Scanning with a digital camera

Vince Lupo said:
I like the tones I'm getting from the scans, just not sure about the whole graininess thing.
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The graininess thing is “grain aliasing” — exaggerated appearance of graininess caused by interaction between the film's grain structure and the pixel structure of your digitizing device — and basically you can never avoid it when scanning traditional b&w films. It isn't a problem with color films because their image structure consists of overlapping semi-transparent dye clouds, while conventional b&w films' image consists of mostly opaque, hard-edged granules.

Things you can do about it are:

— Defocus your lens during capture (yuck) or blur the scanned image (double yuck.)
— Lie to yourself that it doesn't exist.
— Lie to yourself that there's some magic software that will fix it.
— Tell everybody it's “character” or “wabi-sabi”
— Shoot on a larger format. Aliasing still happens, but doesn't look as bad because you need less magnification to get the same output size.
— Don't worry about it and accept what the process gives you. Your images are terrific and their tonality is beautiful. I'd say just run with that.
 
Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement -- yes I think now that I got the sharpness thing worked out, I'm going to just work with it as-is. Yes you're right, no software will get rid of it, but to me it does look like all that 400 speed film was pushed to like 1600. I think I pretty much get the same results from my Plustek 8200i.

One of the nice things about working this way is that I'm discovering shots that I never printed when I shot them, so it's like all new work to me (mind you it's 25 years old!).


Curly4 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
Vince Lupo said:
No I'm scanning in RAW -- if you go into the 'Set Picture Control' option, you can choose 'Monochrome' in the menu. It still records as an NEF file.


Paula by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
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Try shooting in regular RAW. Curious to see if you see any difference with your sharpening/grain issue. B&W inversions are simple in LR (select B&W in the right column under Treatment) then invert the curves.
Or you could use negativelabpro.com to do it all for you.
 
Huss said:
Try shooting in regular RAW. Curious to see if you see any difference with your sharpening/grain issue. B&W inversions are simple in LR (select B&W in the right column under Treatment) then invert the curves.
Or you could use negativelabpro.com to do it all for you.
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Sure I can give that a try -- I have Negative Lab Pro, so no worries there. I don't really use LR very much -- I'm more of a PhotoShop CC and Silver Efex Pro guy.
 
Andprayforrain said:
Vince: did you process and sharpen that latest image? if you did, can we see the straight scan?
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Well a straight scan will be a) a RAW file and b) a negative. I can post it, but it honestly won't really mean much. It will actually be pretty flat and have a slightly greenish cast.

The negs haven't been sharpened much at all -- I always 'process' all my images, however, as I should.

As far as the last photo goes, I have a gelatin silver print of it, and the scanned version is a good approximation of it (at least as far as I 'interpreted' it in the darkroom 20+ years ago).
 
Vince Lupo said:
Trying a bit of 120 film, using a Lomography Digitaliza on a small lightbox. Not a great shot, but one to start with. From about 1995.


Chef Art Jennette by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


An HP5 4x5 neg, also from about 1995, scanned from the Z7. Sky is a bit splotchy -- might be due to my lightbox.


Untitled 1995 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
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First shot is just a perfect portrait in B&W.

2nd shot - I wish that was in colour!
 
Huss said:
First shot is just a perfect portrait in B&W.

2nd shot - I wish that was in colour!
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Yeah 4x5 HP5. I was a 4x5, 5x7, 8x10 rat back then. Actually I will be back in Savannah in a few weeks, and I just discovered that it's still there (14 E. 73rd Street). If I remember to do it I'll swing by and take a photo in colour.
 
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