I just hate it when they get it all wrong..... (on X-process)

A few week ago, I bumped into a former photography student who is currently dwelling into Lomography and we chatted abit.  

He was quite intrigued into this new form of photography, especially the X-Processing (Cross Processing) of film part which Lomographer's like to boast about.

So naturally I asked him why he liked about X-Process as I find the colour casts a big distracting to the overall picture.  (Just my personal opinion)

So he explained to me that you get a unqiue and random colours if you X-process a film and thats why its fun.

So I asked him do you print the photos but he say he never prints it but have them scanned at the labs... hmmmmmmm... Okayyyy.... So what film you use for X-prcoessing I asked, And he go on with using Sensia, Velvia and loved the green tones of Provia.. I stopped him and asked him where he get his expired slide film and how much he got it for and he said he bought FRESH new SLIDE film to X-process...

WHAT??? That is such a real waste.  Why would anyone do this?  Does he understand the theory behind colours?  So here's my point:

If you like colour casts in your photo, just buy those cheap colour filters and attached it to the front of the lens..  And you save lots of money in buying and developing films.. :P

Another way is to Photoshop your negs for those who are well versed in PS.

Its ok to X-process but try using EXPIRED film.. Slide film are wonderful on itself but they have a much limited Dynamic Range so you are not really getting any benefits if you are using a toy cam.  Your hit rate would suffer and you are again wasting money and chemicals.

So why do I X-process? Because sometimes I want that colour cast in a picture, not because its random!  Its actually very predictable!  Sensia 400 will forever be yellow because thats how the chemicals will react.  How yellowish really depends on the exposure or how you scan or print that negative.  The only randomness in the negatives might be colour bleeds which occurs sometimes when there is a very contrasty scene.   And the photo is normally contrasty in X-process is due to clipping of the highlights and shadow details (limited Dynamic Range)

So in short, Lomography has sucessfully brainwashed this rubbish to these Lomographers who are new into photography... Its really a bit sad actually for me to see good film wasted in such a fashion.

Now I understand why Provia was always out of stock in Ruby.... :S 

If you are interested in more on this, you can read up here on Ryan's Photo blog.  He writes much better English then me :P

And My photo gallery has updated with a new album on my new Slide copier.  Do take a look if you are interested. :)