disapointment with bad scanning

[Rui Resende]

I've been shooting a Yashica 35gs, which i'm really loving, very nice camera to use, and i got some good exposures already. But i've got photos which apparently should come out ok, but the scanning is terribly blurry and greenish. I do not develop my own negatives, nor scan them, but maybe i should. Can anyone more experienced than i am tell me whether these photos are ruined because either the camera or the photographer messed up, or is it really a matter of bad scanning from the store where i did it?:

i think you understand my disappointment. If this really is a scanning problem, which method and gear would you recomend for me to start scanning my own negatives in an inexpensive way? If it's not scanning, what would be the problem?

thanks for any help, i'd really like to overcome the problem.

 

[Matus]

These must be the worst scans I have ever seen. Is it actually positive or negative film? I guess negative.

One question would be whether the film was properly exposed? If you try to scan heavily underexposed film and then you boost the levels/curves to get some "normal" luminosity of the image (the automated scanners the labs are using work that way) than at some point you will get noise with a "stream" pattern showing the movement of the scanning head.

Still - your samples look more like a broken scanner than underexposed film to me ...

 

[Nikkor AIS]

First off, don't be too discouraged. Even though the scans are horrible, you seem to have a good eye. The rest will come in time. From the look of the images, I would say that your negs are underexposed. It looks like they might be scratched, which could have happened in your camera but more than likely happened at the lab.

Try again and add density to the negative (more exposure). In the daytime the Sunny 16 rule is handy to know/apply. You can work out equivalent exposures from there. I look forward to seeing your next attempt.

"You're only a failure when you quit trying"

Gregory

 

[Fujitsu]

There´s definitely more in the negative. And there´s more in the crap scan too.

Tell em you want your money back.

As far as scanners are concerned: Epson V700 (does a good job, scans four strips automatically), Reflecta ProScan 7200 (a little more resolution, scans frames individually). Scanning at home does require some knowledge in digital post processing.

 

[xwhatsit]

Interesting to note both of those frames are night-time shots with bright lights pointing towards the camera. The Electro GS just uses a CdS cell to capture a broad swathe of light roughly in the direction of the lens. I found it very easily tricked by those sorts of scenes that you show. And because it's full auto -- no manual! -- it's impossible to correct for this. You could use the fiddly film ISO dial to compensate for exposure but it's a tiny little dial and a big pain.

I ended up with some photos along those lines, although not as extreme.

I don't get along with my Electro GS, it's going to be sold. Much happier with the earlier Lynx series; f1.8 Yashinon almost as good as f1.7 Yashinon (I don't have a Lynx 14 yet), plus you can operate them full manual.

One thing I found that maybe could amplify the effects of those shots -- when I first got my camera it had the classic pad of death problem, so I had to crack open the top to fix it. When I put it back together I got some dirt into the aperture leaves that open and close over the top of the CdS meter cell in accordance with the film ISO dial. The leaves were stuck open on 1000 ISO, and they wouldn't close. I had to open up the camera again to clean out the flake of foam that had stopped the leaves from moving. When you move the ISO dial on your Electro, can you see the leaves over the meter cell moving?

Also, if some home repairman idiot (such as myself) has taken your Electro apart before, one major pain with the Electro is that the film ISO dial number plate isn't fixed. Often when tightening the screw back up the dial can move out of place and it'll say you have 400 ISO film loaded when it's actually pointing more like at 800 or 1000 or so. So check that when you move the ISO dial all the way open and all the way closed that the number scale aligns with the max/min points on the dial.

 

[Keith]

These are the sort of results you get when you scan a chronically under exposed negative!

The scanner is attempting to pull every detail it can from what it sees which is why it's picking up tramlines from the negative left by the C41 processing machine ... which obviously has it's own issues!

I'd be going elsewhere for processing for a start and also learning to deal with your camera's tendency to under expose when aimed at bright light sources within an image. These look like they needed at least two stops more exposure.

🙂

 

[jsrockit]

These are the sort of results you get when you scan a chronically under exposed negative!

I'd have to agree. Poor scanning and poor exposure.

 

[Rui Resende]

thanks for all your replies. I thought i might have an underexposed negative, because i did get that camera to try to shoot in dim light. So i chose to shoot at night and dark indoors. The thing that made me believe i might get something more from those negatives if the scan was better was that from that same reel i got photos taken udner the same dim light that came out like this:

and this:

I mean, these are two shots that use the same camera and film and made under similar light conditions, yet although both images are bad, the second is more tolerable. Another pair of examples:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45447890@N02/4745793506/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45447890@N02/4745155475/in/photostream/

These last two are the ones that intrigued me the most. One is actually pretty acceptable, the other one is totally messy and it even gets more light than the first one. Anyway, i really should take my negatives elsewhere to get decent scans, and i'll try to understand to each extent is the E35 being fooled. thanks again.

 

[jsrockit]

They are still underexposed though. I would just reshoot to be honest.

 

[dmr]

I've been shooting a Yashica 35gs, which i'm really loving, very nice camera to use, and i got some good exposures already. But i've got photos which apparently should come out ok, but the scanning is terribly blurry and greenish. I do not develop my own negatives, nor scan them, but maybe i should. Can anyone more experienced than i am tell me whether these photos are ruined because either the camera or the photographer messed up, or is it really a matter of bad scanning from the store where i did it?:

Looking at both of these, they actually remind me of some of my first attempts scanning negatives which were shot in low/available light, before I had climbed up the learning curve far enough to do better scans.

