Re: [Leica] [OT] Frugal for PAW...

["J. Gilbert Plantinga" <gilplant@hvc.rr.com>]

on 12/22/01 3:18 AM, John Straus at Mail@SlideOne.com wrote:

> It's almost Ho, ho, ho time and PAW 2002 is right around the corner. I hope
> to embark on this mission and have as much success through the year as
> others have, if nothing else learn from the experience.
> 
> The question I have is what are some good ways of shooting a roll a week but
> not spending a lot of $$ doing so? My normal methods are shoot slides or
> print film and go to a ProLab for Dip&Dunk. That is just not going to be
> economical for me to do that @ $9 or $17 per roll.

You're either dreaming or you have an incredible 'hit rate'. The only week
that I shot only one roll was week #2, and that is one of the weakest pages
on my site. It was just too damned cold to go out that week. Before my PAW
project I would shoot about a roll a week, now I'm up to about a dozen!
That's an AVERAGE week.
> 
> Sooo I was thinking of going back to some B&W neg film and do the processing
> myself. It would save some $$ (I think) and I could look at the film a lot
> faster (same eve) instead of taking it to a lab and wait 3 days. I can set
> something up to at least process the negs but I still need a proof sheet. I
> have a slide scanner but the thought of proofing a few frames at a time
> feeding in and out doesn't seem like the best way, or is it? I was thinking
> of getting a cheap $100 flatbed to do the proofing on and I could use it
> anytime I didn't want prints made for the color neg film I shoot. How do you
> guys do it? Any thoughts or ideas appreciated!

Souping it yourself is the only way to go, and I'd shoot more color if I had
the facilities to process it (jobo?), but my 'darkroom' is a changing bag
and the kitchen sink. The big advantage is not the cost savings, but the
control and quality. I don't think any lab would be willing to go through
all the compensating agitation tricks I've been learning.

a 50-roll box of HP5+ is $132 and a 5-liter package of Xtol is $6.99 at B&H.
Developer is about the only thing that gets cheaper and better at the same
time - dilute it 1:3  :)

You can use a small light box upside down on a flatbed scanner to make
'contacts', but it's hardly worth the trouble (I have a high-end UMAX with a
transparency lid, and I do print proofs, but that is not what I needed the
scanner for, and the contacts don't tell me much even if I bother to look at
them). I have the Leica 5x loop, which though it is expensive, has a really
great attachment that holds a strip of negatives perfectly flat, has a
little hole where you can see the frame numbers through the mask, and a
ground glass bottom so I can just hold the thing up to an ordinary light -
no light-box-crook-in-the-neck. It's really much easier to simply evaluate
the negatives than you think. That piece of Leica glass (actually Schneider,
I think) will outlast any scanner, high-end or cheap.

Good on you for committing to a PAW 2002. My own project has been like
getting an MFA and turned me into an aspiring but broke pro. It changed my
life.

Gilbert

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