A brief and abortive foray into other raw processors

[Sonnar Brian]

This thread has ventured off-topic and into insulting. Some people want affirmation that the decision they make, the brand that they select- must be the same that everyone else makes. Or they start throwing out insults.

The Professor at school- I have called out Professors before. To their face, in front of the entire classroom. Do what is right for you, don't force decisions made out of personal bias onto everyone else and start insulting them if they do not agree. The same logic- "Why use anything but Leica lenses on a Leica Camera". These decisions are made from being biased, closed-minded, and ignorant.

 

[chuckroast]

Most of the people I see online throwing the biggest tantrums about Adobe are men who own $20,000+ worth of camera gear. I see the same thing with film scanners. Guys with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras and lenses balking at spending a couple grand on a scanner that is capable of resolving the fine detail those expensive lenses provide. They use cheap flatbeds or crappy Plustek scanners or jury-rig camera scanning setups, often with cheap crappy lenses instead of proper macro lenses because they have an emotional mental-block against spending anything to properly scan their film.

Why bother buying top of the line cameras and lenses if you're going to throw away that image quality with crappy software or crappy scanners? When I was in art school, the photography professor had a big sign just inside the entrance to the university art building's darkroom. It said: "If you're not going to do it right, don't bother to start. You're simply getting in the way of someone who has a future as a photographer." I agree with that 100%.

The fix is much less expensive: Shoot monochrome film, scan silver prints 😉


Color is for cartoons....

On a more serious note, I am curious what people are using to scan film. I have a V800 and have never found it's film scanning to be particularly great, only adequate.

 

[brusby]

I'll venture to say that some people who can afford a scanner that costs thousands got that way by being frugal early in life. And old habits die hard.

Plus, sometimes it's just fun and interesting to come up with one's own solutions, regardless of price. I could afford a pro scanner, but chose to just sandwich negatives between a couple pieces of glass to flatten them and then photograph using a macro lens and a soft box for even illumination. Could I get better results with a pro unit? Maybe, but this has been plenty good enough for me, plus I have the satisfaction of having come up with the solution myself.

Doing it "right" doesn't always equate to spending a bunch of $.

All below "scanned" with home made "scanner" using macro lens and soft box. p.s., All are scans of negatives -- two 21/4" and one 35mm.
Sherrie by Brusby, on Flickr

scan test by Brusby, on Flickr

park 4a by Brusby, on Flickr

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Most of the people I see online throwing the biggest tantrums about Adobe are men who own $20,000+ worth of camera gear. I see the same thing with film scanners. Guys with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras and lenses balking at spending a couple grand on a scanner that is capable of resolving the fine detail those expensive lenses provide. They use cheap flatbeds or crappy Plustek scanners or jury-rig camera scanning setups, often with cheap crappy lenses instead of proper macro lenses because they have an emotional mental-block against spending anything to properly scan their film.

Why bother buying top of the line cameras and lenses if you're going to throw away that image quality with crappy software or crappy scanners? When I was in art school, the photography professor had a big sign just inside the entrance to the university art building's darkroom. It said: "If you're not going to do it right, don't bother to start. You're simply getting in the way of someone who has a future as a photographer." I agree with that 100%.

I have flatbed Epson and Plustek. They are perfectly fine.
But I'm just an engineer in the broadcasting industry.
Where IQ and QC are must.
From my perspective some have no clue about resolution and oversharpening.

BTW...
Does Helen Hill using something with subscription or relict scanners?
In fact, it doesn't matter.
Because your professor "forgot" to tell you if you have no gift in art - you are not going to do it right, indeed.

 

[shawn]

On a more serious note, I am curious what people are using to scan film. I have a V800 and have never found it's film scanning to be particularly great, only adequate.

Used to have a Pakon 135 Plus and Nikon LS-8000 but sold them and scan with my mirrorless cameras now.

