Hasta La Gadget!

Thought film was dead? Far from it. In an interview with the British Journal of Photography, Kodak’s US marketing manager of pro film Scott DiSabato said that sales of color film are steady, and that black and white is “doing extremely well.” He sees it as a mini-revolution, adding that “it almost feels that there is a very real resurgence for film.”

And this strong market is letting Kodak release brand new emulsions. The updated Portra 400, which will be available in November, is described by DiSabato as “the best film Kodak has ever made.” Given Kodak’s history, that’s quite a claim. And that’s not even the biggest surprise. Portra 400 is not made for printing. It is designed to be scanned.

The new emulsion has very fine grain (using Kodak’s T-grain technology first seen in the 1980s) and has had its color saturation and contrast tweaked to better suit scanners. DiSabato and the Kodak techs realized that most film is scanned at some stage in a photographer’s workflow, so they made it scanner friendly. Contrast was lowered to better allow the scan to capture the full range of tones, and the color gamut “is not pumped up so much that it begins to compete with some of that tonal information.”

The stills team worked with the Kodak motion-picture team and borrowed some of this technology from the Vision3 line of films, also designed to be part of a digital workflow.

Kodak is also making small-batch films, in collaboration with Canham Cameras. Canham specializes in very large-format film – 11×14, 20×24 and “other goofy sizes.” Canham takes orders from all over the world until they have enough to make it economical for Kodak to tool up and manufacture it. Amazingly, Kodak is actually “moving in this direction,” say DiSabato.

Like vinyl before it, the death of film seems to have been greatly exaggerated. Hell, even the kids are getting into it. “Once they do get a hold of film in a university,” DiSabato says, “they just seem to fall in love with it.”

Kodak Portra 400 product page [Kodak]

Kodak:There is a very real resurgence for film [BJP]

See Also:

• Mama, They Took My Kodachrome Away
• Kodak Claims Film Sales Growing
• Polaroid Ends Instant Film Production

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Right on schedule — or a day early, depending on your time zone — Sony has unleashed version 3.50 of its PS3 firmware. And as previously promised, it’s got 3D Blu-ray movie playback with it. According to the Official US PlayStation blog, there’s also some added Facebook integration and new methods of grief reporting. We’re still updating and will let you know what else we might unearth.

Update: Surprise, surprise, it works. We were able to test Blu-ray 3D out and got it running without too much hassle, as long as the HDMI setting is on “Auto” it will detect your 3DTV and switch to the correct mode just like it has for gaming since the update that enabled 3D functionality there. We didn’t see any differences in the menus with the Disney Blu-ray 3D demo disc we had on hand, but we’ll be checking out how BD-Java functions in 3D later on.

Update 2: Per Sony’s v3.50 support page, and verified by several sources, the PS3 has to choose between Blu-ray 3D playback and lossless audio, whether from DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD, it will fall back to a compressed codec while playing 3D content, while menus, items and BD-Java contet “may be different” on the PS3 than on other systems.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading PS3 firmware 3.50 is a go, 3D Blu-ray movies suddenly feel more wanted

PS3 firmware 3.50 is a go, 3D Blu-ray movies suddenly feel more wanted originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember back in March when the Impossible Project rolled out its Sepia Polaroid PX100 film for the SX-70 and PX-600 cameras? Well, we heard then that color film was in the pipeline and that it would hit this summer. Well, here we are, and you can definitely order the film as of quite recently, and it looks like its got a ship date of August 2nd. Now, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the film isn’t cheap — $44 for a Starter Pack of 3 packs of 8 shots each — but if you’re into the instant photo game, you’ll want to scoop it up, because we have a feeling the film might be a hot item in the coming days.

Impossible Project’s color Polaroid film finally going on sale, shipping August 2nd originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Photographer Claus Thiim has come up with a virtually free way to scan hundreds of old negatives and slides. Best of all, it is easy and fast to make and use.

Even if you never touched a film camera, you probably have a few paper pouches of old negatives lying around, inherited from somebody like me, who has boxes and boxes full of the things. Apart from the odd drunken nostalgic night where I may go through a few boxes, they’re destined to remain unseen.

Thiim’s method eschews slow, bulky scanners and doesn’t even think about mail-in scanning services. He uses the fastest scanner he has: his DSLR. Onto the front are mounted an old manual focus (90mm) lens, an extension tube (which moves the lens forward and allows closer macro focusing). Then things get creative, with a couple of toilet-paper tubes taped to an old filter with the glass removed, along with a plastic 35mm slide-mount on the end. The mount is opened at the sides to let the film slide through.

To scan, you just move the film through and snap a frame. If your camera has live-view, you can even check framing and focus from the comfort of the rear screen.

What I like most is the speed and convenience (and of course the price). It may be a huge pain to go through tens of thousands of frames, but for smaller project this is ideal. And for people who still like to shoot film from time to time, this DIY project is made for you: shooting and developing your own B&W film is easy and requires no darkroom. Combined with this and you can shoot pricey film at almost no cost.

Thiim’s Flicker set shows the details of the setup, but it’s so flexible you can probably bend any kit you have to work. Check it out:

DIY 35mm negative duplicator [Claus Thiim / Flickr via DIY Photography]

See Also:

• No-Sweat Way to Copy Slides, Negatives
• First Look: VuPoint Slide/Film Scanner

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Digital photography is clear, convenient and remarkably predictable. But film, particularly loaded into a pinhole camera, can be rough, murky and inherently retrospective. The 22 results of this Shooting Challenge are an excellent homage to the quirks of the medium. More »