I'm assuming that these are lab scans. In inspecting the first one I don't see any obvious EXIF or other tattle-tale data so I assume it's something like a Noritsu or Fuji mini-lab set to everything-auto. ...

On the first one ...

The levels of the scan are most definitely bad. The highlight point appears to be set by that specular in the lower left, but the low points appear to be mid-scale, particularly on the green and blue channels. This results in the emphasis of the apparent grain. Those scratches bother me. It may be poor handling during processing but I hate to cast blame.

If you're going for a silhouette effect, the image looks to be mostly salvageable by adjusting levels as such:

That scratch does still bother me, however. 🙁

If you want any detail at all in the figure and foreground, it will most likely require a rescan. The image appears to be underexposed, with your auto-exposure being "fooled" by the specular and the central highlights.

Now as for the second ...

Again, the scan levels look bad on the low end. The "noise" in the shadows is exaggerated and it subordinates any meaningful detail there is in the lowlights. 🙁 I also think this is underexposed, and my guess is that you were trying to capture some detail in the seated figure and the bench area. There's that bright specular just at the right edge (looks to be the same light as in the first one) and that, combined with the relative brilliance of the background, is causing your auto-exposure to under-expose.

I'm sure you could get a better end image with a re-scan, paying careful attention to levels. Multiple passes, 16 bit depth, resolution far greater than your intended final print. Perhaps a pass of Neat Image (or something similar) to reduce some of that noise and grain will help.

i think you understand my disappointment.

I do, most definitely! Been there, done that. 🙁

If this really is a scanning problem, which method and gear would you recomend for me to start scanning my own negatives in an inexpensive way?

IMAO, part of the problem is a scanning issue.

As to what scanner to use, one like mine, of course! <bfg> Hey, isn't part of this game getting others to admit that yours is the best? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Seriously, the scanner I have is an orphan product, out of production.

I'm sure the gang here can make suggestions as to brand and model.

If you want to do things like this regularly, I would suggest getting a good film scanner, and one that really "scans", as opposed to those el-cheapos that are just the surplus guts of a discontinued digicam re-packaged as a so-called scanner. Then take some time to learn how to produce good scans. There's more of a learning curve to this than you would think! 🙂

If it's not scanning, what would be the problem?

I think part of the issue with these two shots is the scanning, and the other is underexposure. If you can meter the exposure on your subject, lock the exposure, then compose, or else manually adjust the exposure to that of your subject, I'm sure you'll get results more in line with what you want.

thanks for any help, i'd really like to overcome the problem.

I hope this does help you. 🙂 🙂

 

[Haigh]

As one post said-you have the eye. This forum and time will bring about images you are really proud of. There are plenty of photographers with technical skill but not much imagination so don't be discouraged, you have a head start on them.

 

[jesse1dog]

As someone contemplating buying a scanner and 'doing my own' I found dmr's post both interesting and very helpful. At my age I wonder if I have the time and persistance to get into the 'learning curve' of scanning. I'm inclined to pay for someone else to do my scanning and spend my time looking at this world and recording it either on film, my preference, or digitally. For the price of a scanner I could buy a Canon S90 for instance.

jesse

 

[dmr]

At my age I wonder if I have the time and persistance to get into the 'learning curve' of scanning.

I don't know what "at my age" means in your case, but my guess is that I'm either older or about the same age as you. (I'm older than I act! The photo for my current avatar is approaching two decades old.) 🙂

Anyway, ... climbing the learning curve of scanning is not necessarily that difficult nor intense. It's just kind of surprising that it's there. I honestly thought that all I would have to do was plug it in, maybe click a few times on some defaults to get the software installed, shove negatives in, and get perfect scans out. -- WRONG!

Setting up the scanner did require getting our local peecee jock involved. I did RTFM, but I overlooked one step and we had to back it out. Rinse, repeat.

Deciding on what settings to use was quite a bit of the climb. Things like resolution, number of passes, bit depth. Even things like size/quality of prescans. Although the scanner software is not that bad, the settings for slides and the settings for negatives seem to have been written by two different people from two separate planets!

Then there's technique and workflow. Things like being sure the negative is clean, dusted, and lined up with the frames on the carrier thing. Do you auto-focus? Manual focus? Do you try to correct things when scanning or "fix it in post" with Photoshop? All kinds of things like that.

Once you do it maybe a few million times or so you'll settle on a process that works for you. 🙂

Also, during a boring conference call I played around a bit with the other example above. It's not perfect by any means -- still very noisy, but I think this is close to what the original artist intended. I'm sure a re-scan with multiple passes at a higher resolution could render something viewable.

Hey, there's a UFO in there! 🙂

 

[Rui Resende]

i've been away the last days. Thank you all for your answers, you're really helping me. And this experience made me realize that there is really more to the gear than what i apparently think i know. I have to work my ways with the Yashica, so i can bend its limitations. And right now i don't trust the scanning from the store i was using 😀

dmr, thanks so much for your detailed post, i've learnt so much. This last version of my apparently failed exposure is really much closer to what i first saw when i shot it. I really must go through my learning curve on scanning my negatives. Thanks for the introduction. I'll try to scan the negatives other ways, in other store. I'll post results.