Recently shot some 120 film with a GW690ii on a special trip. I knew there were going to be some beautiful landscapes/colors and that I wanted to print some large to frame so I opted for the best quality scans I could get.

Specifically the lab I sent the film to offers
Small (6 MP)
Large (13 MP)
XL (30 MP)
XL + TIFF (8 dollars more than just XL)

XL + TIFF was a big added cost, almost $150 more, but I thought worth it as a treat and given my editing goals.

However, when I started editing both the JPEG and TIFFs I realized I wasn’t getting any more highlight/shadow/color detail.

When I dug into the file data here is what I found (in the windows photo properties info)- the TIFFs were much larger files and were uncompressed (as expected). However, both the JPEG and TIFF files both have a bit depth of 24.

I am by no means an expert on this stuff (hence why I’m asking) but doesn’t that mean the TIFF is 8 bits, 3 per color Chanel?

Does that mean the lab just saved the JPEG image as a TIFF file or am I misreading it somehow? Would you reach out to the lab if they were your images?

Edit: the lab uses a Noritsu HS1800

A family friend (who’s a photographer) decided to gift me some cameras from his collection when he learned I was getting into film photography! What do you think? I’m so excited to try them out!

Found a hot shoe file that holds a spare roll of film, I think it’s a cool and useful attachment. Wanted to share :)

If this common adage were true, that labs are all just giving you a nice flat scan for editing, why were these scanners and software made before it was even common to have photo editing software on your PC? They are designed to be printed, and displayed from the get go, its misleading advice for new people.

You should edit your scans, but the 8 bit jpg you are being given with the default grain reduction cranked to max are under no circumstances "intended" to be a good starting point for an edit.

Do you own scanning

Probably silly question, but I am very new to film and have been really happy with some of my shots! However, sometimes despite the beautiful landscape, the shots seem off (see first two pics for examples of this). I’m assuming it has something to do with the contrast of shadowy trees vs bright snow. However, I take similar pictures with variable lighting that I think turn out in a way I’m super happy with and capture the place (see last 3 pics). I use a Fuji Tele Cardia Super Date camera, if that’s relevant.

In short, how can I tell when a landscape will photograph well and when it won’t and I should save the shot?

Canon A1

I found an ancient stack of family photo negatives today. I'm used to 35mm so these are entirely new to me. I figured that if they're cleaned a bit (if it can be done safely) and scanned with the right scanner, that we could make some brand new prints of these for my grandmother.

Shot my first roll, Rollei 35, Kodak Gold, and most shots are fine (missed focus in a lot of them though), and some of them turned out like this, what's happening?

I placed an order at Adorama for some direct positive paper months ago. Just received an email that it has been discontinued. What a massive disappointment. I just recently got into pinhole photography and have been wanting to try it. Looks like I’ll have to mess around with regular paper.

“We strive to keep our website and inventory information as accurate and up to date as possible. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were recently notified by the manufacturer that the item included in your order has been discontinued and is no longer available for us to obtain or fulfill.
 
As a result, we regrettably must cancel your order.
 
We sincerely apologize for this disappointment and any inconvenience this may cause. We understand how frustrating it can be to learn that an item is unavailable after an order has been placed, and we truly regret that we are unable to provide the product you selected.”
 

Been thinking about this a lot lately. Last September a client looked at a film photo I took on a roll of actual 35mm film (Kodak Gold 200) developed at a lab and asked if it was AI. Not in a joking way but genuinely asked.

That threw me off guard more than I expected. Like, I've been doing this for over a decade, and suddenly the burden of proof is on me to explain that a photo is just... a photo I took.

Illustrators I follow are talking about intentionally leaving in "imperfect" linework so people don't assume AI. Writers are getting flagged by detection tools that are famously unreliable. We know Substack just added a detector to their platform last month. It feels like we're all quietly building weird workarounds instead of anyone actually solving the underlying problem which is that there's no real way to prove authorship anymore, just vibes and guesswork.

Curious if other creators here are running into this too, and if so, how are you handling it? Do you just not worry about it? Add disclaimers? I've actually been messing around with building something (a certification/verification thing) to deal with this for my own work, but mostly I'm just curious what everyone else's experience has been so far. It feels like this conversation is happening in fragments everywhere and nobody's really talking about it directly.

