Would you have known these are negatives?

[drjoke]

And not slide?

This is Portra 160VC scanned with Coolscan V ED.
I turn up saturation and contrast in Aperture.
With smaller size, I can hardly tell they are not slides.
However, larger zoom will reveal that these photos have much larger grain than slides. So I guess with the power of Digital Post Processing, I can easily make negatives look like slides, with the exception of grain.

May be that's why professional negative films are more popular for medium and large formats on Flickr.

The lens I use is ZM Sonnar 50mm.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drjoke/2471540884/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drjoke/2471540878/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drjoke/2471540874/

Am I the only one who finds film more interesting than lenses? I think I have all the lenses I would ever need for the next 5 years.

 

[rogue_designer]

I love the Portra 160 films. I really do. Nice shots.

 

[Arvay]

May be that's why professional negative films are more popular for medium and large formats on Flickr.

I think that the reason for their popularity is the price and easier possibility of processing.

 

[Aziz]

There's some great noise/grain reducing plug-ins out there (I use Noiseware Pro) that make a grainy photo look great. Here's an example of Tri-x shot at 1600 and developed in diafine. a combination that will generally produce a fairly grainy image. A little photoshop work and noiseware plugin and your left with a grain-free image

 

[rogue_designer]

I think that the reason for their popularity is the price and easier possibility of processing.

And the very wide dynamic range. Which makes them ideal for some applications (architecture for one).

 

[briandaly]

There's some great noise/grain reducing plug-ins out there (I use Noiseware Pro) that make a grainy photo look great. Here's an example of Tri-x shot at 1600 and developed in diafine. a combination that will generally produce a fairly grainy image. A little photoshop work and noiseware plugin and your left with a grain-free image

Aziz,
What format are you shooting? Something larger than 35mm I expect?

Edit - Just noticed your using a Zeuss Ikon - incredibly little grain for a 35mm format.

 

[Pherdinand]

that's pretty noise-free indeed, Aziz.

 

[charjohncarter]

This is what I like about color film, each film is individual. If you were an expert with them you could pick a mood by changing film. Even with PhotoShop you can't totally destroy the 'look' that film gives, but you can help the mood along.

 

[myoptic3]

I agree, those do look like slides. The B&W shot there is great, but way too clean & stark for my tastes. I like to see some grain in B&W. In color I would rather not, except for my almost diminished supply of Agfa Vista film, where it somehow looks OK in those over saturated colors of Agfa.

 

[Pablito]

There's some great noise/grain reducing plug-ins out there (I use Noiseware Pro) that make a grainy photo look great. Here's an example of Tri-x shot at 1600 and developed in diafine. a combination that will generally produce a fairly grainy image. A little photoshop work and noiseware plugin and your left with a grain-free image

Agree the grain is gone (as far as can be seen in a small image posted online) but it looks like the postprocessing also killed off any sparkle. Looks very flat, almost like it was a desaturated digital photo.

 

[daveywaugh]

Agree the grain is gone (as far as can be seen in a small image posted online) but it looks like the postprocessing also killed off any sparkle. Looks very flat, almost like it was a desaturated digital photo.

Yes perhaps the noise reduction has gone too far... as a general rule, I create a new layer in PS, apply the filter, and then reduce the layer's opacity by 50%. Basically you do the filter work you think is correct, and then halve it!

Regarding tone - a bit of simple "s curve" adjustment would fix the flatness of the shot. Nice pic though - and certainly the noise reduction works!