Do 'Unique' Film Qualities Survive Scanning?

[wgerrard]

Looking at T's last post here: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51906, got me wondering about this:

Whatever the unique qualities of film may or may not be, do any of them survive a scan?

That is, are those of us who shoot 35mm film and scan slides or negatives just taking the long way around?

Don't say it depends on the scanner. Let's say we're talking about the consumer or 'pro-sumer' film scanners most of us might buy.

As I've said elsewhere, I shoot film less because of the attractions of film and more because of the attractions of the cameras I use. I scan negs and slides and don't have any incentive to (pay someone else to) make prints.

 

[oscroft]

I think it depends, in part, on the resolution that you scan at. A large part of a film's "look" depends on its grain, so to preserve the look you need to scan at a fine enough resolution to reproduce the grain.

A lot of a film's look also comes from its tonal qualities, and I think that can be reasonably well preserved in a scan.

I scan Tri-X, HP5, FP4, and Delta 400 negatives, and Fuji Velvia and Sensia slides. And while I can't say for sure that I get exactly the same look as I would if I wet-printed them, I certainly get the looks I expect from such films (and from film/developer combinations) and can usually tell which is which.

 

[gavinlg]

From my scanned e6 and c41, in comparison to my 5d/1d or a d2x/d200, on screen and in print, I can pick straight away in most scenarios the film shots. Scanning them doesn't take anything out of it. Part of the digitalization process is learning to run them through photoshop or lightroom or aperture to bring back the magic it lost from the analogue to digital conversion (this goes for digital too) Even my girlfriend can immediately tell film shots compared to digital ones.

To make a short comparison between digital and the "Unique qualities of film":
Digital is glassy and clean where film is textured and (in my view) has a much more subtle and natural spread of tones and colours.

Digital noise can be for the most part quite harsh and detracting, and on camera noise reduction makes it even worse. Film grain In my view is beautiful. Theres nothing like a beautifully textured black and white print, even digitally scanned. It (in most cases) lends so much to the atmosphere of the shot.
Cameras like 5d and nikon d3 on the other hand have very natural noise/grain with a bit of colour noise which can be removed. An example of detracting noise would be the d200 past iso1600

Most scanners now are good enough to get huge amounts of resolution. It's not the sort of thing where you zoom in to 100% to check out whats going on, but in large prints you can still see large amounts of detail.

Of all the films I can use, I mostly love the vibrancy of velvia (can't be replicated easily with digital), the beautiful atmospheric look of provia (easier to be replicated but hard get get the same richness of colour and tone) and neopan 1600 (no digital method of B&W comes close.

On the topic of B&W, digital is far far inferior and very hard to get a really nice digital print out of. There is either ugly grain or not enough grain, much akin to c41 b&w films like bw400cn.

 

[dmr]

Kodachrome slides still look very "Kodachromish" when scanned.

My old Tri-X negatives still retain the characteristic grain when scanned at full-res.

 

[wgerrard]

Nope, I don't print in a darkroom, and lack any desire to do that.

Here's what prompted my question:

I've stared on screen at film scans and digital shots I've taken of the same thing. I can usually see differences between the scans and a P&S shot, but not between scans and DSLR images.

The DSLR is too big to lug around happily, I can't afford an M8, the P&S images look like P&S images, and the odds of me suddenly wanting to pay someone to run off prints are nil.

So, I'm sitting here with a chunk of change tied up in nice cameras and a scanner and I'm wondering if it would make more sense to find an alternative.

 

[RayPA]

Yes. Unique film qualities survive scanning. See this for a not too great shot usnig TriX that looks like TriX.




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