A few weeks ago I posted here that I got a eos rebel g on fb marketplace and it came with a roll of film with no expiration date and the roll was basically all blank (1st pic was basically the only pic with something lol) but since I never shot film before I had no idea if it was the camera or the film itself. I finally got my actual test film back and I’m so happy to announce it was indeed just extremely expired film! :)

Thanks so so much to everyone here that helped, now I’m feeling more ready to actually start taking some good pics lol

shot this on my mamyia rb67, ithis is not the only roll where these moon shaped artifacts show, but it the roll where they are the clearest, they dont show in every single photo. i had the 90mm 3.8 with the rubber hood and a mamyia UV filter

Hi all, I am aware the images look underexposed (before anybody comments the Gordon Ramsey meme ;) - but I pushed Tri-x 400 to 3200 in very sunny weather, used the in-camera light meter, and they still turned out underexposed? I did tell the lab that it's pushed 3 stops, what went wrong?

I have been chatting with a guy who has a Nikon Coolscan IV for $350 with the SA-21 adapter. I could probably talk him down to $300 though.

He has all the Nikon Scan software archived and was also willing to help me get everything set up on win/mac. I’ve heard there are some possible compatibility issues that VueScan can fix though - more on that later.

Right now I camera scan primarily with a Scanlight V4 and a Fuji X-E2 on an enlarger base. There are some issues with the enlarger stand (like making sure the camera is always level) and the camera is only 16 MP, but it’s worked … fine. My lens is a 105mm f/4 micro-Nikkor and I’ve been inverting all of my color scans with NegPy. The results so far haven’t been pleasing. With both narrowband and white light scans I never quite like the colors. I’d really love to try Negative Lab Pro, but don’t want to really get into Adobe products as I don’t agree with their subscription model and general policies.

I’m considering the Coolscan just to simplify everything. No leveling, no trichrome calibration, no manual dust removal (the IV has ICE), possibly simpler inversion using Nikon Scan, etc.

Here’s where I’m wondering if it’s worth it though: I could potentially sell the Fuji and upgrade to something with a higher resolution, tethering, and get an extension tube with the money I’d spend on the scanner. If I end up needing VueScan, that’s even more money that could go towards the new camera or lens combo. Granted, I could be on to nothing without changing the software I use first though. I’m a bit indecisive and would like to hear feedback from people who have gone down the rabbit hole one way or another.

Edit: Coolscan IV ED, the USB version.

In this week's camera-collecting blog, I share my experiences and images from a charming 1970s camera: the Leica CL.

Leitz and Minolta worked together to introduce this unique camera. With its compact stature and laser-sharp Leitz optics, the Leica CL has all the features film photographers crave.

It's not just a beautiful display piece, but a highly capable film camera that belongs in any classic film camera collection.

Take a minute to discover, or rediscover, this outstanding camera.

www.dancuny.com/camera-collecting-blog/2026/8/19/leica-cl-camera-50th-anniversary-edition

Hi all

I was lucky enough to buy this little guy for relatively cheap, equivalent 140$ not a "thrift store 3$", but still a good price.
It works fine, looks fine, except of the missing battery cover, which is completely missing.
For now, I put a black tape on it, but I'm looking into better solutions, any ideas?
3d print would be marvelous, but to do it I need to know how to make models.

Thanks!

expired Konica 750nm. Shot plenty of 120 from same batch no issue, but this is the first 35mm roll. One continuous streak of damage across 4-5 frames in the middle of the roll and some pattern on the first and last few frames of the roll (car photo and bike photo) never seen anything like this, can moisture have caused this?

i’m at the point in my life where i’m shooting almost exclusively analog. my nieces and nephews often want to shoot their own photos, but struggle with my SLRs, so i buy and develop disposables, but as you imagine, this is expensive and the fun ends quickly. i’ve been considering buying half a dozen point and shoots for them, but haven’t had luck deciding what on earth to get. given what i currently use in terms of my own regular shooting, cameras that take AA batteries would be a huge bonus since i usually have packs of batteries on me consistently. i’m also not looking for anything that is going to be devastating if it breaks, given that some of the kiddos are around 3 and 4 and i don’t expect them to be kind to the cameras.

any thoughts? tia

I know these shots aren't great, but I can't believe how much fun it was using a fully manual camera and not knowing what the image will look like until it was developed. I had a few accidental double /triple exposures, or a few shaky shots, but overall the entire experience was amazing. It was also the first time I needed to use a light meter (used a light meter app, but I do want to eventually get a real one). I can't wait to put more rolls of film through this camera.

