Scanning Film - Waste Of Time?

photogdave said:
Here's what our own Dante Stella thinks on the matter:
http://www.dantestella.com/technical/outsource.html
Although I don't have the technical knowledge Dante has, I tend to disagree with his points about poor image quality and how time consuming it is.
How do the rest of you feel?
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I think part of the problem with this discussion is your framing here, Dave.

He doesn't precisely argue that "scanning film is a waste of time." He says:

Doing this on a massive and systematic basis will waste a lot of your time scanning a lot of pictures that had they been printed as 4x6 pictures, you would have thrown them away.
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and this, it seems, is a pretty inarguable point, much more limited in context than what you said. If this qualifier *doesn't* apply to you for some reason, then it's not a waste of time.
 
climbing_vine said:
...and this, it seems, is a pretty inarguable point, much more limited in context than what you said. If this qualifier *doesn't* apply to you for some reason, then it's not a waste of time.
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So where can I get 4x6 of my black and whites printed at a reasonable cost?
 
dfoo said:
So where can I get 4x6 of my black and whites printed at a reasonable cost?
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Hrm?

If your point is that you print enough 4x6 black and whites that it makes more sense for you to buy quality digital printing equipment and do it yourself than have them printed, then (again) he wasn't talking about you. That paragraph specifically addresses the idea of scanning everything when you'll never care to look at most of it again. That has nothing to do with the scenario you're talking about, if I understand your Socratic attempt. ;)
 
but by this time, no one really cares that much... have the people just throw out their negatives after looking at the prints.

antiquark said:
There are probably a billion negatives sitting in shoeboxes, I suspect that the film scanner business has some life in it yet.
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climbing_vine said:
Hrm?

If your point is that you print enough 4x6 black and whites that it makes more sense for you to buy quality digital printing equipment and do it yourself ...
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My point is that I cannot commercially print my black and white silver (not that C41 black and white crap) at all. There are no processors around here that will do it, and in my darkroom it takes forever. In contrast, sticking a roll of film in my scanner, pressing "scan" and coming back in 45 minutes later is not time consuming at all!
 
Interesting... I come back from an opening, finish doing the dishes, and see that someone on rangefinderforum has decided that "scanning is a waste of time." Imagine my surprise when I found out it apparently was me!

I did not think that was at all the point of that article. In fact, I'm pretty sure it said that it was a good idea to scan your old stuff (or more accurately, have it scanned) but a questionable one to forego normal processing and printing of 35mm film for scanning, especially if your main use is proof prints. Your energy is better directed to detailed scanning of a very small number of frames.

Because someone brought up defending workflows, my workflow is driven by what I intend to do with the pictures.
  • For stuff that gets printed onto b/w paper, I use a Durst AC800 enlarger with an AN glass carrier. It's very fast and because it has a built-in densitometer, it gets the exposure 90% right on the first try. That means just checking the contrast with RC or agonizing over developing time/exposure combinations with fixed-grade fiber.
  • If I want prints from 35mm color film, I take the film to a Frontier machine and have everything printed, bring the negatives back in a long glassine, and throw them in my F235 to make scans for computer use. That scanning takes all of 3 minutes.
  • For the Noblex or for making web copies of medium format, I use a Sprintscan 120 (and where critical, its glass carrier).
  • Everything electronic gets sorted and worked over on Lightroom on a Mac Pro.
I don't have any vested interest in selling anything. I have digital cameras and analog ones. I shoot one until I pile up enough pictures to develop (or correct) and then switch to the other. I do hope to finish scanning my 120 negatives before they stop making (affordable and good) conventional b/w paper.

And I frankly don't understand the extreme reactions and ad hominem comments. No one is "ramming [anything] down [anyone's] throat," although I can understand, seeing such a reaction, that other people are more emotionally involved. Nothing wrong with that; it's just not how I approach photography. I thought it was supposed to be enjoyable.

Regards,
Dante

P.S. Here is a recently-completed set of 120 scans from Tri-X. I'm sure there is a dust speck here or there. These are for PC gamma, which I think everyone is using now.

http://dantestella.smugmug.com/gallery/7592904_hVetu#P-1-16
 
Or you could do it my way, with total control of the histogram:

2860872771_b9d6ababfe.jpg
 
A recent shot done this way (of course it was a Brownie Hawkeye flipped lens):



3346248062_100461deba.jpg


And one done this way from a Rolleiflex:

3343763941_c16d4d1f01.jpg
 
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Scanning Tech is Xerox tech, so there are better ways, but scanning producers will not in the long run try to produce a very high quality scanner. (Drum scanners are now not available)
 
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Hey John, you've shown this "scanning" setup in the past, but could you give us the full breakdown on what everything is and how you put it together? I gave up 120 because of scanning--I invested in the 5000ED and decided to put it behind me--but shooting scans with a DSLR and macro lens, both of which I already own, might give me a way back in someday.
 
i read Dante's article and have to agree with it's basic tenant. I think he summed everything up very well in his conclusion: "Sorry to say that there is no easy answer to this except that scanning can be fast, cheap or good - and that you can choose any two out of those three."

There is a solution. Not easy to learn, but very effective. editing Face reality, none of us shoot over 100 good photos a year. Winogrand did not. HCB did not. Ansel did not. Friedlander does not. If we edit out those that are not really good, the problem goes away. I am not saying we should never save more than 100 photos per year, but it should be some small reasonable number.

Editing is not easy. In fact it is downright hard. I certainly have not mastered it. But it is critical in the process of developing our ability. I am not referring to simply deleting those photos that are not focused or exposed properly. I mean identifying those that are really good from those that are just OK. Then you determine why and try to emphasize those factors. Without editing we will simply shoot thousands of photos this year that are no better than what we did last year or the years before that.

So the entire bulk scanning issue is really not a problem at all. It is simply another negative side effect of our not being able to sort out what is worthwhile saving.

And for those of you who believe that you really need to save 97 photos from little Susie's party "because she only will turn 3 years old one time" or must have 1,263 photos from your vacation because "xxxxx is such a scenic place", take several giant steps back and think long term.
 
Bob Michaels said:
Face reality, none of us shoot over 100 good photos a year.

.....

I am not saying we should never save more than 100 photos per year, but it should be some small reasonable number.

.....

And for those of you who believe that you really need to save 97 photos from little Susie's party "because she only will turn 3 years old one time" or must have 1,263 photos from your vacation because "xxxxx is such a scenic place", take several giant steps back and think long term.
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Sometimes it is not the "good" photos that mean the most to me and my family.

And in the sad case where someone is lost, I would rather have 100+ less-than-good photos (from a technical / artistic standpoint) of them than only 10 good ones.

I save every photo I take that turns out reasonably well. So long as the composition is okay and the exposure is okay, I save it. That does not mean I share it with anybody, but I have it saved.

The number of photos I share with people is very small. But, "taking several steps back and thinking long term," I see no reason not to save the others.
 
Mabelsound and Dante, that photo is for my 35mm setup. I have a custom diffuser plate that will take 120 (6x6, 6x7). I don't have a 4x5 camera but I do some of my friends with another diffuser plate. This thing was easy to build, the only thing that isn't Plexiglass is the metal rod that I got at a local hardware store. The DSLR is a Pentax DL, I have a 60's macro lens (M42)(adapter) and then a 60's Pentax Slide copier. The light is one of those green lamps, but I use a flash for all color work. The post work is convert from RAW, invert negative, with color; auto levels, but with B&W; I manually adjust the levels, that's it. At first I had trouble getting the histogram on the camera where I wanted it. My brain wasn't thinking in reverse, now I have it.
 
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