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Photo Forum / General Photo Topics / UK Photography / June 2004

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Truprint film... any good?

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Mike Henley - 19 Jun 2004 19:23 GMT
I just used the truprint £0.99 service and, though not impressive
prints, is very satisfactory considering its price and I'm delighted
that i have this option to practice film photography, which i find
more enjoyable than digital, without spending much.

They send me a truprint-branded free film, has anyone used this? is it
any good? I'm tempted to use it, and may soon have a quite a few of
them if i stick to truprint. Is it worth the £0.99 + £0.70 development
cost (plus my photos)?

I also heard that Royal Mail may increase the amount they charge them
for posting film by a factor of %400. This will probably mean that
their £0.99 service may go. Anyone got any news on this? if it happens
how soon is it likely to be? (may affect my film vs digital plans)

Also, i think they only charge postage fees for the first 2 films,
does this mean i can send 10 films to them for only £1.40 in postage
fees? (i suspect if so this could be what royal mail is objecting to)
Gordon Hudson - 19 Jun 2004 19:35 GMT
> I just used the truprint ?0.99 service and, though not impressive
> prints, is very satisfactory considering its price and I'm delighted
> that i have this option to practice film photography, which i find
> more enjoyable than digital, without spending much.

I thought the 99p was jut an introductory offer.

The film is not very good IMO.
The old stuff they used to do was the same as Jessops and fine for a lot of
purposes but I found the colour on the newer stuff to be quite poor.
If I was to guess I would say it was one of the ex east german film
manufactureres profuct that was in the cassette.

I stopped using them for processing and ended up throwing  alot of it away.
Now my kids have cameras it would have been passed to them.

Gordon

Signature

http://www.leica-gallery.net/gordon

Sabineellen - 19 Jun 2004 20:38 GMT
>I thought the 99p was jut an introductory offer.

is it?

nothing here suggests it's an introductory offer.
Andy Davidson - 19 Jun 2004 21:43 GMT
[Mike Henley wrote in uk.rec.photo.misc]
> They send me a truprint-branded free film, has anyone used this? is it
> any good? I'm tempted to use it, and may soon have a quite a few of
> them if i stick to truprint. Is it worth the £0.99 + £0.70 development
> cost (plus my photos)?

Cross process it !  Wacky effects that look good even if you use film that
I wouldn't normally allow to cross my backplane...

I had a play :
 http://www.fotoserve.com/expert/cross.html

Contrast and colour go mad.  It's often used to best effect on portrait
photography, and looks superb when the effect is subtle.  My favourite
portrait photographer, Annabel Williams, uses it widely, and it's
referenced in her book :
 http://www.ukphotographics.co.uk/tour/magazine/reviews/book_0501_02.cfm

But I wouldn't expect good results from the film under normal use.
Given you can buy great films for not very much money from MailshotS,
or Mathers, I stick clear of 'cheap' film.

Signature

Regards, Andy Davidson
http://www.fotoserve.com/ - Better quality printing for your digital photos.

Gordon Hudson - 20 Jun 2004 07:54 GMT
> [Mike Henley wrote in uk.rec.photo.misc]
> > They send me a truprint-branded free film, has anyone used this? is it
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> Given you can buy great films for not very much money from MailshotS,
> or Mathers, I stick clear of 'cheap' film.

I bought 20 rolls of 36 exp Kodak Roal Supra Gold for ?32 which is ?1.60 per
roll.
The postage was 1.95 for the lot.
Mike Henley - 20 Jun 2004 17:42 GMT
> I bought 20 rolls of 36 exp Kodak Roal Supra Gold for £32 which is £1.60 per
> roll.
> The postage was 1.95 for the lot.

fuji superia is less at 7dayshop or unbeatable.co.uk...
Gordon Hudson - 20 Jun 2004 20:48 GMT
> > I bought 20 rolls of 36 exp Kodak Roal Supra Gold for ?32 which is ?1.60
per
> > roll.
> > The postage was 1.95 for the lot.
>
> fuji superia is less at 7dayshop or unbeatable.co.uk...

