Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/03/20

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Subject: [Leica] More on Pushing C-41 films
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Sun Mar 20 18:53:16 2005

> developer temperature, though we never tried this.  it might have been
> a good idea if we'd ever had a really large batch of push film but
> would have been impractical mostly because of the long time it would
> take for the developer to cool back down to normal temperature.
> 
> suffice to say, a pro or semi-pro lab probably *can* do it, depending
> on their machinery.  they may not, however, want to do it.
> 
> --
> brad daly 
> brad@bradbrad.com
> http://www.bradbrad.com
> 
To me it's very much the center of the issue that pro labs not be into
pushing processes which ill advised or otherwise difficult.

Asking for special processing points to a higher level of sophistication of
photography as does shooting with a non obvious choice of gear such as
Leica.
"Dip and dunk" is the name of the game for this level of involvement.
"Motorized transport" avoided whenever possible. Not quite a dirty word.

But then I'm just out of the loupe on the logic of people quibbling about
ASPH APO vs. non ASPH APO premium gear outputting to 4x6 machine prints.
If 4x6 machine prints is your result "why bother with Leica" has always been
my thought.
And why bother with altered film developments?
As far as C41 films go which is 99.9 of the film market and where 99.9 of
the R&D goes films of 800 and 1600 ISO's are sold in Walgreen's by the
bushel and are standard default for a huge cross section of photo
enthusiasts. Including me.
The only reason for shooting monochrome C41 is maybe I'd try to print a
frame sooner or later in the black and white real darkroom which I maintain.
And Panalure if they still make the stuff have always been a pain.
I just refuse to use the stuff.
Hopefully they don't make it any more.
For one brief shining moment it was available with contrast option's

Perhaps it may turn out that for the amount of output I'm printing in the
darkroom which I'm not developing myself I may as well just shoot the fast
full color c41 films which all look like ISO 100 in the print if not 200.
More information grabbing as they are, the different color channels and all.
Layers.

And output to 4x5 film the few I may end up wanting to make a silver gelatin
fiber print out of to impress whoever.

There's always room for silver gelatin.


Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/





In reply to: Message from brad at bradbrad.com (brad daly) ([Leica] More on Pushing C-41 films)