photo-gear on Cliff538

Thoughts From My Recent 3 Roll Develop and Scan

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 11:16:07 -0700

I posted some of my Pacific Northwest photos over on 365Pixels. I thought I’d write out some tips and tricks for this latest three-roll develop and scan.

Developing

I had my first fairly major leak using the AGO processor. It’s just a press fit, and it can come loose when you’re dumping out chemicals. You have to press it back in place after each dump just to be safe. I poured in my bleach, looked away for a while to prep for the next stage, and looked down to a bright yellow towel! I lost about half of my bleach and thought, well, this is going to be my first developing failure. I stopped the leak and let it process with the reduced amount of bleach, hoping for the best. I was doing 3 rolls of 35mm and just cringed at the possible loss. Thankfully, I don’t see any damage done to the photos. The process is more forgiving than most people think online.

Scanning

Scanning photos is going well. I use my Nikon Z8 and a macro lens with the Valoi system. The big upgrade this time was using an one-time $9.99 app called Orion, along with a $19 HDMI to USB capture card dongle, you can use an iPad as a HDMI monitor. This works for many things like game consoles, etc., but you can plug it into your camera via HDMI so you have a big, beautiful screen to align your negative and check focus. Highly recommended.

I’m learning to be more efficient and use batch processing better with NLP (Negative Lab Pro). This just becomes mandatory when processing several rolls at once. The time required to do each picture individually is just unrealistic. NLP has a very good help section. Take the time to read all the tips and tricks, especially on batch processing. NLP only works with Lightroom Classic, so if you are not a keyboard shortcut kind of person, you soon will be. The time savings are considerable. Consistent scans are very important when it comes to, say, cropping. You can crop one photo, then copy and paste, or use sync to crop all the rest of that roll. It’s beautiful and a massive time-saver, but only if your scans are consistent. If each scan is wonky in placement, you won’t have this sync option, and you’ll have to crop each photo manually.

The next new thing is dealing with 120 film. I haven’t spooled or done any 120 yet. The processing is the same, but I haven’t tackled spooling it in the dark bag yet.

York Labs - Only 1¢ per super glossy upgrade!

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:48:48 -0700

Along with all my negatives were some mail-in envelopes from York Labs; must have been a favorite of mine.

Just crazy to see the prices. Rolls of film for $2.99. Developing with prints for a roll of 36: $3.00.

You can think back to that time, and everyone developed film: Safeway, Sears, K-mart, Fotomat, Kodak. There were little one-hour processing booths in parking lots that would take your film. Every convenience store sold film.

The comment about “we now process Seattle FilmWorks” film brings back a memory of that film needing special processing.

(much time goes by as Cliff looks up the history of Seattle FilmWorks…)

I had to look it up: Seattle FilmWorks bought bulk Kodak 35mm color motion picture film (Kodak 5247 and Kodak 5294) and loaded it into 35mm still camera cartridges. So your normal one-hour photo lab wanted nothing to do with it because of the rem-jet removal.

They had a crazy deal where they would send you a free roll of film if you sent it back to them and paid for processing; they’d send you another free roll. I think I can remember getting caught up into that for a while. At their peak, they employed 800 people and processed 20 miles of film every day.

Another trick was that because they used motion picture film, they could give you negatives, prints, and slides. They could make positive transparencies from the film and give you all three.

Later they started selling C-41 film at the same time, so if you find a roll now, you just don’t know how to process it. I’ve seen Reddit threads on this exact dilemma.

Anyway, a fun little time capsule.

Kodak Snapic Review

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:16:41 -0700

I posted nine days ago about a new flight bag camera I was carrying around the Kodak Snapic. I finally got two rolls of film shot through it, developed, and scanned. You can see what you get with this very small, lightweight point-and-shoot camera.

Pros:

very small
lightweight
double exposure feature
flash
macro setting
uses two AAA batteries, which are common and easy to find

Cons:

the placement of the flash setting in the upper-left corner is prone to bumping
there is no indication that you are using the macro setting, which in turn means you have to remember to switch it back
film door latch is not covered. If you carried this in your pocket, you could pop the back open. I’ve carried mine in my pocket for over eight miles without any issues.

One huge benefit is how small it is; you can shoot pictures without people really knowing what you are doing. I’ve talked in the past about street shooting and feeling self-conscious about it, or people giving you the stink-eye. I haven’t had any of those issues with this. It fits in the palm of your hand, and when you hold it up to your face, it doesn’t look like a camera.

This is perfect for parties or being out with friends and passing the camera to them to shoot some. I used to carry a full-size camera on the road, but the weight and bulk just aren’t worth it. The Snapic will stay in my bag and go with me on my walks alongside my iPhone for shooting. You can see Becca Farsace’s video on why cheap cameras are better.

Let me add, just because I’m super proud of it, that both of these rolls were developed and scanned by me. The Tri-X was my first roll of film I’ve developed since 1987. Film borders, as you can see, are all over the place. I did not take the time to crop; you get the real deal of film border with these shots, no fake film borders on digital pictures with these! I intentionally used generic Frontier scanner settings so you can see what you get with this little point-and-shoot. Overall, I’m very happy with the quality of the shots. The Tri-X is just old-school, iconic, grainy black-and-white. The Portra is just the classic 1970s muted look that I’ve always loved. There are some low-light and very low-light shots, so you can get a feel for them.

