Palo Alto, California, USA

Film Sale

December 17, 2024

35mm fomapan (bw) is five bucks a roll until December 31.

🙂

Tips for film storage

December 14, 2024

Modern consumer color films are quite robust and can survive a wide range of conditions, but some considerations should still be made to ensure color fidelity.

  • Extreme or prolonged heat can cause uneven or patchy color shifts on your film. Avoid exposing your film and loaded camera to high heat for long periods of time and remember that it has roughly the same tolerance to it as a human infant. No hot cars, don’t leave it on top of a warm radiator. If you’re traveling somewhere that’s always hot and sunny, try the heat-resistant Pro Image 100 from Kodak, or a regular black-and-white film.
  • Prolonged exposure to light can foul your film. Don’t leave film from your vacation on a bright windowsill or on a bookshelf watching the sunset for weeks on end. Try a box, a desk drawer, or a bag instead.
  • Damp or humid storage can lead to blotchiness. Dyes and other water soluble chemicals will run and spread. Consider Pro Image 100 from Kodak.
  • Airport x-rays and CT scanners can fog your film, or leave ugly wavy patterns on it. Most low sensitivity film used to be able to survive a pass or two without too much ill effect, but modern CT scanners absolutely obliterate your film. Always ask for a manual inspection of your film. If there is no way around the scan, remember that a few seconds can make the difference between a slight color cast that can be edited away, or ending up with gray mush. Put your film through the machine separately and not with anything with a particularly suspicious or interesting cross section. The operator spending 20 seconds to admire the inner workings of your vintage camera and then another 10 to guess if your powerbank’s battery is a bomb or not can be the difference between a light color cast that can be edited away, or ending up with gray mush.

I’m back

November 26, 2024

Lab’s open.

Out of Town

October 26, 2024

The lab will close November 11th and re-open on November 26th.

Minolta Talker available in Camera Shop

October 25, 2024

Yappatron in stock