Yes, but its not as good.
Mike Cawood, HND BIT - 21 Jun 2004 12:40 GMT
> > "Gordon Hudson" <gordon@usenet.hostroute.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:<40d534bd$0$58824$5a6aecb4@news.aaisp.net.uk>...
> >
> > > I bought 20 rolls of 36 exp Kodak Roal Supra Gold for £32 which is
£1.60
> per
> > > roll.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Yes, but its not as good.

Fuji Superia is superb IMO.
Regards   Mike.
Craig Cooke - 20 Jun 2004 10:16 GMT
> I just used the truprint ?0.99 service and, though not impressive
> prints, is very satisfactory considering its price and I'm delighted
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> does this mean i can send 10 films to them for only ?1.40 in postage
> fees? (i suspect if so this could be what royal mail is objecting to)

You said

i have this option to practice film photography, which i find more enjoyable
than digital

I said

Eh ? Why ?

Signature

Regards

Craig Cooke

www.storm-imaging.co.uk

Mike Henley - 21 Jun 2004 01:53 GMT
> You said
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Eh ? Why ?

Several reasons.

1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens
directly rather than having to go through an "interface" thingie.
2. Even a quality compact like a Minox GT-E, with an over 80 lpmm
sharp lens and a good technique (f8, minitripod.. etc), at under
200gms of weight and a small size that makes it easily pocketable,
with a quality fine grained film, produce images that if needed can be
film-scanned at 4000 dpi or more, beating most digital cameras if not
all. I like the comfort in trusting my image to photochemical
molecules rather than manufactured pixels, and the knowledge that i
can get more out of it either now profesionally or in the future as
affordable scanner technology gets better. With a 5 or 6 megapixel
camera that's all you'll ever get out of it. My quality compact 35mm
at £100 can give me 10 megapixels and my Fuji GA645 at £300 can give
me 30 megapixels. I can concentrate on my photography and don't worry
much about gear for a long time.
3. I don't have to worry about batteries and their recharging. A
battery in a mechanical camera lasts for a very long time and so does
a film. I'm almost always ready to pick the camera and go out whenever
i want to, or if it's in my belt pouch and there comes a photo
opporutnity i just reach for it and click. It's true that i'd only
have 36 images on a film inside it but same argument applies to
digital camera and its memory capacity. With a camera i'll take
another film with me and just walk out, heck, i'll take 10 if i need
to, it only costs a little over a £1 per film, not same with digital,
how many memory chips do you need to shoot at film's equivalent in
resolution and how much does each cost?
4. I had a digital camera for 2 years now and i found it totally
uninspiring. It sat in the drawer msot of the time. I don't know what
it is but there's something about film that feels more real.
5. My film cameras are classic and compelling in their design and
beauty. I love to own them and hold them and use them. I am yet to
find a compelling digital camera that i could like as much. I have an
olympus XA that i've been wanting to put on ebay since i have too many
quality compacts and the olympus is relatively inferior but it's been
quite difficult to part with it. Not same with any current or past
digital camera. They also (film cameras) depreciate less as most are
bought by collectors and enthausiasts; who else would buy a 1979
camera with manual aperture/focus/advance/winder/asa?
6. I love the discipline that film requires. Shoot less and think more
about each shot. Not same with digital.
7. film is a great archival medium. It lasts a long long time. Not so
with digital. I would argue that a film bought at £1 (superia xtra
100) and developed for another £1 from truprint (it's good enough)
would be a better than an equivalent resolution digital (huge files)
stored on archival grade CDs (not cheap and yet less durable and
proven than film). Film has lasted for decades, "CD rot" or CDs
becoming unreadable is very common.
8. film doesn't require a computer. I do have a computer but i prefer
my photography as a hobby to be associated with healthier outdoor
activities like phototrekking than be dependent on spending time on a
computer.
9. I like the fact that sometimes i can forget what images i took a
fortnight or more ago and when i get them in the post i'm pleasantly
reminded. Using a 1-hour lab is costly, unnecessary and unsatisfying;
it just feels like a premature ejaculation.

I can have more reasons... but these are enough for now
TP - 21 Jun 2004 11:34 GMT
>4. I had a digital camera for 2 years now and i found it totally
>uninspiring. It sat in the drawer msot of the time. I don't know what
>it is but there's something about film that feels more real.

