Holy Crap, Wet Scanning!

[MIkhail]

No C-41 will look good with -4, but Ektar will take as much overexposure as any other C-41 film.

I don't know...
Overexposure, underdevelopment, sharpness... all of this are such an old terms... Look at work of those, who leads photography as art NOW, not in 1950-th... Are they famous because the technics is superb, sharpness is impeccable?
Who of them are concerned with blurriness or any of technical stuff? These times are gone long time ago, and to master these disciplines is, in my humble opinion of course, the same as trying to develop a best horse whip, while everyone is actually driving cars.

 

[Ranchu]

Who leads photography as art now?

 

[MIkhail]

Who leads photography as art now?

Concept leads. Technic follows.
If you want details, that's no problem, I do know what I am talking about but it's a separate topic.

 

[Ranchu]

I'm sure you do, but a lot of art photography is junk these days. You want to talk about Gursky or Prince? Is medium even relevant with these? A smartphone would work. edit:actually, this is a blind alley. The standard of what makes a good looking photograph has nothing at all to do with 'art photography'. Completely different subject.

 

[MIkhail]

I'm sure you do, but a lot of art photography is junk these days. You want to talk about Gursky or Prince? Is medium even relevant with these?

Medium is not relevant and never was relevant, for artist anyway. It is what artist chooses, always a vehicle but never a final thing.
I expected these names, although I did not have them in mind now.
It is very common thing (amongst photo- forum goers) to say “Prince fooled everybody”… Then usually Kandinsky comes out with his “black square”.
What people don’t even bother to think, is to actually go and see what work is done prior and post the Prince’s Marlboro Man, for example. What was he doing all his life before and after. How he moved a "vector of art development".
What people never bother to understand that Kandinsky was developing his own new art language with this black square.
It is very easy (in anybody’s mind) to be a second Gurski. Sure, I can do it easily. It is much more difficult to become a first one though. The dynamic range will not get you there…

 

[Ranchu]

I edited some onto the above while you were typing. I don't think what the 'art photographer' does is the standard for what is a good looking photograph, and dynamic range Will get you That.

Art won't, as you know.

 

[MIkhail]

What ever...

 

[SaveKodak]

Got me totally confused with these scans. Is this considered a good result, in comparison to "traditional" scanning? Would be interesting, then, to see the same negative scanned both ways. Otherwise it's kind of pointless.

I have a general question though. What is the reason is this day and age to shoot film? You cannot truly seriously say- to save Kodak, can you?
No, you shoot film because you like the wonderful tonal range and smoothness of it. At least I do. So, if so, why try to get a digital results out of film? In general film will not be as sharp and detailed as digital and it does not need to be. That's not, in my opinion, is where it excels...
P.S.
Hopefully, I brought enough tact in discussion?

It's considered a great result as compared to dry scanning and it's not my job to educate you as to why if you don't already know.

I shoot film because I enjoy the process, and believe in having a tangible original as opposed to purely theoretical original. Film will outlast any hard drive by decades, perhaps centuries. Digital has no permanence beyond prints.

I'm not trying to get digital results out of film. I'm trying to accurately represent my original by scanning. Wet scanning gets me closer to an optical print than dry scanning. It's not about film being as detailed as digital, it's about a film scan being as detailed as film is. Film is by nature a high quality medium, and scanning is simply about keeping up with that.

 

[MIkhail]

It's considered a great result as compared to dry scanning and it's not my job to educate you as to why if you don't already know.

I shoot film because I enjoy the process, and believe in having a tangible original as opposed to purely theoretical original. Film will outlast any hard drive by decades, perhaps centuries. Digital has no permanence beyond prints.

I'm not trying to get digital results out of film. I'm trying to accurately represent my original by scanning. Wet scanning gets me closer to an optical print than dry scanning. It's not about film being as detailed as digital, it's about a film scan being as detailed as film is. Film is by nature a high quality medium, and scanning is simply about keeping up with that.

Hmm..
You are saying something like “I got excellent results (considered a great result) with wet scanning, much better than regular scanning”.
I am asking “then show both side by side, for comparison, for us, newbies so we know what is what”
You are then saying “it’s not my job to educate you, if you cannot see it yourself”.
That’s not very logical, to me anyway.

 

[ptpdprinter]

I'm sure you do, but a lot of art photography is junk these days.

Both on film and in digital format.

 

[Ranchu]

But many photos can be greatly improved by judicious use of the Dynamic Range slider in Lightroom. More is better, but not too much, lmao.

 

[SaveKodak]

Hmm..
You are saying something like “I got excellent results (considered a great result) with wet scanning, much better than regular scanning”.
I am asking “then show both side by side, for comparison, for us, newbies so we know what is what”
You are then saying “it’s not my job to educate you, if you cannot see it yourself”.
That’s not very logical, to me anyway.

Then your logic is flawed.

 

[SaveKodak]

Delta 400 here looking pretty great. Interestingly I metered this scene with a Sony A7. I've started just using an EVF camera more and more in leu of a Sekonic, this leads to a lot less guesswork when it comes to woodland scenes like this where you had a lot of shadow and sun behind the trees. For negative film this is probably a bit much, but for chromes I've found that this has helped me nail my exposures 99% of the time. You do have to be confident of your film rating, of course.

Delta 400 by Mark Sperry, on Flickr
Rolleiflex 2.8E at arpx ƒ4.0 - Delta 400 - Ilfosol 3 - PF120 Pro Wet Scanned

100% Delta 400 by Mark Sperry, on Flickr
100% crop of above, about 48megapixels.

For a 400 speed film, Delta is remarkably fine grained. The wet scan enhanced the contrast, completely flattened the film, and most apparent to me, reduced the noise. There was also only about 2 small hairs I had to clone out, the dust was basically eliminated.

So, natively this is about 22.5x22.5" at 300dpi, a totally reasonable large size as far as my preferences go. But, what if that's not big enough for you? Well...

200% Bicubic by Mark Sperry, on Flickr

^^
That would be a 45x45" print, and it does start to get a little noisy but good detail is retained, and frankly at standard viewing distances it would look fabulous.

I really, really can't wait to scan some Delta 100.