neopan 400 and my Adorama developer (which acts like LC29), the time is about 6 minutes. Tank needs to be agitated for 10 seconds or so every minute to keep fresh developer on the film.
• At end of time, empty developer.

Step 3:

• Rinse the tank with fresh water once or twice
• Pour in stop bath solution (mixed in 1/63 ratio with water for Kodak Pro Stop Bath)
• Rinse again

Step 4:

• Pour in fixer (1:4 mix for Illford Rapid)
• Fix for 5 – 10 minutes, agitate for 10 seconds every minute
• Empty tank and rinse again

Step 5:    

• Washing
• After rinsing, pour in hypo clearing agent (1:4 dilution)
• Wash for 2 – 5 minutes
• Rinse

Step 6:

• Wetting agent.
• Pour small amount of wetting agent into tank, fill with water, agitate for 30 seconds
• Pour out wetting agent.
• DO NOT RINSE

Step 7:

• Dry.
• Remove reel from tank
• Remove film from reel
• Clamp both ends of film, hang to dry
• 4 – 8 hours

Some details are a little sketchy, particularly the diloution stuff, but once I get closer to time for that I will work out the details.

I have shot almost half of my first roll of film, not a lot by any means, but I feel that I am now in a position where I should begin preparing for developing. All of my stuff is here already, but I now have to begin preparing for actually doing this. Getting all of the stuff together was no big deal, but now I'm nervous (in an excited kind of way). I have never done anything like this, and so far everything like this has been easy for me, and all of my art has been very low risk, but things could go wrong here and I have to prepare myself for that. My biggest worry at present is the fact that my developer solution doesn't list information for my film and my developer is not listed on the master developer list; therefore, I have had to guess at the developing time for my film (guessing 6 minutes from available info). I had to locate a developing solution on the master list that matched the qualities for the film and time combinations listed on my bottle. It turns out that based on that information, my developer is a good match for Illfotec LC29 in a 1/19 mixture. My developer recommends a 1/19 mixture itself, which makes their data match even better, so I just hope that it is right. Unfortunately there is no way to tell until a roll has been developed and fixed how the timing will work out. All that can be done is a time adjustment on future rolls. Now I just have to teach myself to put film on the reel and set up some sort of orderly procedure for the developing process (I smell another software development project coming for timing the processes).

My equipment is here.

With all that has been going on with ExIf 35 and the amount I have blogged about it, it has occurred to me that I haven't really introduced the app on my blog at all, outside of the problems I have been having with getting things working exactly the way that I want.

First, a screenshot:

The application is designed for film photographers (me) to store information about each exposure on a roll. The original intent of the application was to simply store the information into an XML file, but after that portion of the application was finished being written I added the ability for the application to write the information in the image file for the scanned negative or print. At some point I also decided that I wanted to keep up with lens information, which of course required me to learn a new skill of putting information into the files using XMP, what a joyful experience that was. Now the application is on the path to fully utilizing XMP, including contact information (I still have to put that feature in). I am also working on utilizing some custom fields in XMP that will store the information that is specific to the film process, such as the film type, developing chemicals used and the date the roll was developed. I intend to in the future (when the application has a web presence) to post the specifications for the custom fields that I utilize. In the future I may also add functionality for managing the rolls and not just the images on the rolls.

This is the form used to add or edit images on a roll.

This form is used to manage the lenses available to the exposures.

Finally, this form will be used to write the information to the JPEG files. As you can see, it also allows the inclusion or not of other information.

SourceForge Project: https://sourceforge.net/projects/exif35/

Download From: https://sourceforge.net/projects/exif35/files/ (latest has Windows icon beside it)

Finally, I have managed to store lens information in my JPEG files! It isn't using ExIf though, because honestly, it's way too hard and would require me learning way too much information about how the Makernote segment of ExIf works. As an alternative, I am using XMP. XMP is an Adobe developed standard based on XML that is embedded into JPG files (or as a standalone beside RAW). I am so far using two fields of XMP that come from Microsoft's standards used for Windows Vista/7's image management tools, those are /xmp/MicrosoftPhoto:LensManufacturer and /xmp/MicrosoftPhoto:LensModel as well as /xmp/xmp:lens and /xmp/aux:Lens. I've gone from having 0 places for lens information to having 3 places for lens information. At this point I am just happy it's in there, but now that I am using XMP, I have more places to put information which means I can allow for the option of storing more information in the files. I now have intentions on letting ExIf 35 store contact information in the files when the option is selected. Additional things I would like to store is things like the chemicals used in developing and a better way to do the film information, other than just a user comment area that states "Shot on ____ film". Because things are moving more digital, I am likely to have to write my own schema addition to XMP and store the information. It's likely that the only thing that will read those fields is ExIf 35 itself, but I'm hopeful that if it has to be done, I might be able to convince Flickr to adopt my schema addition as well, since it is quite likely it would be the only one anywhere near supporting film information. All of this information is relevant to the image, and it would be great to get it all in.

I think I have managed to accomplish all that I wanted with ExIf except for one thing. I still want to store lens information in the ExIf info. Unfortunately, the only place to do that is MakerNotes, and I don't know how to work with them. It is my understanding that I would have to pick a specific set of makernotes to use for this, but I'm not even sure how to go about that. Because of the nature of my project I am not tied down to one particular set of notes, but that also means that I don't need all of the tags included in a full set. I can't make heads or tails out of how makernotes function. Do I have to somehow specify what the notes are? Are there internal references between the notes that tell photo viewers what each tag is? I don't have a clue and its starting to get to me. Is it possible to create my own maker notes? My guess on that is no, since everyone seems to be desperate to track down makernotes for every major camera ever created. I feel like I am Googling in circles at the moment trying to make things work.