That is for MF scanning (6x9) using a Sigma 105mm macro lens on either my Panasonic S1R or Sigma fp L. The cone holds the lens at the proper distance to fill the sensor when focused on the negative. If I use the high resolution mode of the S1R a scan is 187megapixels and has RGB at every pixel so no color artifacts. If I am shooting 6x12,6x17 or 6x24 I take multiple shots and stitch them in LR. Negative Lab Pro inverts the negatives.
This is a stitch from a 6x24 Kraken with the S1R in regular resolution mode.

In the full size image (233 megapixels) you can read the water level sign in the lower right corner, read the signs on the fences across the water and see the number on the back of jerseys people are wearing across the water. That is on Fomapan 100 which isn't a fine grain film.


I have another cone like that for 35mm holding the camera the proper distance for it. For half frame an adapter for that cone to hold the lens closer (with an additional close up lens) to just about fill the sensor with a half frame negative.

 

[chuckroast]

In @Chriscrawfordphoto defense, I do think he has a point. It's kind of nutty to have five figures worth of equipment, travel all over the place to take pix, and then grump about $120 a year for editing.

HOWEVER, the cost was never really my objection. My objection is having to share my images with a nameless, faceless, unaccountable entity that uses AI to harvest all manner of metadata off your impages, at least in principle.

Do you have picture of people eating, drinking, smoking, shooting (hopefully not all at once) from your last hunting trip? That AI may someday soon be able to collaborate with the AI rules being used by medical insurers.

Do your pictures express strong political or social views? Uh oh, we can't let that go on without strict oversight by the "right" people. (Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the US were victims of this so I am not being partisan in any way here).

Do you have - GASP -nudity in your pictures??? Remember the photographer that took innocent and charming pictures of their kids running around sans diaper and got attacked for being an exploiter of children.

etc. etc. etc.

You think I'm paranoid? About half my work is in cybersecurity, threat interdiction, and threat detection. The other half involves other modern technology design work. Both of these areas are making heavy use of AI, for both good- and malicious purposes. The problem isn't the AIs themselves - they are about as important as which film reels you prefer. No, the problem is the organizations that use them - unaccountable, mostly, and not transparent, mostly. If you really want to see how bad this can be, go read up on MK Ultra.

I trust nothing that gets too big - big government, big education, big church, big business or big finance. When something gets sufficiently large, it will lose sight of its core mission and instead work primarily to protect its existence.

And THAT, boys and girls, is why I don't like putting personally identifiable content out on some megacorp server.

I have to go polish my tinfoil hat now ...

 

[shawn]

In @Chriscrawfordphoto defense, I do think he has a point. It's kind of nutty to have five figures worth of equipment, travel all over the place to take pix, and then grump about $120 a year for editing.
=

And THAT, boys and girls, is why I don't like putting personally identifiable content out on some megacorp server.

I have to go polish my tinfoil hat now ...

Understand what you are saying but if you use Lightroom Classic your images can be all local. Not put up on the cloud unless you decide to turn on cloud syncing. I'm using 0.0 of the 20gb that comes with Classic. I run a network usage monitor and it isn't sending my images anywhere when I import new ones.

 

[boojum]

Most of the people I see online throwing the biggest tantrums about Adobe are men who own $20,000+ worth of camera gear. I see the same thing with film scanners. Guys with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras and lenses balking at spending a couple grand on a scanner that is capable of resolving the fine detail those expensive lenses provide. They use cheap flatbeds or crappy Plustek scanners or jury-rig camera scanning setups, often with cheap crappy lenses instead of proper macro lenses because they have an emotional mental-block against spending anything to properly scan their film.

Why bother buying top of the line cameras and lenses if you're going to throw away that image quality with crappy software or crappy scanners? When I was in art school, the photography professor had a big sign just inside the entrance to the university art building's darkroom. It said: "If you're not going to do it right, don't bother to start. You're simply getting in the way of someone who has a future as a photographer." I agree with that 100%.

