Film-based astrophotography is now history

[Cosmic Geoff]

Any historic interest here? There was no interest in this in the For Sale section.

 

[pipnina]

I don't know about historic interest but I have been trying to capture stuff on my dad's old Canon AE1-program and various films.

I made an attempt on Rollei Infrared 400iso but despite 6 minute+ exposures there was little to see as the reciprocity failure of the film is very high.

I then made an attempt on Illford 3200 Delta which promised less reciprocity failure and ok sensitivity for h-alpha but the extreme grain proved unworkable

I am waiting for my roll of Fujifilm Velvia 100 to be developed now, which only has 2/3 of a stop reciprocity failure at 8 minute as per spec sheet and SHOULD have high sensitivity to halpha. However, the film also was used to take my germany holiday snaps and I wasn't able to stop the people at various airports from running it through their xray machines 😕. Velvia is expensive stuff too at 22 quid for the roll and then another 20 for development! More than a pound per snap!

To top it all off nowhere I can find will give me anything better than an 8-bit tiff scan (and these images are as I was provided them... in processes jpeg form 🤮)

To say film astro is challenging would be an understatement!

[tomato]

Those are great shots! @Cosmic Geoff, I would hang on to the book as a souvenir of just how tough AP was in the pre digital era.

[maw lod qan]

Those are great photos!

I was talking with SWMBO just yesterday about how Pluto was discovered using film.

It's amazing what astronomers accomplished using the equipment they had to use.

[Louis D]

I recall hypering Tech Pan film used to be quite popular back in the days of film.  Tech Pan hasn't been made since 2006, though.  I doubt you could find hypering equipment today, either.

[jjohnson3803]

I was casually wondering awhile ago who even sells film anymore, much less does commercial processing.

I do recall seeing something somewhere on how to build your own hypering chamber for cheap. 

[pipnina]

1 hour ago, jjohnson3803 said:

I was casually wondering awhile ago who even sells film anymore, much less does commercial processing.

I do recall seeing something somewhere on how to build your own hypering chamber for cheap. 

Most cities have one or more shops dedicated to just film photography!

There's two in my small westcountry city, and I went to one in my Germany trip too which was sat right up against the Kölner Dom

Your selection of films is limited however, and may shrink further as Fujifilm seems to be having various troubles getting raw material for their existing formulas, and some of their best stock (velvia 100) is actually banned in the USA for containing certain chemicals their agencies aren't happy with.

You can still get film developed, scanned and printed at Boots pharmacies (only specific stores though) but by the sounds of things they aren't as good as many non-chain options.

[Paul M]

I used to develope my own transparency/ slide film.

I guess that if ever I got another film camera, that's the way I'd go then get a USB slide scanner to digitise them.

Hmmm... something seems odd about that!😄

[Louis D]

22 hours ago, pipnina said:

Your selection of films is limited however, and may shrink further as Fujifilm seems to be having various troubles getting raw material for their existing formulas, and some of their best stock (velvia 100) is actually banned in the USA for containing certain chemicals their agencies aren't happy with.

I'm picturing US customs confiscating it from Japanese tourists upon arrival at US ports of entry.  If they get them developed back in Japan, there shouldn't be much, if any contamination issues in the US.

The EU bans plenty of stuff the US considers safe enough like titanium dioxide which can be used to make candy coatings more vibrantly colored.

[Mandy D]

On 14/06/2023 at 14:38, jjohnson3803 said:

I was casually wondering awhile ago who even sells film anymore, much less does commercial processing.

I do recall seeing something somewhere on how to build your own hypering chamber for cheap. 

Ilford still make and sell film. They also provide a special service once a year where they make what you want in large format sheet form, etc.

[fwm891]

6 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

Ilford still make and sell film. They also provide a special service once a year where they make what you want in large format sheet form, etc.

That's interesting. I have a 5x4 format aerial camera lens that I set-up years ago to do night sky work with but it's never really been used...

