Well, I scanned 6 pictures in (out of 23). Most of them turned out rather well, but they're time consuming to scan in. The film is a Konica 400 monochrome. No postwork, except for levels (because my backup scanner likes to scan B&W pics as purple, and it loses too much resolution if I just scan them in as B&W) and cropping on one of the pics (noted). This is from the second day of the same weekend as my first roll. - darkpen

Exercise in detail.

Bridges over the Ottawa River.

Ottawa River bank. I tried cropping off the buildings and just keeping their reflections, but then it just looks weird.. not sure what to do with this one.

Iced Ottawa River.

Berri Street.

St-Joseph Boulevard. Some rather heavy snowing when I took that one.

I'm quite happy with this one (especially considering it's just my second roll) - they look a lot better on print than scanned, but they all need some more thorough levels work and maybe a bit of postwork. Any comments or suggestions are always welcome, and I hope you like. :) - darkpen

Photo's 2, 3, 6 and 7 are really good! Actually, they are really really good.....better than you think in fact. The 3rd would have been better with less water and more town (I mean turning the camera up), taking off half of the water, and filling up the extra space on the top with more buildings, giving more life to the picture... And some need a little correction here & there, but that might be a matter of taste...not quality. =) But aside from that I think they are excellent....lovely stuff. Especially the bridge and the road photos have a lot of possibilities in them. Well, at the risk of being blamed for 'not being able to stay away from other people's work', I've taken the liberity to change them a bit, to show you what's lying beneath these excellent photos. So, hope you don't mind - all credit goes to you, I'm just the messenger :P

One

Two

Three

And four....hope this gives you an idea what I mean. Cloning out the stuff you don't want (scratches, dust and other details), unsharpen a bit...specific changes to specific areas by putting them in layers (just brush out of every layer the bits you don't want), so one layer to correct the water, one to correct the buildings, etc. Well, it was only a humble workout.....have fun =)

Thanks a lot! :) I really don't mind the workout you gave them (the street on the last one looks really really good). It's a little darker than my taste (although that could be my monitor - I'll have to look at the changes again on another computer later on), but I definitely see the difference, though. And it's not like I can't do all that stuff and lighten it up afterwards, anyway. :) As for putting more of the city in the 3rd one.. I'm always hesitant to do that with Ottawa. The problem is that it's not a very pretty cityscape (IMO, anyway - I'm sure a lot of people love it). That area is downtown Ottawa, where all the major governmental buildings are, and the styles are incredibly disparate (you have Neo-Gothic right next to Normandin right next to Industrial right next to Modern). I guess tightening the shot to have just one style in view might work, though (at least for me to like it grin). Well, guess I'll be busy in Photoshop this week, then. :P - darkpen

Final statement always belongs to the artist; but editing, cropping, (and increasingly, Photoshopping), are artforms in themselves. Rork really made some of these images jump out! Good job, both of you.

Oh, I agree completely there (and understated it in my last message): excellent job, Rork. :) (and sorry for understating it!) - darkpen

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr. Bsteph2069

Oh, lol, you're welcome....but they are your shots....so... ;) Btw, how about turning your camera on it's side, and making a shot with both the water and a bit of the town you do like ? Also, ugly, industrial buildings often make really good photos. Even if you don't like it at all.....

You still did some great work, though - it wasn't my intention to come off as someone who didn't appreciate it (when I get tired, I lose my English [not my first language] and can come off rather bitchy). After I had a glass of wine, relaxed a bit and read Misha's reply, it just clicked that I -was- bitchy. :P I'm looking at them again on another monitor now - that reflection job on the third pic you reposted, was that an unsharp mask or just levels? It looks incredibly cleaned up! As for turning the camera, I'll try that soonish (the days are getting longer, but it's still usually too dark to get a good picture at that spot when I'm off from work - maybe I'll try to leave early this week. :P ). And I agree that they do.. it's not the industrial part I don't like, it's the fact that the styles are just way too mixed. I might be nitpicking, though. I like a bit of coherence once in a while. grin (although, come to think of it, taking a picture of that one street might be interesting, with all those styles contrasting against each other.. hmm..) - darkpen

I like the originals and what Rork's done with them, too. I really want to see more of the buildings in No. 4, they fascinate me...!