Kodak Portra 400 Photos Shot With The Snapic

*Click the first picture to open a full-size viewer, then use the arrow keys to navigate through the whole set

Kodak Tri-X B&W Photos Shot With the Snapic

Denoise: LightRoom vs DxO PureRAW 5

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 19:04:03 -0700

A quick down-and-dirty comparison between LR and DxO denoise. There is a very clear winner here.

I was doing a fair amount of low-light shooting with my OM-1 Mark II, and the noise was just killing me during editing. I recently purchased DxO PureRAW 5 and haven’t really used it yet. I thought I’d do a quick comparison. Nothing scientific here, and I’m not even sure how much will show up in the screenshots below.

The OM-1 is a 20.4 MP Micro Four Thirds sensor and does not handle low light very well. So noise can be a real issue at times. I’ve always just used LR denoise, and it’s been good enough, but after seeing what DxO can do, I’ll be using DxO for all serious noise issues.

Here is LR denoise vs. out-of-the-camera ORF (raw): You can really see how noisy the OM-1 is in low light!

Here is DxO denoise vs. out of the camera ORF:

Finally, here is DxO vs. LR: I zoomed in to 200% for the best comparison.

In Summary, I hope you can see the large differences in the screenshots. The clear, hands-down winner is DxO. I would love for Adobe to improve the denoise in LR so I could skip this extra step, but here we are. Something to look for with denoise is preservation of detail; denoise tends to soften your picture, leaving you with less detail where you may want it. DxO also did a much better job in preserving details.

DxO also provided Optical Corrections: Lens Sharpness Optimization, Vignetting, Chromatic aberration, and Lens Distortion, but I did not take the time to analyze these.

I’m extremely impressed with DxO’s performance. On the downsides, it takes a while to process, and it’s an extra step in your workflow, but if you have a lot of noise, it’s worth the extra time. My average processing time per picture was 17-25 seconds.

I also learned that LR isn’t as bad as I thought. I’ll still use it for light noise issues, or when time is a factor, but for your good shots where you want maximum noise reduction and preservation of detail, DxO is worth every penny and your time.

Whether this is worth it to you depends on the camera you are using and the conditions you are shooting in. At the time of this blog post, DxO PureRAW 6 costs $139.99 as a one-time fee. If you just post your shots to social media in low-quality JPGs, you may not even need to denoise. But if noise is an issue for you and you’ve been unhappy with the software you are using, it’s worth your time to test-drive DxO.

Let’s go shoot some pictures tomorrow!

Cliff Notes: Q4 Photography Update

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:11:07 -0700

I’m going to try to update my photography goings-on every few months or so, so I have a good look back on all things photography-related.

365Pixels

365Pixels is coming along nicely. I think I’ve found my groove in posting every day. Life still gets in the way and forces a missed day or two. I haven’t back-dated anything yet. I don’t think I want to go down that road; I’m still deciding.

I want it to be an actual daily photo blog, and if I miss, I miss. It should be noted as such. If I back-date, then I really didn’t post every day… There are no real rules to this, I’m just making stuff up as I go ; )

I thought about putting everything photography-related on the website, but I have decided against it. Cliff538 really needs to stay the central hub. I came very close to posting my daily photo on Cliff538, and, to be honest, I’m still not sure whether 365Pixels as a separate blog was the right choice.

Hardware

My travel/hiking/flight-bag camera has always been my Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II. It’s small, lightweight, and performs magically in handheld low-light situations. I would really like to do more bird photography, and the latest OM-1 offers a big step up in focus tracking and frame-per-second shooting. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it and have been very happy with it so far. I know it’s an old camera now and needs to be updated, but it’s a big step up in performance for me.

Not sure if I’m going to sell the OMD or keep it for bashing around in a backpack or something.

Really Right Stuff Modular L-Plate Set I’ve been using RRS L-Plates on my cameras for years, excellent quality stuff. Of course, my OMD plate doesn’t fit, so I had to get the one for the OM-1.

Picked up the Godox iT32 with X50 Flash Trigger. I’ve had a few practice sessions with it, and so far I’m really impressed. The magnetic hotshoe lets you mount it on a camera or take it off and hand-hold it wherever the flash needs to be. I’m going to get this for the Nikon as well.

Rolleiflex

My focus screen is so dark that I’ve essentially stopped using the camera because I struggle to see what I’m shooting and focus properly.

In steps BrightScreen. Where have you been all my life! I got a prompt reply from Rick about a few questions I had, and days later, I had my new screen with good instructions attached.

I replaced the screen in about 20 minutes, and most of that time was spent cleaning while the hood and focus screen were off. It’s like a new camera! A very bright, clear, focus screen. I’m in love again.

If you have a dim focus screen, please don’t wait any longer and look at BrightScreens. They have screens for over 50 different camera models.

Stray Pixels

I’m told the Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries don’t leak. I don’t know how many electronics I’ve ruined by accidentally leaving the batteries in and having them leak their acid into the inner electronics.

No more cans of compressed air to clean equipment: Wolfbox MF50 electric air duster saves the day. I love this thing!

The Find Lab I’ve read many good reviews and will be using their services soon. I’ll let you know what I find out with film purchases, developing, and negative scanning.

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:50:28 -0700

ElevationLab has a new AirTag Camera Plate that is Arca-compatible. Ordered one to try it out.