Best for scanning: slides or negatives?

[mrdoser]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before. I'm planning on buying a dedicated film scanner and was wondering if it was better to shoot slides for these scanners. I read somewhere that slides scan better than negatives, but I'm not sure if that's true. I want to have my films processed only, scan them myself and have the ones I like printed. What are your thoughts on this?
As for the scanner: I'm deciding between the Konica Minolta DS IV and the Nikon Coolscan V, leaning towrds the latter.

 

[Socke]

IMHO it's easyer to scan slides.

 

[daveozzz]

For me there's no comparison - slides scan beautifully first time... negatives scan OKish after a bit of noise reduction and PS tweaking.
I stick with Velvia 100 since I see no need to try anything else given the results I'm getting.

 

[dexdog]

Three in a row- I vote for slides. I am not sure why, but they almost always look better than scanned negs. Perhaps one reason is that from time to time I have had film flatness issues with negatives, which could affect focus and sharpness of scans. Slides keep the film very flat.

 

[JoeFriday]

Slides definitely scan better in my Coolscan V.. not that negatives come out looking horrible.. they do fine, as well.. but I'm generally much happier with slide scans, and they require a lot less work to get them the way I want

I'd shoot slides all the time for that reason, except the cost of slide processing is 4X what film processing runs.. I can get a roll of 36 exp. film developed at Target for $2.25 while the equivalent in slides costs over $8 a roll

as for the scanners... if the cost isn't a factor to you, definitely get the Nikon.. they're more reliable and have ICE built in.. and you will be very glad to use ICE

 

[mrdoser]

Ok, thanks for replying so consistently 🙂

Slides it is then.
Oh, and for B/W: scan slides and convert in PS?
or revert to negative scanning (xp2)?

 

[Toby]

Ok, thanks for replying so consistently 🙂

Slides it is then.
Oh, and for B/W: scan slides and convert in PS?
or revert to negative scanning (xp2)?

It depends how much you like grain in B/W. Most of us die hard monoheads will pick a particular film for the grain and the contrast it displays. Many of us wouldn't use C41 B/W for this reason, that is not to say that I haven't seen excellent images from converted colour or chromagenic films (XP2) it's just it is not quite the same.

 

[Socke]

For B/W I use traditional film, mostly HP5 or Tri-X and FP4.

XP2 was my film of choice until I couldn't get any due to Ilfords problems and now it is too expensive for me.

Home developement adds to the fun and is very easy to do 🙂

 

[justins7]

I use a Canon slide scanner (FS4000) and scan negatives. WIth enough patience, negatives come out well.

I think it's important to remember that slide film has much less latitude: blown out areas of light can be lost forever, as can be shadows. With a negative, a scanner and Photoshop, however, you can pull out almost every detail (especially with software like Vuescan, allowing you to scan a raw image containing an incredible amount of shadow detail as well as whites that are not blown-out.).

 

[dmr]

Three in a row- I vote for slides. I am not sure why, but they almost always look better than scanned negs. Perhaps one reason is that from time to time I have had film flatness issues with negatives, which could affect focus and sharpness of scans. Slides keep the film very flat.

I've now had the Minolta Scan Dual for about 4 months, and I've found that some slides scan better than some negatives and some negatives scan better than some slides. I've gotten gorgeous scans from both.

It does take some attention to detail. I've found that running the autofocus at a point maybe 1/3 of the way across the frame will often improve sharpness all over and prevent a "flat" or "mushy" scan.

Now some people are saying that it's best to scan negatives as if they were positives and invert in Photoshop, particularly for B&W scans. I've played around a bit with this lately, both for color and B&W negatives. With color, it's definitely easier (for me, anyway) to scan as a negative than to invert and correct for that orange mask in Photoshop. For B&W it doesn't seem to really extract any more detail as long as you are sure to pay attention and adjust the focus and the levels properly when scanning as a negative.