What you are overlooking is that how other people spend their money is none of your damned business. You also act as if you think life is not fair. It isn't. Get over it. Whining will not change a thing. It is time to grow up and put on your man pants.

And following this thread calls into question just who it is throwing tantrums.

 

[boojum]

Another SOOC JPG, converted in the camera rather than going through an external image editor. Pentax Q S1. Wild peas at the roadside.

IMGP1223 12MP sensor by West Phalia, on Flickr​

 

[Cascadilla]

I can sympathize with photographers who are doing this as a hobby and want to minimize continuing expense for a product that they need but would prefer to buy once and not continue to pay for for the indefinite future. As a working pro my subscription to Photoshop is a small regular expense compared to studio rent, insurance, utilities, etc., all of which I have to have. Where I have issues with Adobe is the continuing bloating of the software and the addition of features that I don't really need or want and the resulting bugs from frequent upgrades. My studio computer is a 9 year old 27" iMac that I loaded up when I bought it with as much RAM was it would hold along with the fastest graphics card, etc. Since I can't upgrade my operating system without losing some other software that I use the last couple of upgrades to Photoshop don't apply to me since my computer won't work with them. I'm semi retired at this point, so I'm reluctant to pour a lot of money into a new computer, especially since my ancient iMac continues to perform well. If Adobe jacks up the price substantially it might be time for me to look into Affinity Photo or something else. When I was buying Photoshop outright I only bought every other update since it was rare that there was a new feature in each update that was that compelling. Finally, each of us has to make decisions for ourselves about where our finite supply of money goes. People get into photography for lots of reasons--some are equipment collectors, some are avid picture takers, some do it for a living and many of us, I suspect, are some combination of all three of those categories. So opinions will vary and what is valid for me in my circumstances may not be valid for anyone else.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I can sympathize with photographers who are doing this as a hobby and want to minimize continuing expense for a product that they need but would prefer to buy once and not continue to pay for for the indefinite future. As a working pro my subscription to Photoshop is a small regular expense compared to studio rent, insurance, utilities, etc., all of which I have to have. Where I have issues with Adobe is the continuing bloating of the software and the addition of features that I don't really need or want and the resulting bugs from frequent upgrades. My studio computer is a 9 year old 27" iMac that I loaded up when I bought it with as much RAM was it would hold along with the fastest graphics card, etc. Since I can't upgrade my operating system without losing some other software that I use the last couple of upgrades to Photoshop don't apply to me since my computer won't work with them. I'm semi retired at this point, so I'm reluctant to pour a lot of money into a new computer, especially since my ancient iMac continues to perform well. If Adobe jacks up the price substantially it might be time for me to look into Affinity Photo or something else. When I was buying Photoshop outright I only bought every other update since it was rare that there was a new feature in each update that was that compelling. Finally, each of us has to make decisions for ourselves about where our finite supply of money goes. People get into photography for lots of reasons--some are equipment collectors, some are avid picture takers, some do it for a living and many of us, I suspect, are some combination of all three of those categories. So opinions will vary and what is valid for me in my circumstances may not be valid for anyone else.

you don't have to install the updates if you don't want them. You can set it so that you have to manually install the updates, and when a new one comes out it tells you its available and what it gives you.

 

[santino]

Somehow I don't understand the whole discussion: It's not a contradiction to have an expensive camera and still use open source. I used Linux for years to see if I could get by with open source only. It worked! As long as the tool works, it doesn't matter whether it costs anything or not.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Used to have a Pakon 135 Plus and Nikon LS-8000 but sold them and scan with my mirrorless cameras now.

That is for MF scanning (6x9) using a Sigma 105mm macro lens on either my Panasonic S1R or Sigma fp L. The cone holds the lens at the proper distance to fill the sensor when focused on the negative. If I use the high resolution mode of the S1R a scan is 187megapixels and has RGB at every pixel so no color artifacts. If I am shooting 6x12,6x17 or 6x24 I take multiple shots and stitch them in LR. Negative Lab Pro inverts the negatives.
This is a stitch from a 6x24 Kraken with the S1R in regular resolution mode.