Perhaps you should try a 2004 model.  Most digital cameras from 2-3
years ago are incapable of even approaching the performance of those
on sale today - and not just in terms of pixel count.
lizard - 21 Jun 2004 12:13 GMT
> 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
> rather than having to go through an "interface" thingie.

I'm going to base my responses around Canon EOS kit because that is what I
use, using an EOS 300d is *very* similar to the film EOS cameras in
operation pretty much to the point of if you turned of the lcd and never
used it and only looked at the photos when you pulled them off the memory
card there wouldn't be much (if any) difference in operation so having an
lcd is an advantage.

> have 36 images on a film inside it but same argument applies to digital
> camera and its memory capacity. With a camera i'll take another film
> with me and just walk out, heck, i'll take 10 if i need to, it only
> costs a little over a £1 per film, not same with digital, how many
> memory chips do you need to shoot at film's equivalent in resolution and
> how much does each cost?

I have had my EOS 300d for about 2 weeks now, I have taken about 2000
photos with it so far (ok about 500 of those were the venus transit)
because I can afford to be experimental (at prices like that for
photography hardware you have to be, I think my gf would kill me if I
didn't take photos of *everything*) ;) Thats the equivalent of 55 rolls of
film and the cost of developing them would be about 385 quid (and then the
extra to get big prints of the really nice photos to stick on the wall) so
the camera is halfway to paying for itself already! I think thats more
photos then I took with my film EOS in the past 2 years. Another lovely
feature of digital is being able to change iso speed on the fly to suit
conditions.

> 6. I love the discipline that film requires. Shoot less and think more
> about each shot. Not same with digital.

Disagree entirely, with digital you can afford to be much more
experimental and find out the results, with film you want to make every
shot count and quite often I would have forgotten how i took a particular
shot by the time I got my prints back at least with digital all that
information is there saved in each shot so I can reflect on a days
photography months later. Also sometimes you don't have the time to make a
shot count, when I was taking photos of Jaguars flying overhead here it
would sometimes mean you would have to chance it as when your subject
isn't co-operating with you and has a closing speed of well over 300mph+
film gets very expensive. This is also the same for the Venus transit, if
I missed this one I get another chance in 8 years time if I can be
bothered to visit Australia, but with my lovely digital camera I was
pulling the pictures off as the event happened (and uploading them to show
friends while the event is happening is a great feeling) I also took a few
shots with the film body at the same time but I now have 4 shots left to
take and then have to bother to take the film to the alright lab and then
go and collect the photos (I usually pay the extra 2 quid to get the
prints in a 15 minute service as the car park costs over a quid per hour,
and the costs of driving to this town 10 miles away and back again twice
isn't the worth the saving of going to pick them up the next day)

> 7. film is a great archival medium. It lasts a long long time. Not so
> with digital. I would argue that a film bought at £1 (superia xtra 100)
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> film). Film has lasted for decades, "CD rot" or CDs becoming unreadable
> is very common.

Take good backups, I have all my photos on disk (and copy them to another
disk nightly) a new backup gets burned at least every 2 weeks. I burn onto
3 different brands of media in a cycle to try and eliminate any media
problems, if the harddisk failed I would pull the pics off of the backups
and burn them to disk again. Also when you factor in the power of image
retrieval using digital you can do things you can't do with film (look at
this bit of software as an example of what can be done
http://imgseek.sourceforge.net/sshot/ )

> 9. I like the fact that sometimes i can forget what images i took a
> fortnight or more ago and when i get them in the post i'm pleasantly
> reminded. Using a 1-hour lab is costly, unnecessary and unsatisfying; it
> just feels like a premature ejaculation.

I wouldn't want to subject *any* of my photos to a postal service, I still
recall the disappointment when I was about 10 of sending off a film to a
postal film developer and never getting anything back (they cashed the
cheque though, but also claimed they never got the film) I was gutted as I
had taken my crappy camera on holiday with me to France and taken lots of
photos that I wanted to show my friends and I never got to see them.