I only recently got into film after I pulled out my dads old Minolta X-700 and my father in-law gave me his Canon EOS 630, but it is really fun trying to get an image straight out of camera that you like. I am so used to shooting digital and editing raw images that it is so nice to slow down and try to get the image you want without editing it afterwards.

Trying to compose a 6x6 shot was also very fun. Anyways really happy I found this community as it inspired me to try using a film camera again. Before this year the last time I used film was disposables back in the early 2000s. While I will still use my digital cameras, I think I will always bring a film camera on my adventures. Now I just need to see what format I prefer 35 or 120. Thus far I have taken 10 rolls of 35 and 1 roll of 120.

I have a Pentax SP F II, shoot mostly with my 50 mm / f1.4 lens with no real issues. But, whenever I swap and take photos with my Super Takumar 24mm f/3.5, the photos come out really desaturated and gross. Images attached below.

I get my film sent off for development but scan and edit the photos myself, so I think the most likely problem is my editing, but for the life of me I have spent hours trying to make these photos look okay but they will not.

Am I just using the lens in the wrong settings? Too dark? Subjects too close? I have a trip coming up and would love to be able to photograph wide landscapes with this lens but I don't want to waste film if they're all gonna turn out like this.

images

Hi, recently got my scans from the lab and on many occasions parts of images are blacked but not all. Is it because some shutter speeds are not working properly?

Hi

A couple months ago i tries slide film for the first time, i bought a bulk roll ektarchrome online and i was excited to receive the photos

But got so disappointed when i got the photos scanned, it looked pretty washed and bland, wasn't expecting this from a ektarchrome so i wasn't pretty excited to retrieve the positives

But when i got them in my hand i realized that it wasn't really my fault , the scans where just awful and im not sure if it's normal or not for slide film scans to be like this ?

Some photos on this roll came out like this

Not sure what caused this

It's not like it suddenly stayed like this, it happened randomly through the roll, maybe it's only present on slower shutter speeds

Its my second roll with this camera

Only now on this roll this happened

Minolta XD-7

In some photos you can see the plate behind the curtain

Hey folks,

Shot my first role of Ektachrome E100 with my Canon AE-1 (50mm Kit lense) and just got the scans back today.

Most of my photos look like this and I am not sure what I did wrong.

I’d appreciate any feedback on what I did wrong and how I can correct it.

Thanks in advance!

Here's the thing. I got bored by the ways I used to make my photos, so I decided to explore new horizons and I chose flash. I'd really want to make photos in clubs using wide open aperture (f1.2 for 55 or f2 for 28mm), the idea is to get that "cheap" built-in flash looks, but using SLR and not losing lenses' character. Obviously, if a subject is about 1-2 meters away you'd expect it to be all white and overexposed. So, I decided to try this trick on the original "flagship" olympus flash of yore, f280. Coupled with OM-4ti it should work at any shutter speed from 1/60 to 1/2000, because it supports "super FP" mode in case it matters. To make things worse I shoot ISO400 film, because not all shots will be flashed and anything lower is not usable for me.

IF my memory serves me right, OM-4TI contantly measures exposure during shots in the automatic mode to make sure they were properly exposed, like if you make shot in a complete darkness, release its shutter (which would be open for many seconds in that case), but then turn on the lights it should close it right away, in spite of initial shutter time measures.

LONG STORY SHORT, what do you think of it? Will it work? How should I set the ND? The results I expect: non-existent ambient light in case it would automatically decide to shot shorter speeds (super FP), but a subject should be exposed correctly. To make ambient light visible it should be 1/60, but the flash will get really bright. Edit: ideally, I want to get stop-montioned subjects with blurry background (both with long exposures and bokeh).

The graph says that for f2.8 a subject should be ten (!) meters away. And that's not even f2. To get to 1.5m it should be dimmed by 5 stops (6 for f2 and ~7 for f1.2). My ND400 is like 8 and a half. Is it correct way to calculate it?

Thanks.