Re: [APML] Film and Wal-mart!

[Rob Miracle <rwm@photo-miracles.com>]

At 03:12 PM 8/5/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>I live in a technology challenged state....Arkansas.  So I'm stuck with 
>Wal-Mart for my developing needs...unless I mail it off.

Generally WalMart does a good job as far as one hour printers go.   Many 
WalMarts have Fuji Frontier mini-labs which are state of the art and used 
by a lot of pros.

>Anyway....I take a few meteor shots (Kodak 400) and they mess them up so 
>bad I can't even see the STARS!

First of all, you need to look at the negatives and see if they contain 
printable information.   Can you tell me how you shot your meteor 
photos?   Did you use a tripod?  How long of an exposure?  Where did you 
aim the camera?  At the radial or at the horizon?   What Fstop did you 
use?  What lens?

Meteor's are tough subjects and its very easy to shoot a roll of film and 
come back with nothing.   Answer a few of those questions and we can start 
to track down how to get them printed.

Did you flash a frame at the beginning or end so they could figure out how 
to line the frames up?

>I've heard they can't mess up slide film.  I'll have to order 
>some...because I can't buy that here either!!

Most WalMarts sell slide film, they sell the consumer films Sensia by Fuji 
and Elite Chrome by Kodak.   However, WalMart won't process it, they would 
have to send it out.

>For now the question is....what can I tell them to do differently to save 
>my shots!

Generally, where the lab messes up on astrophotography shots happens from 
one of two reasons.   First, the print processor wants to average the 
exposure to get a nice neutral 18% grey.  The black skys get washed 
out.  You should still see your stars as bright points or streaks if your 
exposure was long enough to generate star trails.

The second area for the lab to mess up, is improper framing because they 
can't see the beginning or end of the film.  You should always expose the 
first and last frames of a roll with a regular non-astro photography shots 
so they have a reference frame for printing and cutting.

Now we need to look at those negatives.   If your exposure was too long, 
you will get star trails unless you have an equatorial mount.   You will 
also get sky fog from the light pollution.    That sky fog can overwhelm 
stars and even fainter meteors.

During last year's Leonids, I shot a 36 exposure roll of Fuji 800 and 
around 50 shots in my D1.   Out of the nearly 90 shots, I had faint meteors 
in 3-4 frames.  One film frame and one digital frame had a good meteor, 
cutting though Orion's belt.   In this case, both cameras recorded the same 
meteor, so I ended up with only one good shot out of nearly 80.

Before you go blaming Walmart, look to see what is really there.

When you do have them printed, you need to tell them to print them without 
correction and to get the blacks black.   Don't auto expose the photos.

Rob

--
Rob Miracle
Photographic Miracles
203 Carpenter Brook Dr.
Apex, NC 27502
http://www.photo-miracles.com


--  APML Archives at <http://astro.umsystem.edu/apml/>  ---
             Unsubscribe at <majordomo@seds.org>