[Mandy D]

10 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

That's interesting. I have a 5x4 format aerial camera lens that I set-up years ago to do night sky work with but it's never really been used...

Here is a link to the service. I'm not sure if 4 x 5 (quarter plate) counts as large enough or if that is a standard production item for them. It's worth asking, I guess.

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/annual-ulf-sheet-film-ordering-window-for-2022/

It looks like the 2023 ordering window is not yet open. I think they run in October.

[pipnina]

1 hour ago, fwm891 said:

That's interesting. I have a 5x4 format aerial camera lens that I set-up years ago to do night sky work with but it's never really been used...

You can buy 5x4 and larger sheets from various companies including kodak and Fujifilm as well

Velvia 100 is available in 5x4 but you will be paying like 140 quid for a 20 sheet box! Then you have to pay for development...

[fwm891]

8 minutes ago, pipnina said:

You can buy 5x4 and larger sheets from various companies including kodak and Fujifilm as well

Velvia 100 is available in 5x4 but you will be paying like 140 quid for a 20 sheet box! Then you have to pay for development...

Probably stick with B&W then process negs and scan at home before printing/viewing.

[Shimrod]

On 14/06/2023 at 15:41, pipnina said:

Most cities have one or more shops dedicated to just film photography!

There's two in my small westcountry city, and I went to one in my Germany trip too which was sat right up against the Kölner Dom

Your selection of films is limited however, and may shrink further as Fujifilm seems to be having various troubles getting raw material for their existing formulas, and some of their best stock (velvia 100) is actually banned in the USA for containing certain chemicals their agencies aren't happy with.

You can still get film developed, scanned and printed at Boots pharmacies (only specific stores though) but by the sounds of things they aren't as good as many non-chain options.

I switched to a digital SLR in 2006 after I came back from a holiday and realised that the cost of film plus development was around the same price as a Canon EOS 450. I don't miss carrying 30+ films in a little lead pouch either so they didn't get damaged by x-ray machines at airports!

I made some attempts at astrophotography with my film camera but soon gave up as it was an expensive and frustrating exercise - no idea what if anything you had captured and spending £8 (film and development) to find out it was nothing!

Of course, some of the ISO1600 film was also so grainy as to be almost unusable.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Shimrod

[pipnina]

28 minutes ago, Shimrod said:

I switched to a digital SLR in 2006 after I came back from a holiday and realised that the cost of film plus development was around the same price as a Canon EOS 450. I don't miss carrying 30+ films in a little lead pouch either so they didn't get damaged by x-ray machines at airports!

I made some attempts at astrophotography with my film camera but soon gave up as it was an expensive and frustrating exercise - no idea what if anything you had captured and spending £8 (film and development) to find out it was nothing!

Of course, some of the ISO1600 film was also so grainy as to be almost unusable.

Indeed higher ISO films are quite untasteful. See my orion image above which was captured on Illford Delta 3200!

Even 400iso is a bit questionable, here's a (slightly underexposed) 400iso image i took on rollei infrared

And here's a 200iso shot (A fuji colour stock I got in 2018, can't remember which type exactly), the grain is noticeable here too!

[NGC 1502]

Cloudy Nights forum has a section on film based astrophotography.

For regular daytime film photography check out West Yorkshire Cameras, or Clocktower Cameras Brighton. There are others and prices are often high!

[pipnina]

I've received the scans for my Velvia shoot, the film itself should be with me this week at some point in the post.

Sadly the space images are very dark, despite my attempts to meter it correctly!

I suspect perhaps the meter in the Canon AE1-program cannot handle the dark conditions present and passed me a reading several stops brighter than I actually needed. This is the result of the image I took intentionally 1 stop over-exposing in Cygnus (deneb and sadr in left and upper center). The jpeg attached is heavily boosted so the stars can be seen clearly. This is under bortle 5 skies at a 6 min exposure, on velvia 100 and at f5.6. I note the stars are creating odd shadows too, I don't know if this is due to the film stock itself... or because I let the film sit at room temp for too long before getting it processed! None of the more normal photos I took had this issue.

