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  #1  
Old 29th July 2016, 11:48 PM
EdmundH EdmundH is offline
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Default Pound land Agfa Vista - WTH!?

I keep reading about this film, so I thought I should give it a go, and picked up two rolls a few weeks ago. Encouraged by their cheapness compared to the kodak portra I generally use, I rattled off some shots of my young son with the Canon A-1 and other random subjects with my Olympus Trip to get an idea of it's properties.

Off to Snappy snaps (I've had great results from the Norwich branch, but this was elsewhere..) Collecting my prints and scans I felt hideously humiliated by the results - easily the worst of my career!. "Is your camera working ok?" commented the tech. The pictures look like they were taken on a disposable camera, weak colour and no definition.

Scanning a few of the negatives at home proved that the negatives are rubbish -- here's one of the better ones taken with the Trip. It would normally be razor sharp.

Any idea what's going on here?
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Old 30th July 2016, 08:03 AM
John King John King is offline
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Default Poundland Agfa (AKA Fuji C41)

I had an issue with the same film a few months ago with colour shifts and 'shadows' over the image. (I do all my own processing) I stopped using it and gave away what I had left. Before I went on my holidays I ordered some Fuji from a dealer and they didn't get it to me on time, so in emergency I bought 10 cassettes to use as stand by.
This lot exposed perfectly and was as good as the Fuji that I already had. No problems with weak colours or other defects. I put the last lot down to bad storage before being put on sale. I will use it again knowing what I have left is still good.

Snappy Snaps did have a 'reputation' of not being in the top level of high street operators and I know of other people who have had problems with them and poor processing. If the variations of results go right through the film, I would consider uneven development and not a fault with the camera.

Last edited by John King; 30th July 2016 at 08:12 AM.
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Old 30th July 2016, 09:53 AM
EdmundH EdmundH is offline
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You are probably right about the processing, Both cameras regularly produce more than satisfactory images. In fact the prints were all back to front just to add insult to injury. I usually send colour film to Uk Film lab where they always get excellent results.

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Old 30th July 2016, 05:03 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is online now
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Edmund, I appreciate that the example you gave was one of the better ones and may not be representative of the rest but this one doesn't look at all bad. I cannot compare the colour to that of the scene as I wasn't there but it doesn't look week to me. The brick wall behind looks quite good. Maybe I am easily pleased

It might be the storage but if it was that or the processing then I'd expect all the frames to be poorer than the example.

Having said that, I cannot offer an explanation that covers the fact that some frames are reasonable and others not.

Well I can but that involves what may be exposure issues with the camera. Have you tried another colour film with the same camera?

Short of using the same make of film from Poundland, the same camera and the same exposure in similar light you may never get to the bottom of what was actually at fault, unfortunately

Mike
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Old 2nd August 2016, 08:26 AM
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pentaxpete pentaxpete is offline
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i had great trouble with my 'gift' Canon A-1 after lubricating it to cure the infamous ' Canon Squeak' so i took of the base=plate again and had an idea to COMPARE an AE-1 base-plate action -- so i operated shutters and watched all the little levers and cogs and noticed on the A-1 next to where i had poked some fuse-wire with one drop of oil to get to squeaking cogs there was a straight lever with the tip going UNDER a curved thing on the left where on AE-1 it was stopping IN LINE so i gently touched it and it came in line and after many shutter operations stayed and series of test exposures from 1/1000 at f2.8 to 1/30 at f16 were all EVEN !
Canon A-1 test by Peter Elgar, on Flickr
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Old 2nd August 2016, 10:55 AM
JOReynolds JOReynolds is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EdmundH View Post
You are probably right about the processing, Both cameras regularly produce more than satisfactory images. In fact the prints were all back to front just to add insult to injury.
Did you mean reversed mirror-fashion (i.e. upside-down in the gate?)
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Old 2nd August 2016, 11:10 AM
EdmundH EdmundH is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JOReynolds View Post
Did you mean reversed mirror-fashion (i.e. upside-down in the gate?)
Yes, they were reversed mirror fashion. I guess they put the film into the scanner wrong way up. Also covered in fingermarks and dust.

I used two rolls of this film in two different cameras on the same day, so I know that it isn't my cameras at fault, the A-1 has been professionally serviced and is , as the Americans would say, my 'go-to' 35mm camera. The 55mm F1.2 Aspherical lens usually fitted to it gives lovely images, well defined but without the excessive sharpness and contrast of most FD lenses.

Probably just bad processing, I should probably give the film another try.
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Old 2nd August 2016, 01:40 PM
big paul big paul is offline
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I would guess that there quality control is not up to much for a pound a roll :-)



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Old 2nd August 2016, 02:18 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by big paul View Post
I would guess that there quality control is not up to much for a pound a roll :-)



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That would have been my thought, Paul if it was Poundland's own but as I understand it the film is actually Fuji 200 or at least Fuji produced and presumably rolls off the same line as the rest of Fuji stuff so I'd presume that QC is the same as it will be with the rest of Fuji films.

It might be that mini-lab operator handling post or pre-processing can affect those frames that have been badly handled as in fingermarks etc but once the film is "dipped" into the chemicals then there is no human intervention is there? The whole film gets processed in the same way, doesn't it?

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Old 5th August 2016, 11:32 AM
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photomi7ch photomi7ch is offline
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Have used loads of cheap colour neg from poundland and the like, in most cases used our local snappy snaps to process it. The results have always been good. But it does depend on who is doing the work on the day.
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