Also there was the time a few years ago that I went to collect my photos
from a local chemists (never again!) and there was an elderly gentleman in
the queue in front of me who was trying to explain to the nice girl behind
the counter that she couldn't send off his slide film to be developed as a
negative film, he didn't want prints he wanted *slides* after he left the
shop as he had given up the girl made comments along the lines of "stupid
old man, who does he think he is telling us how films should be developed"
when I got my pictures home I was gutted as they had f.cked up the entire
film, now I take my photos to a local shop run by an enthusiast ever since
I have taken film to him I have found that the quality of my photos has
improved... I think the moral of the story is that with film you are
trusting other people to not fuckup your prints for you at least with
digital I am in control of the whole process.

> I can have more reasons... but these are enough for now

*shrug* there are reasons for and against, I am keeping my film EOS body
though as a backup and for perhaps for special events (but you can be
sure that I will be taking pictures with both cameras) but the 300d has
already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
yet.
Dennis Bradley - 21 Jun 2004 12:30 GMT
> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.

I agree wholeheartedly !

Each to his own of course, and I can appreciate that the original poster saw
his arguments as reasons for not going digital.   Strangely enough, I saw
many of them as reasons for getting rid of my film equipment.   Who cares
though.   As long as you enjoy your photography then it is not worth arguing
about.

Dennis
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.

> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.

> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.

> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Alan - 21 Jun 2004 17:11 GMT
I also have a 300D. I agree with you that if you ignore the screen it works
just like any film EOS. I do not find the cost of memory the OP mentioned to
be an issue, as I have a 1GB card in the camera (good for 350 ish shots) and
a portable hard drive / card reader device with a 20GB drive in it, so I'd
have to take over 6000 shots before running out. Factor that in film costs
(and the fact it's re-useable) and it doesn't take long to pay for itself.
I've learnt more about photography in 6 months of owning a DSLR than years
of film, and no ongoing expenses in the learning process.
I cannot see any advantage for running a film SLR now, and certainly have no
intentions of going back.
The OP mentioned long-term storage. Clearly this is a problem for any
computer data, not just photos. A sensible approach is just to make sure
there are several copies of the data, with at least one "off-line" (NOT on a
hard drive), and keep a copy stored elsewhere, and you'll be fine. This
method means that even if my house burned down tomorrow I can still get back
thousands of photos and other important stuff from my tapes stored in work.
Prints don't survive fire very well, but data is so easy to duplicate that
it can - at minimal cost.

> > 1. I like the mechanicality of a film camera. No "Menu/Set" "<" ">"
> > buttons, no LCD. I prefer turning the aperture dial on the lens directly
[quoted text clipped - 100 lines]
> already become my primary camera and so it will stay for a good few years
> yet.
Craig Cooke - 22 Jun 2004 19:00 GMT
<snip>

Guess you like film then :-)

I use a Canon EOS10D and I also have two EOS5's and an EOS1000FN - hardly
ever use film these days - but ... each to their own.

Signature

Regards

Craig Cooke

www.storm-imaging.co.uk

lizard - 21 Jun 2004 01:00 GMT
> They send me a truprint-branded free film, has anyone used this? is it
> any good? I'm tempted to use it, and may soon have a quite a few of them
> if i stick to truprint. Is it worth the £0.99 + £0.70 development cost
> (plus my photos)?

I would suggest that you try it rather than ask, because it is so fecking
cheap! I would personally not expect much and wouldn't trust some once in
a lifetime photos to the service and film but why not go and try it and
see if it helps you take better photos? When I first started trying to do
"proper" photography I found that the 6 or 7 quid to get each film
developed to only feel f.cked off at the results because I had made stupid
mistakes when taking the photos to really suck, and certainly the quality
of the prints or film were not going to be a factor in this either as they
were elementary mistakes I wish I could have shot perhaps 20 or 30 reels
of film and only spent a couple of quid per process to learn quickly.

Anyhow, try and use the free film and cheap processing service as you can
afford to be very experimental with this, if you find its sh.t after
spending perhaps 20 quid this way then use something else. I would at
least say if you can't afford to spend 20 quid on potentially getting a
load of crap then you don't want to be using film and should be using
digital instead to experiment with.
 
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