**John's Girls**

[john1972]

Congrats buddy! Maybe I can drop by this summer and… umm… assist you and Natalie with her… uhh… lighting???

Actually id love some help doing the outside shoot..
The problem is it would take away a lot of our time taking pics of the little ones and well
I am looking forward to doing that this summer ..
I have all my film stocked up and ready to go..

[john1972]

Ok so some fun news..
As some of you might know I enjoy vintage lenses and cameras ..
Just happens I am a couple of months or so from starting a few month long process of developing and scanning
a bunch of rolls of black and white film.
Some 35mm and some Medium Format..
Well I just finished up the last roll of 35mm black and white film that I have for the season..
But I have a 5 pack of some decent black and white 120 medium format film left..
I am not a huge black and white fan and most of the trips I plan to take this summer for my nature and landscape
photos where more suited for color film..
So I am looking for reasons to shoot this black and white film lol.

Well over the years I have seen some pretty cool black and white portraits of peoples dolls here on the forum and around
social media .
All of those have been digital photos I am pretty sure ..
So I have a plan ..
I will be doing some photos here in the next couple of days or so with Brandy..
She has been keeping me company in bed ..
It feels kinda strange opening my eyes and seeing her looking back at me instead of Katrina but I needed to spread the love
around to the other girls as well and figured why not spend a week with Brandy .
Well what I think I am gonna do is I have a quick release and connect system for my larger cameras ..
Just happens I have two of those..
I use one already for my digital medium format system so I will already have the tripod out and setup with the shot anyway..
So I think I will load a roll of black and white into one of my medium format film cameras and after I get a shot I like with my
digital system try to not move the tripod and just swap cameras and change up the exposure a touch on the film camera and
focus and take the same shots..

Now I will say my past try's at doing this sort of thing failed twice on me lol.
I am glad it was only a couple of photos here and there lol.
I have learned that film is starved for light and loves lots of light..
I am much more confident now with exposing for film and this time ill be shooting the film with a cable release and direct
wired sync to my strobe ...
The only fear this time is that I might go the other direction and beings ill be using my strobe lighting I could end up with
over exposed shots lol..
The only way to learn is to just do it and see what happens..

So I will try and pick the roll I shoot of the girls over the next couple months or so and develop that in one of the first or second
batches of film so I can get to scanning and get some of those photos up around social media hopefully in about 3 months or less I hope..
So maybe the first time here on the forum you might get to see some actual black and white film photos of some dolls..
Might be pretty cool ..

[Flight of Fancy]

Sounds intriguing. One question re: transferring from film to digital (which, of course, you have to do to post the images here), do you scan the negative directly or create a print and scan it on a flatbed?

[john1972]

Sounds intriguing. One question re: transferring from film to digital (which, of course, you have to do to post the images here), do you scan the negative directly or create a print and scan it on a flatbed?

I own a film scanner ..
I have special holders for both 35mm and 120 negatives .
You insert those into the scanner and set all your settings up how you want to scan..
Most people allow the software to convert and do basic color profiles but I choose the hard way and
do a very high res raw file scan of the negative..
So if you was to open that in photo shop all you see is just a larger sized negative as if you was looking at the actual
negative looking up at a light or something..
I then open that into a program that allows me to convert the negative over to a positive and control everything from contrast , color ,
sharpness, white balance ... everything ..
When I get it how I want to look or normally as close to how I remember the photo looked when I took it I have that program setup to a button that
opens the current edited photo into the photo editor of my choice ...
I then click the button and it transfers the image over to GIMP and I can remove any small bits of dust or anything and either export it as a high res photo
that yes you could print if you wanted..
I normally save as a gimp file (This retains the entire resolution and details) and keep that file if I ever want to print the photo and then I do the dreaded
greatly reducing the quality of the image to crap when I size it down a ton and export it as a crappy jpg in order to upload to social media..
The only good thing is that normally most social media sites display the image at a pretty small size anyway and you do not really see how badly degraded
it is unless you download it and zoom in really close lol.
This is why lots of people say that older DSLR cameras that where like 16 or 18mp where more then plenty for most social media sites and this honestly is
often a very true statement..

