Disclaimer: Silbersalz35 has no idea that I write anything about it here. Privately bought, photographed and developed. I like the service and wanted to report about it again, because there is something new.

Here we go

Finally I managed to fill my Silbersalz35 500T films and give them to the development. This always takes me too long. Then I had also given away half of a roll because I had opened the camera. The rewind crank wasn't turning with it, so I thought the film hadn't been loaded properly and... Well. It was. Sometimes you are just stupid.

I mainly used my Nikon FM2/T and a borrowed Nikon F5. These are quite different devices, so all the better to see how consistently the film delivers. Lenses were 28mm f2.8 Voigtländer, plus 35mm f2 and 50mm f2 ZEISS z.f2.

But no matter! Finally done and the results are in. With a nice surprise for me.

Because so much time had passed, I had of course looked at the Silbersalz35 website and there was news. On the one hand, a price adjustment upwards - I had expected this for some time. On the other hand, a minimal change in the process and the booking - all feasible. But thirdly, and this is really interesting again: They have developed, built or put into operation a new scanner. Now that means you can still have the 4K images you're used to, but you can also have your film scanned in 14K. That's quite a bit. You can buy the higher resolution with about 10€ more. This is standard practice at other labs (jpg vs tiff scans and the like).

The surprise now was that now in an introductory phase I got the higher resolution scan at no extra charge. I thought that was cool - download made and Yeah! As of now, the medium of film is really reaching its limits in terms of resolution of details. If I want more than that, I have to shoot the same frame with more negative (medium or large format). For 35mm, I think the Apollo scan has exhausted what is possible.

In the meantime, you can also send in some other films there, I'll probably take a look at that when something is finished again.

But now something about the 500T

I had tried the 200T last year and was really thrilled with the fine grain, dynamic range and color spectrum. Pleasant, soft highlights, all rather sandy tones. A bit of a Tattooine look on the ground.

The 500T appears the same way. Minimally coarser in grain than the 200T variant. I exposed the 500T as ISO400, mostly following the "Can it be a little more?" idea I had gotten used to for negative film (but minimally less for slide). Later I read that even more light is recommended for the 500T on the part of Silbersalz35 - you should probably use it rather than ISO200. I think an ISO320 setting is just right for a balanced look.

What I found pleasant about the scans is that you can do quite a lot in the files. Highlights can be saved well, shadows can be lightened - you almost have the feeling that you are working with digital raw data. Here we want the analog feeling!" probably disregards the whole darkroom magic of development and exposure on paper. There has always been alteration, manipulation, dodging (Not what you think, piglet!) and so on.

I will have the negatives sent to me again. I'll see if I can get them exposed. Here in the neighboring town, they still offer the service of a real exposure. I don't have the time or rather the nerve for my own lab.

In any case, it's nice for me to continue to have a strong partner here for hybrid photography. Analogue photography and digital processing work very well here.

Here are a few more pictures below.

Have fun and slow down again!

Elmar