In the full size image (233 megapixels) you can read the water level sign in the lower right corner, read the signs on the fences across the water and see the number on the back of jerseys people are wearing across the water. That is on Fomapan 100 which isn't a fine grain film.

View attachment 4852364View attachment 4852365
I have another cone like that for 35mm holding the camera the proper distance for it. For half frame an adapter for that cone to hold the lens closer (with an additional close up lens) to just about fill the sensor with a half frame negative.

That's a nice camera scanning setup, it solves the main problem I had when I tried it: keeping the film and the sensor perfectly parallel. It looks 3D printed; did you make it yourself, or did you buy it?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Somehow I don't understand the whole discussion: It's not a contradiction to have an expensive camera and still use open source. I used Linux for years to see if I could get by with open source only. It worked! As long as the tool works, it doesn't matter whether it costs anything or not.

With photo editors, I've not been happy with the quality of the RAW conversions and found the software to have too many limitations. If it worked better than paid software, I'd happily use it. Unfortunately, it just doesn't. I'm not willing to compromise on my image quality or use software that is harder to use just to save $10 a month. You can't even go out to eat for that little money; its nothing.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I'll venture to say that some people who can afford a scanner that costs thousands got that way by being frugal early in life. And old habits die hard.

Plus, sometimes it's just fun and interesting to come up with one's own solutions, regardless of price. I could afford a pro scanner, but chose to just sandwich negatives between a couple pieces of glass to flatten them and then photograph using a macro lens and a soft box for even illumination. Could I get better results with a pro unit? Maybe, but this has been plenty good enough for me, plus I have the satisfaction of having come up with the solution myself.

Doing it "right" doesn't always equate to spending a bunch of $.

All below "scanned" with home made "scanner" using macro lens and soft box. p.s., All are scans of negatives -- two 21/4" and one 35mm.
Sherrie by Brusby, on Flickr

scan test by Brusby, on Flickr

park 4a by Brusby, on Flickr

You're doing camera scanning with a good lens, and using glass to keep the film perfectly flat. You probably wouldn't gain anything by buying a good scanner; my comments were aimed at the guys I see using lower quality gear because they weren't even willing to buy a macro lens. Regular lenses have curvature of field that makes photographs of perfectly flat objects at close distances have soft edges and corners; macros are corrected for this since they're often used for photographing artwork or copying photographs.

 

[santino]

I see. In your case it would be stupid to compromise the whole process just to save 10 $ a month.

 

[shawn]

That's a nice camera scanning setup, it solves the main problem I had when I tried it: keeping the film and the sensor perfectly parallel. It looks 3D printed; did you make it yourself, or did you buy it?

I originally scanned with a tripod and it took awhile to square everything up and it required scanning in the dark. This setup solves all of those problems and takes about a minute to setup. I designed and printed it.

 

[wlewisiii]

Another SOOC JPG, converted in the camera rather than going through an external image editor. Pentax Q S1. Wild peas at the roadside.

IMGP1223 12MP sensor by West Phalia, on Flickr​

This is why I find myself using SOOC jpg a whole lot more often with my K5. It's getting to the point where it does better than I can except if I want monochrome.

 

[shawn]

A number of Pentax cameras have a really cool feature. You shoot JPEG and *after* taking a shot if you decide you want RAW you hit a button and it will save the RAW file of that last image taken. Handy for tricky lighting or whatever without needing to shoot Raw+Jpeg all the time.

 

[wlewisiii]

A number of Pentax cameras have a really cool feature. You shoot JPEG and *after* taking a shot if you decide you want RAW you hit a button and it will save the RAW file of that last image taken. Handy for tricky lighting or whatever without needing to shoot Raw+Jpeg all the time.

I should see if mine does that. I do save as Raw+Jpeg right now because that's better for options, especially with Squirrel Mafia's Custom version of RT on Linux.