What do you mean by a sharp decline in film?

All movies have certain exposure latitude. That is, it has an exposed "safety range". When the exposure is slightly underexposed or overexposed, you can still get a negative that can show acceptable photos. Of course, when the exposure is absolutely correct, the image will be the best. At present, color negative's tolerance can generally reach four or five levels, while slides are only about one and a half levels. Negative films are often overexposed, but slides would rather be underexposed than overexposed.

2. The film was forced to be released in a hurry

ISO sensitivity provided by film manufacturers is based on "normal exposure" and "normal development time". You may have heard of pushing to improve the speed of film. Photographers can push ISO 100 film to E.I.400, which means shooting ISO 100 film as ISO 400 film. In this case, if his film is developed according to the normal development time, it will be underexposed. In order to make up for the underexposure, he needs to inform the development shop to extend the development time according to the information provided by the film company.

Generally speaking, unless otherwise stipulated in the film, black-and-white films or color slides can be pushed to one or two levels, and more than three levels are not appropriate.

But why force development? Because the scene light may be less than expected when shooting, if normal ISO is used, there is not enough light to make the film image normal, so it is necessary to force development; In addition, the push film will have larger particles than Gao Fancha, which can also be regarded as a "special effect".

You may have noticed the EI speed of the film exposure above. EI is the exposure index, which refers to the speed set when the film is actually exposed. For example; If the photographer says "push to 800", he will mark "EI800" in the film. Again: ISO is the sensitivity suggested by the film company, and EI refers to any other sensitivity of the film shooting time.

3. Should color film be used?

Most traditional photography instructors advise you to use black-and-white film during your study. It is true that using black and white film can train your eyes to observe the distribution of light from the perspective of a virtual gray-tone world. The world of black-and-white photography is not composed of colors, but has become a rich gray tone from pure black to pure white. Your eyes will be trained to be more sensitive to the shapes and compositions of various things, even to their gray tones. If you can set up a darkroom at home, you can use your camera and darkroom to reproduce the colors of these tones.

In fact, aside from the topic, you can also use the computer to select black and white films into the computer and then "take pictures" in the computer.

4. Choose a movie with that speed

What speed film should I use? If you think the photos taken with ISO 400 or 800 will be heavy or the contrast with ISO 100 is moderate, then ISO 100 or ISO 200 is the most suitable, but if you think there is little difference between them, you'd better choose ISO 400, because ISO 400 is suitable for more shooting environments.

At the beginning of photography, once you choose the commonly used film, don't switch left and right unless you try other films occasionally for special shooting reasons. In fact, you are familiar with a movie and are used to its various characteristics. Later, when you are completely adapted, you will start to try other movies.

In addition, if you don't plan or have the conditions to develop black and white films yourself, you can choose XP-2 from Ilford, Sepia from Konica or T400 CN from Kodak. It's all black and white color film, and you can even print it out on color paper.

If you don't want to learn black-and-white photography at all, switch to color film!

5. Take a slide show?

Color movies have negatives and slides. Like black-and-white negatives, color negative is also negative, and it has different speeds, such as ISO 100, 200, 400, 800 ... Usually, we use O 100 or ISO 200. After the shooting is completed, it will be developed by the printing shop. One of the biggest disadvantages of shooting color negative is that it is not a "final product" and must be re-made.

So if you want to learn color photography, you'd better take slides, especially positive ones, which have higher contrast and brighter colors than negative ones. Plus, it can be the "final product", so there is no need to expose it, but the disadvantage is that the exposure of slides will be expensive and the contrast will be great. So, it's up to you to decide whether to study with negatives or slides! But we still recommend using black and white film or slides!

6. Bulk film

When you study photography, you can save a lot of money by using 35mm film. The long roll of 35mm film is100ft. Then use the "film loader" to "roll" them every 30 or 40 sheets into some empty film cartridges obtained from the print shop. In other words, it is naturally cheaper to reload them yourself.

You can buy film loaders and plastic empty film tubes in more traditional photographic equipment stores, or you can ask some familiar one-hour development stores for some empty film tubes, but some film tubes can't be used after opening, so you should carefully choose the recycled empty film tubes, and it is best to choose the same ISO to avoid mistakes in the DX system of the camera.

The process of rewinding is actually very simple. You need to put the long film in the loader with a black cloth bag. After putting the long film into the winder and locking the switch, the rest operations can be carried out in the sun.

The film winder consists of two film chambers: the large one contains long film and the small one is put into the film tube. There is an opaque seam between them. You put the long roll of film into the big film room, and cover the big film room after the film head passes through the slit. As mentioned above, only this step must be done in the dark with the feeling of hands.

Then put the reel in the empty film barrel in the small film room, put it in the sunlight or light, stick the tail of the film on the reel with adhesive tape, install the film barrel and cover, and then turn off the film winder completely, so that the film winder will no longer leak light. The two film rooms are closed, so there is no light leakage. You can roll the long film onto the film reel by turning the crank next to the film winder first. The film winder has a counter to let you know how much Griffin has rolled. The rotation can be stopped at frame 36.

Take out the packed film, close the light-tight door first, then open the cover of the small film room and cut off the film, leaving a small piece of film sticking out for rolling the next film. Take the newly installed membrane tube, pull out about two or three inches of membrane, and cut out the shape of narrow membrane tongue with scissors, just like the membrane tongue of ordinary membrane you bought.

Use extra care when using rolled film. You must make sure that the film has been put into the film barrel, and don't scratch the film surface or accidentally expose the film. It won't be too difficult if you follow the steps. If you accidentally run out of film, or suspect that you may have scratched some film, you'd better throw away the film tube.

Most of the films used are black and white films and color slides.

7. Storage and protection of films

All films, whether color or black and white, will be damaged by high temperature and high humidity. Therefore, it is necessary to take appropriate measures to prevent heat, moisture and harmful gases when storing films.

If you store a lot of films at home on weekdays, we suggest that you store the films in a refrigerator at about 4 to 10 degrees Celsius to keep them cool, and store the films in sealed original plastic pipes.

When preparing to use the film, the film should be taken out of the refrigerator one hour in advance, but it can only be used after the film and container reach room temperature, otherwise the moisture in the air will condense on the frozen film surface. So you have to wait at least 30 minutes to use it.

If you don't store a lot of films for a long time, you can put them in a dry and inflatable plastic box and put them in a cool place for easy use.

In the humid weather in Hong Kong, the film should be exposed and developed as soon as possible after opening the package. High temperature and humidity can easily cause potential image changes after exposure, especially "professional film", which is not suitable for amateurs. It is particularly important to develop the exposed film as soon as possible. Do not store the unpacked or exposed film in a damp place, refrigerator or other places with high relative humidity. The ideal humidity for storing films is about 40% to 50%.

When it is impossible to avoid storage in a humid environment or when it is necessary to use a refrigerator to refrigerate the exposed film, it is best to put the film in a sealed air cylinder as moisture protection. Then the film is moistureproof with an appropriate amount of moistureproof agent.

Of course, the easiest way is for the film to rush early!