But ill do all those steps and upload some of them here if the exposures are good and they turn out ok ...
As you probably remember most film stocks have a pretty large exposure latitude range so I am keeping my fingers crossed that maybe ill get some decently
exposed shots this time lol..
Everything I have tried so far the negatives where just way under exposed ...
Getting good light for film when inside a house or studio is often not near as easy as it is when shooting digital.
The sensors in todays cameras are MUCH faster and can capture light spectrum faster and more efficient then film.
But if you play your card correctly and learn how film reacts to light you can get some stunning images ...
But you know this

[Flight of Fancy]

You are very thorough. Regarding extreme downsizing, I've found that converting the image to 16 bits/channel first makes for a much clearer end result. But you probably know that.

[john1972]

You are very thorough. Regarding extreme downsizing, I've found that converting the image to 16 bits/channel first makes for a much clearer end result. But you probably know that.

No I did not ...
I should have asked you lol..
I know you did lots of work with textures...
I might have to ask you more about this latter and see how that works..
See its funny you say that because my main converting software is exporting 32 bit float TIFF I think...
You saying maybe change that to 16 bit might actually help?

[Flight of Fancy]

I don't work with Gimp but primarily with Paint Shop Pro. I've found that most graphics software will automatically convert files in a pixel depth/colors of RGB 8 bits/channel. You can check this in the "Image Information" box (or whatever it's called in Gimp). If it reads 8 bits, increase it's color depth to 16bits/channel before saving. Then reduce it to the required size for posting. To be sure, open the reduced file again and check its color depth. You'll really notice a difference with images being viewed on phones, less so for larger screens.

[john1972]

Ok heads up...
Today was another experiment day lol..
I did a photo shoot with Brandy in bed ..
But nooooo that is not what I testing lol..
But actually umm no nevermind lol..
I did this entire shoot with just this small retro flash
on the top of my camera lol..
I did not use any studio lights at all and well I am editing some of the
photos now and I think most people will not even notice the difference lol.
Very impressive little flash..

Also I started that roll of black and white medium format film today as well during
the shoot..
I did all the setups for each shot and poses and when I was happy with them on my digital
I left the tripod where it was and swapped cameras ...
Used the same settings but with +1 exposure to be safe as the last shots I did inside where
horribly under exposed lol..
But if those turn out I will post some of those after I start doing my black and white developing
session ..
I hope in about a month or two ..
I only shot 7 photos I think it was of the 14 or so that I normally get per roll.
So I should have more left for at least one more shoot with another girl or maybe even two if I do not
go overboard with taking too many shots lol..

But today seems to have been a productive day and ill post the digital shoot probably tomorrow
at some point..
Be on the look for it ..

[Tonyg969]

Great seeing the ladies!

[john1972]

Great seeing the ladies!

Thanks I am glad you enjoy the photos..
Welcome to the Girls thread..

[john1972]

//////////////////////////////// Brandy Is Ready For Bed ///////////////////////////////

(Brandy Bed 1).jpg (11.17 MiB) Viewed 166 times

Brandy: You coming to bed John?
John: Oh... Umm yeah ill be there in a minute .
Brandy: Good I am kinda cold and you always keep me so warm..
John: On my way.

(Brandy Bed 3).jpg (11.44 MiB) Viewed 166 times

John: Holy smokes what ya doing there?
Brandy: I am getting the juices flowing for ya (Laughs).
John: Oh my..

(Brandy Bed 4).jpg (10.83 MiB) Viewed 166 times

Brandy: I already cum once you better get in here and help me have a few more...
John: Oh I am sure we can make that happen (grins).

(Brandy Bed 5).jpg (10.99 MiB) Viewed 166 times

Brandy: Yay lets get to work...
John: Dam don't you look nice..
Brandy: You like what you see?
John: Hell yeah you look great..

(Brandy Bed 6).jpg (11.42 MiB) Viewed 166 times

Brandy: Here you go I am all yours..
John: And ready to go even ...
Brandy: Yep (Laughs).


//////////////////////////// A Hour latter //////////////////////////////////

(Brandy Bed 7).jpg (11.02 MiB) Viewed 166 times

Brandy: That was great, Can we do that again?
John: Oh my god...
Brandy: Ha ha..

[KKFun]

Lovely and peaceful. Very beautiful

[Billiam]

I love her hair!

[ShadowFun]

An hour???

Damn buddy… that’s some stamina!!!

I’d be lucky to give her 10 minutes…

[Flight of Fancy]

Those are some real high quality images. Sexy too.