(Your No 4 I mean DP)

Oh God, this is getting confuing...the post numbered 4 in this thread! Sorry!

You mean the arched windows behind the ice sheet?

(and thread post number 12 (Rork's manipulation) Anyway, I want to look at those buildings....LOL

Ok, I know which ones you mean. :) Those are all gov't buildings. I'll go get shots of them sometime this week or next weekend (more likely on the weekend, it's a high traffic hotspot on weekdays). The arched windows I thought you meant are old cannon portholes under the Parliament building. They're sealed nowadays, though. - darkpen

Thanks Darkpen, sorry about the confusion...you're doing great stuff with your new camera!

it wasn't my intention to come off as someone who didn't appreciate it Oh, lol, no way....you didn't =) As always, it's not reccomended that you take my words to seriously :P > was that an unsharp mask or just levels? The trick is to make a layer for every part you want to change, by erasing all the crap you don't need. First unsharpen mask (you have to try it out to see how it works) and then levels for each layer. Try to change little bits at a time, and click the preview button on and off, to see if it's getting better. Just email me if you need some more detailed help (info@bartwvanlith.com). > Ottawa Ottawa, ahhh....there must be something worth shooting in Ottawa. There's no way that Ottawa hasn't got anything interesting. Well, you already proved there is with these photos ;) Well, lemme dust off my French for a sec....uhmmm.....L'Ottawa c'est ne pas tres beau dans l'hiver avec l'neige ? Or something like that, lol =) French's fun, but been a couple of year ago, heh.

Must be great images to cause all this discussion! I sure did not want to imply anything bad about anyone. Good job, all of you.

Cool, I'll give it a try this week. Watch your mailbox if I have trouble. :) The Ottawa area's actually got lots and lots of cool stuff to shoot, for whatever kind of photography you're in. Plus, since we have four distinct seasons here, you can shoot the same thing again and again and it'll look different. Plus, we have tons of festival (one of the coolest being the Tulip Festival.. I'll try to take pictures of the dresses made entirely out of flowers :).. so it's actually a really nice place, if you don't mind the 3-5 months of winter we get. :) - darkpen

great images....black and white are my fave! tam ;o)

tch - the tone in here has got mighty high-brow. Mikey will lower it; When you get the flower dress pictures, I wanna see a bikini made from 3 daisies....... (That oughta do it.) (",)

Thanks mizz :) Sorry Jordy.. it's a Tulip festival. :P - darkpen

I'd love to start doing that.. it really seems like the best way to study a subject. I just worry about the cost though (developing costs me about $15 a roll after sales tax at the cheap place). Until tax time is over, I'm a bit strapped. Right now, I'm going through about a roll and a half per weekend, which isn't too bad. I'll definitely take up on your suggestion as soon as I can, though. ;) - darkpen

What ??? $15 !! You mean including printing ? Over here it only costs me around $2 to develop film, everything...including E6 and E4. If I want to have it done at a one hour service it's the same, but if you want prints a one hour services costs over $20. When they send it to a lab (takes 2 days usually) it's only $7. That's weird....certainly if you think about film being more expensive here. Very weird... Anyway, keep on shooting, like Alpha said....photography is the only place where quantity also means quality ;)

Yep.. on matte or glossy 4x6, and it's not even 1-hour. And there's a surcharge per print if I want a small white border around the picture (5x7). If I go to the 1-hour lab it's about $20 (before taxes). Sucks, huh? - darkpen

Gulp. Buy a cheap digital - that'll save you $$$ when learning if your paying that much.....crikey.....Films here from 1 per roll (3 for half decent) and 3 for processing & printing - 2/3 days. (",)