One thing it's not going to do is pull out detail when there's none there. It's not going to "see" into those overexposed negatives or underexposed slides if there's no detail to see in the dark patches. 🙁

Now for slides or negatives that are just a bit old and color shifted, I've had real good luck as long as there's enough color in there to correct. 🙂

I've got the best results by scanning at max res, 16 bit depth, doing minimal cropping and adjusting in the scanner software, and then cleaning up and doing the major correcting and such in Photoshop. Yes, it fills up the disk fast, but I've been copying those to CD ROM when I get a bunch of them.

 

[Nikon Bob]

Not much experience with scanning slides but C41 film scans well enough for me with no major problems. It might be best to try a roll of each and see which does best for you and your equipment. It's not a very expensive way to find out.

Bob

 

[hiwatt]

here's another vote for slides.....

and, for b&w, Agfa Scala B&W slides are, IMHO, the sweetest stuff you can scan.
If only they weren't so expensive + difficult to have developed + on the way towards...extinction ... :bang:

GUs.

 

[JoeFriday]

I agree with Scala.. but I wouldn't buy any more of it since I've heard that all the Agfa developers are shutting down soon.. which reminds me that I have to use up the rest of my Scala stash soon

 

[skipc]

In a search for greater D-Max for B/W conversion, I experimented with Chromes, having them processed and cut into strips—ie. unmounted—and felt they scanned in better focus than in slide mounts...skip

 

[phototone]

For color photography, I favor slides (transparencies) for scanning, as the slides show dirt as little black particles, and with color negatives, the dust and scratches image as white marks, and are much more noticable and need to be retouched out more often. I spend less time retouching scans made from color transparency film. For maximum sharpness, you need to scan your slide film unmounted, though, as the slide mounts do not hold the film absolutely flat, at least in my opinion. Since I process my own E-6, I just treat the film the same as negative film, and cut the roll into strips and store in a page sleeve, just like b/w negatives.
If you send out your slide processing, you can specify uncut, rather than mounted.

 

[enochRoot]

funny you guys should mention the scala, as i was going to ask about that new process (DR5) that turns out b&w chromes from regular b&w print film? they say it has more stops of information over the same black and white film processed normally. and the beauty is that you can most likely shoot your current favorite (well...most of them are acceptable). anybody have experience w/ this process, and then scanning it? just another option i was contemplating. it's kinda expensive, but i guess not bad when figuring in paying to have film processed and contact sheets made (what i currently do).

DR5

 

[Socke]

I can't sleep since I lend my dSLR to a starving PJ friend who broke the thrid body this year so I thought I could scan an example for cheap Fuji Sensia 100.

VueScan with default settings, resized with bicubic interpolation and then a little USM to get around the lost detail.

Shot on a fashion show this autumn outdoors in a Contax G2 with Planar 35 and a TLA30 flash.

 

[Jordan W.]

funny you guys should mention the scala, as i was going to ask about that new process (DR5) that turns out b&w chromes from regular b&w print film? they say it has more stops of information over the same black and white film processed normally. and the beauty is that you can most likely shoot your current favorite (well...most of them are acceptable). anybody have experience w/ this process, and then scanning it? just another option i was contemplating. it's kinda expensive, but i guess not bad when figuring in paying to have film processed and contact sheets made (what i currently do).

DR5

It's been around for quite a while now... people who use it seem to really like it. It can be expensive, though, especially if you're used to developing your own B&W. (I haven't tried DR5 because the cost of shipping is too high for me.)

I have a summary of B&W slide methods on my site... http://www.photosensitive.ca/BWslides.shtml


With regards to the OP, for colour work, scanning slides seems to be easier than scanning negs because the colour is usually right-on from the beginning. But I think that with the proper care, colour negs can be scanned just as well... or maybe even better, since the Dmax of neg material is lower than E6 (this makes it easier for the scanner to pull detail out of dense areas of the film).

In the end you just need to try both and see what works for you. 🙂