awilder
Alan Wilder
Having acquired a Leica IIIg, I'm tempted to keep it but I now only shoot digital as I stopped using film 10 yrs ago. I still have a Nikon scanner so am I better off using Kodak Ektra 100 or Fuji Velvia 100 to shoot color and then scan to digital? If I also shoot TMax 400, will this be superior to shooting B&W with my D850?
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Negative film has more latitude and lower contrast, is generally much easier to scan than color positives. The only issue is the same issue as when printing color negatives ... since the image is a negative, you don't have an original positive reference to gauge your color balance and density by. I never found this to be much of a problem, personally, but others differ with that opinion.
VueScan will give you an up to date scanning application compatible with your Nikon scanner (on Windows, macOS, and Linux) at a very reasonable price. NikonScan hasn't been supported or updated in centuries.
G
VueScan will give you an up to date scanning application compatible with your Nikon scanner (on Windows, macOS, and Linux) at a very reasonable price. NikonScan hasn't been supported or updated in centuries.
G
awilder
Alan Wilder
Yes I got VueScan when my Nikon scanner didn't work with my current computer OS.
awilder
Alan Wilder
What about using it to shoot B&W, superior to converting digital color from my D850 to B&W?
Huss
Veteran
You have a D850. A fantastic camera to scan film with. Use that and negativelabpro.com to convert.
Check the film scanning thread on the scanners forum.
Check the film scanning thread on the scanners forum.
Ste_S
Well-known
Ektar definately. Velvia 100 sometimes has a magenta cast when scanned which can be a pain.
Ronald M
Veteran
Neg film has much less contrast and you can HDR the same frame.
Kodachrome is a bit sharper.
Kodachrome is a bit sharper.
randy stewart
Established
Scanning options
Scanning options
You have a D850. A fantastic camera to scan film with. Use that and negativelabpro.com to convert. Check the film scanning thread on the scanners forum.
If he has a dedicated Nikon film scanner, why in the world would he go to the trouble to jury-rig his DSLR as a copy camera to attempt the same job with lots of added hassle?
Scanning options
You have a D850. A fantastic camera to scan film with. Use that and negativelabpro.com to convert. Check the film scanning thread on the scanners forum.
If he has a dedicated Nikon film scanner, why in the world would he go to the trouble to jury-rig his DSLR as a copy camera to attempt the same job with lots of added hassle?
pushto1600
Certified Camera Owner
I just bought a Nikon LS-50, and I ran a roll of Provia 100F through it, looked as grain-less as a digital camera still and the TIF files were super easy to edit, even the underexposed frames! I found it to be just as easy to scan as negative film. That's just my two cents though. Ektar 100 is probably the closest medium you could get between the two types of film.
olifaunt
Well-known
This is not meant to be an exact statement, but negative film is a bit like log recording whereas slide film is a little bit more like linear recording. With a good enough scanner you can recover highlight detail from negative film that you cannot recover from slide film. In other words, you can expose negative film for the shadows and not worry about losing highlights, since many negative films have many stops of highlight latitude (HDR is built into negative film, so to speak). With slide film, if you expose for shadow in high contrast scenes you can lose highlights irretrievably, which is why if you look at the work of some of the greats using Kodachrome, for example Alex Webb's, in high contrast scenes their shadows can be pretty black and lacking in detail because they chose to have good highlights. It is a fine and beautiful look, though, nothing wrong with it, but it is a choice forced on you by slide film and not necessarily by negative film. You can do that also with negative film (Ansel Adams used negative film but increased contrast and burned (darkened) shadow areas to black in many images for drama) but you don't have to make this choice at the time of shooting (or at all) as you do for slide film.
As for color casts, you can correct that during or after scanning, just as people needed to do color correction on wet prints in the olden days. Color negative film in fact doesn't have a set palette; you decide that during printing, so there isn't really a Portra "look" set in stone, just whatever many scanners/printers chose as a default palette, and many people edit Portra images into something entirely unique to them (the Reddit analog forum has many examples of this kind of thing). The same goes for scanning or printing slide film. While the projected slide itself with a given temperature light source is a reference point, you will often see many different color interpretations of the same famous Kodachrome slide image in different prints. Do a google image search for Joel Meyerowitz and you will see what I mean.
As for color casts, you can correct that during or after scanning, just as people needed to do color correction on wet prints in the olden days. Color negative film in fact doesn't have a set palette; you decide that during printing, so there isn't really a Portra "look" set in stone, just whatever many scanners/printers chose as a default palette, and many people edit Portra images into something entirely unique to them (the Reddit analog forum has many examples of this kind of thing). The same goes for scanning or printing slide film. While the projected slide itself with a given temperature light source is a reference point, you will often see many different color interpretations of the same famous Kodachrome slide image in different prints. Do a google image search for Joel Meyerowitz and you will see what I mean.