What is the exchange rate nowadays on $US $CAD Euro, etc.? Rambling without a good conclusion: When I was learning I bought 100ft. rolls of 35mm film, and a bulk loader. Hundred feet of Tri-X now costs about $24US. [May be cheaper from discount places, but I guess all the discount places have gone away???] That's about 18 36 eposure rolls. The film cans seem expensive now, $0.50, but they are reuseable. Most cases this means you need to develop your own; probably only practical of good class or photo club in area, at least to get started. From looking around the web, cost of the B&W film doesn't seem too bad compared with these bulk prices. It's processing that's killer nowadays. Too bad film scanners are so pricey, but they are coming down. Developing own (conventional silver) film is easy, and get to experiment with different chemicals). The dye cloud chromotegenic stuff is best left to the jiffy-mart. Jordy's suggestion sounds the best so far; go digital!

More rambling: So, if film is about $3US and processing $7US, if a good digital is around $1000US ?? Takes about 100 rolls to pay for it. I probably go through 100 rolls in about two years. [Most of you seem to do more.] In two years, any digital I'd buy now would likely be pretty obsolete, though still functional. 'Course with a digital I'd likely experiment more; more exposures, but throw more away. Depends some on ones shooting style; slow and methodical, or shotgun. Still, cheaper than smoking, drugs, race cars, or a girl friend...

The exchange rate hovers around $0,62 CDN for $1 USD. And about $1.14 USD for 1 Euro (the Euro keeps going up but stays about on par against the USD lately). As far as going digital goes, that's what I was originally planning on, but it's almost as expensive as analog if you want to go manual - and I didn't want to start off paying $1500 for a camera. At least, with developing, I can spread the cost over quite a while, depending on how much I shoot (of course, I have credit cards, but I refuse to carry a balance over $10 - which really seems to piss off the companies lately.. but that's another matter completely :P ). I'm going back to school for my masters in September though, so I'll be able to take a darkroom class and use their facilities to start developing myself.. even if I can just develop B&W it'd be rather nice (B&W costs more than color film here - about $8-10 a roll [compared to $5 for your usual Kodak Gold color films] and an extra per print). - darkpen

The custom lab I use for my B&W charges me $24US for 24 exposure roll with a white border and it takes 2 weeks. The mail order company Mystic Color Lab charges me about $10US for 24 roll, add on another $8 for a cd of the images...that's still expensive. I was able to find my Minolta Dimage 7 for about $720, last year I spent about $500 on film and developing....this camera will pay for itself very quickly considering, I take pictures almost everyday with this camera. This camera has more bells & whistles than any manual slr I own and the lens is a nice 28-200mm zoom. If you dig around online you can find the camera you really want for a good price....my husband taught me that....he refused to buy it for $1500, made me search for hours and hours online....I was getting really mad at him, but it paid off. :~)

I am, therefore I create.......
--- michelleamarante.com

Going back to school and having a darkroom/photo department available will open up all sorts of alternatives for you. B&W printing is fun, as we've covered in a couple threads. NY mailorder prices for something like 35mm 36 exposure Ilford FP4+ or HP5+ seem to run about $2.70US. [Has anyone had experience with mailorder film since post office security tightened up?] Since you have a nice film camera, what would be really great is if the school had a slide scanner that accepted unmounted strip negatives (I think most slide scanners do). You could develop the film easily and inexpensively yourself, (and get better results, BTW). I've loaded the reel in a closet at night. Really then just need running water to wash. Then you could scan them, and photoshop as you are already used to.

A photo CD costs about $17 extra here.. which doesn't seem too bad when considering it's probably one of the cleanest digitization processes you can get (especially with 3 cats always roaming around your computer equipment :P ). Sounds like quite a deal you found.. I still have issues about ordering online, myself. I work in communications security, it's almost like doctors hating to go see a colleague no matter how sick they are. :) I'm not sure what kind of darkroom gadgets they have there.. I've seen the darkrooms (they're pretty hard to miss with the huge signs lit up that say 'DO NOT OPEN - DARKROOM WORK IN PROGRESS') but I never went in (usually just passed through on my way to other classes). I'll definitely ask around when I go drop the paperwork off, though. Hopefully they don't just have B&W chemicals. :) - darkpen