AP with film camera

[jason.p]

I'm thinking of playing around with my old Zenit E film camera for a try at some astro pics. Probably start piggybacking then if possible mounting it on the focuser. I assume that before digital this was the only option, so i imagine there will be some amongst us who have had some experience. Can anyone recommend a suitable film. Would transparency be any better? Any other observations would be appreciated.

I realise that compared to modern digital systems this is somewhat archaic, but it must have worked in the past and I really can't justify the expense of a modern set up at the moment.

Thanks

Jason

[Starlight 1]

35mm will give any camera a run for it money. I have see lots of astro done on 35mm on the net, film 25 to 100 b/w will be a good start shut open for a good 10/15 mins going this low .

[Tinker1947]

A long time back in the past i had a dark room and developed my own Mono the Color prints, now i'm all digital, Canon 600D Modded, and a Atik 414EX Mono, i can't explain the difference in the 2 methods, Film or Digital  are you prepared to throw away 95% of you film not because you haven't tested for ISO, Exposure time but no 2 nights are the same and you will only find out when the films developed, Digital on the other hand you see the image on the back of the DSLR or PC with CCD's instantly and make adjustments on the spot wastage  still happens but it's a digital image that cost nothing, a second hand DSLR can be had for less than £100 buy one.......

[Starlight 1]

A long time back in the past i had a dark room and developed my own Mono the Color prints, now i'm all digital, Canon 600D Modded, and a Atik 414EX Mono, i can't explain the difference in the 2 methods, Film or Digital  are you prepared to throw away 95% of you film not because you haven't tested for ISO, Exposure time but no 2 nights are the same and you will only find out when the films developed, Digital on the other hand you see the image on the back of the DSLR or PC with CCD's instantly and make adjustments on the spot wastage  still happens but it's a digital image that cost nothing, a second hand DSLR can be had for less than £100 buy one.......

It was a lot of fun back then playing in the darkroom ,and still have my old one with a computer on the back so I can take one shot up to 100 hours. no DSLR can do that.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

There is a member who occasionally posts some very good images taken on film, his blog is here, but he does scan them in and edit in Photoshop. However, I suspect you'd need to guide in order to achieve the very long exposures required, so a decent film rig could be more expensive and less capable than a DSLR on an unguided tracking mount. Camera sensors are many times more sensitive than film. If you really want to give it a go then by all means try it, I'd be interested to see the results, but I doubt it would be a cost or time effective solution. 

[rl]

30 years ago I used to do a lot of this. The films of choice were generally Ektachrome 100, 200, 400 for slides and Fuji velvia for prints. Both had really good red response which Ilford and Agfa lacked. Kodak Tmax 100 or Technical Pan 2415 for B/W. . You will probably find all these no longer available nowadays; I don't know where to start with what few films are still on the market. All you needed was a camera without any batteries and a stopwatch.

If you're really going down this road, I would recommend the book "Astrophotography for the Amateur" by Michael Covington, the first edition is best. It's available on Amazon for a couple of quid and will fill you in on a lot of what you need to know. In particular, push processing and reciprocity failure. Terms the current generation have never heard of!

Getting the processing kits might be difficult; I used to do my own. You need the E6 kit for slides and the C41 for prints, otherwise it's your specialist camera shops.

With only 36 shots max on a reel you learn to be careful with your guiding; I did all mine with an illuminated eyepiece putting in the corrections by hand. You will appreciate a modern autoguider very quickly!. But somehow that gets away from the simplicity of film. Once you've got the autoguider you might as well go the whole hog and buy the DSLR.

Try some unguided widefield shots first with a 50 or 135mm lens. 5 or 10 min exposures on a 400 speed film will record a lot. Not much point in extending the time further because of reciprocity failure.

I found a lumicon deep sky filter helped a lot with LP. You need to bracket the exposures a lot. I used to reckon on 1 really good shot per film.

Let us know how you get on. There is little to beat the thrill of opening up the developing tank and seeing what you've got as the film slowly dries out.

Regards, RL

Film keeps way longer in a fridge....

[jason.p]

Many thanks for replies. I can see the drawbacks but as i've got the camera i think i'll give it a go. I used to develope and print my own pics and still have an enlarger and bits and pieces. My expectations are not high, but i'll have some fun playing around with it. The problem will be if the AP bug bites i shall have to get some deeper pockets