Will have to see what (if anything) is visible on the film itself when I receive it.

[Louis D]

Those star tails look like line scanner artifacts.

[Louis D]

I checked an old astrophotography film exposure reference, and the exposure formulas were as follows:

Standard Exposure Formula:

t (seconds) = f**2 / (A *

where f is the f-ratio, A is the ISO film speed, and B is the relative brightness of the object.  B would generally come from astrophotography tables.

The exposure time then needs corrected for the film's reciprocity failure as follows:

t (corrected) = [(t + 1) ** (1/p)] - 1

where p is the Schwarzschild exponent.  0.7 is a typical value for non-hypersensitized fillm.

[pipnina]

4 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I checked an old astrophotography film exposure reference, and the exposure formulas were as follows:

Standard Exposure Formula:

t (seconds) = f**2 / (A *

where f is the f-ratio, A is the ISO film speed, and B is the relative brightness of the object.  B would generally come from astrophotography tables.

The exposure time then needs corrected for the film's reciprocity failure as follows:

t (corrected) = [(t + 1) ** (1/p)] - 1

where p is the Schwarzschild exponent.  0.7 is a typical value for non-hypersensitized fillm.

If I've put that reciprocity failure equation into the desmos calculator correctly, the 0.7 reciprocity factor is very extreme!

I believe I've set it up so the x axis regards to metered exposure, and y is the corrected exposure for said meter.

 

In theory modern films might be a lot better for reciprocity failure than those of old if 0.7 was typical then. As the worst reciprocity film i've used so far has been Rollei infrared (line chart for such below) and the best one so far is velvia 100 which only has a table (also below)

Fuji across II 100 claims only 1/2 stop correction between 120 and 1000 seconds, and no correction up to 120 seconds!

[Louis D]

The Canon AE-1 Program could only meter down to EV1 which is 1 second at f/1.4.

My Olympus OM-4T could meter timed exposures down to about 4 minutes or about -EV7 because it used real-time integrated readings taken off the film during exposure using a photocell aimed at the film.  I have no idea if it took reciprocity into account, though.  I never found it all that accurate for astrophotography, though; so I just used Bulb with a stopwatch to time exposures.  I'd put a black felt hat over the end to start and end exposures coordinated with the camera shutter release to avoid camera shake at the start or end.

[Louis D]

I don't know exactly what's going on with those formulas.  I double checked, and it looks like I typed them correctly.

Try doing some online research on film astrophotography and reciprocity failure.  Perhaps there are better formulas out there.

[DaveSw]

I have to add a plug for Fuji's Acros B/W film.  Though rated at ISO 100 it is extremely useful for long exposures. It has minimal reciprocity failure.  In a previous life (architectural photography) I used it extensively for dusk and night shots with exposures running into tens of minutes. Very fine grain and a high dynamic range when used with compensating and semi-compensating developers. (Pyrocat-HD with extended semi-stand development was my favourite.)  I never used it for "astro" photography during that period (and I sold all my camera equipment to pay for astro-equipment after retirement.)

Back in 1976 I did some film based astrophotography but with 4x5 inch glass plates and Kodak's astronomical emulsions (103-aF, IIIaJ, etc.) and a telescope with a balky drive system. No useful images (other than some spectra). Gas hypering was certainly coming into vogue at that time with much discussion in the literature (e.g. AAS Photo-Bulletin). I never had the opportunity to try it but did experiment with some developers compounded for astronomical use (MWP-1, MVP-2 come to mind)

Based on previous experiences I'm very happy with the current digital sensors, but applaud those who still exploring what can be achieved with traditional silver-based emulsions.

[Mr Spock]

Film has had its day. It's like advocating the use of a horse and cart on a transport forum