Tired of scanning....

robert blu said:
Being now more involved in instant photography I'm not shooting much conventional film lately, sometimes I shoot Cinestill 50 and send them to this lab for developing and scanning.

To my eye quality is good enough and the price convenient (it would be different if shooting a lot as I did times ago).

robert

m7, cinestill 50

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Thanks for posting. The company in Spain that does the developing say they believe in "film's new age," but some times I become dispirited and fear that most of us are are ageing - and perhaps shooting less and less film as time goes by.
 
traveler_101 said:
Thanks for posting. The company in Spain that does the developing say they believe in "film's new age," but some times I become dispirited and fear that most of us are are ageing - and perhaps shooting less and less film as time goes by.
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I am amused how I used to regret the lack of easy labs in Spain and now they are there and they have customers from all around. IIRC it was set up by some association of a Wedding Photographers and technicians that acquired some Fuji Frontier.

It is the new model of film lab, Internet+Post based, international customer base and if you look around Instagram you will see them. IMO, that model works, as relying on local customers might not be that reliable given the niche status.


Their scans are quite good. Though every once in a while I think about getting one of those V600 to shave off the scanning costs, at least for MF. Still, I think of home scanning as a blessing and a condemnation.
 
Prest_400 said:
... Though every once in a while I think about getting one of those V600 to shave off the scanning costs, at least for MF. Still, I think of home scanning as a blessing and a condemnation.
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I have a V600 for my 120 films and it works well enough, sometimes I like scanning, earphones and good music help...sometimes I have to force myself to scan, with or without music :)

robert
 
Prest_400 said:
.

It is the new model of film lab, Internet+Post based, international customer base and if you look around Instagram you will see them. IMO, that model works, as relying on local customers might not be that reliable given the niche status.
.
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that's right, this is the future of photo labs !
 
It's 17EUR for a roll developed and scanned at the XL resolution, no? When I see the XL scans, however, I just see heaps of artifacts (typical Frontier in my experience). I think you'd get (much) better results going the digitizing route.
 
philipus said:
It's 17EUR for a roll developed and scanned at the XL resolution, no? When I see the XL scans, however, I just see heaps of artifacts (typical Frontier in my experience). I think you'd get (much) better results going the digitizing route.
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Did you check the second set of pictures or those in the first post? In my opinion the scans are OK, better than any I ever got out of my scanners, even the Nikon Coolscan IV.

Of course these are jpegs.... So there are artifacts when you really blow up the pictures. For my humble needs and prints it feels adequate.
 
Hi Frank

I checked the largest size of the image on Flickr and they had pretty bad compression (?) artefacts. I rechecked the largest size now and it looks better. For auto-scans they're quite passable actually.

What one gains in scanning oneself is of course control over every aspect of the image. This will be visible in particular in shadow areas, where auto-scans, even on a Frontier, will give rather poor quality. Whether such scans are of sufficient quality will, naturally, depend on what the scan is for and one's preferences. Personally, I find 17 EUR for this quality to be much too expensive. If time and convenience is of the essence, I'd look into digitizing the negs. For the cost of not too many rolls you can create a fairly competent kit, even with a small sensor.

Br
Philip

MiniMoke said:
Did you check the second set of pictures or those in the first post? In my opinion the scans are OK, better than any I ever got out of my scanners, even the Nikon Coolscan IV.

Of course these are jpegs.... So there are artifacts when you really blow up the pictures. For my humble needs and prints it feels adequate.
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philipus said:
Hi Frank

I checked the largest size of the image on Flickr and they had pretty bad compression (?) artefacts. I rechecked the largest size now and it looks better. For auto-scans they're quite passable actually.

What one gains in scanning oneself is of course control over every aspect of the image. This will be visible in particular in shadow areas, where auto-scans, even on a Frontier, will give rather poor quality. Whether such scans are of sufficient quality will, naturally, depend on what the scan is for and one's preferences. Personally, I find 17 EUR for this quality to be much too expensive. If time and convenience is of the essence, I'd look into digitizing the negs. For the cost of not too many rolls you can create a fairly competent kit, even with a small sensor.

Br
Philip
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Right, the price is not cheap, that is clear, but for the moment I don't have the means to get a really good scanner. Of course digitizing with a camera would be a solution... I never really tried it.

What quality to expect, compared to good film scanners or Frontier scans?

Would a simple APS-C sensor camera, a vintage macro lens or 50mm standard lens with some macro tubes be adequate?. What rig to use to keep this contraption steady? Just a tripod, a light pad and some negative holder?

Lots of questions...... sorry :)
 
Hi Frank, Hi Philip,

yes price is not cheap. Of course it depends a lot on how much you shoot. I have a Nikon 5000ed and yes quality is more than ok, It takes about one hour to scan a roll of film in low res but large enough to make a good selection and than re-scan in high res the few keepers. This is ok if time is available.

But my scanner is an old machine and there will be a time when ti will not work, will not be serviced, and I do not see on the market a scanner with similar quality at a reasonable price.

And I like to shoot my old film cameras, this is why I'm trying various labs which can develop and scans.

Pbut I'm not always very rational robably from a real rational point of view an appropriate digital camera should be the way to go...but I'm not always very rational :)

robert
 
Hi Frank,

MiniMoke said:
Yes, I have become tired of scanning, and I sold my latest scanner, the not so bad Canoscan 9000F MkII.
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being tired of scanning is completely understandable. It is time consuming (= meaning high costs: time is money).
And from a quality point of view it is by far the worst you can do, because the computer monitor as the viewing medium is the worst viewing medium we have (both for film and digital files). The resolution of the monitor is extremely low, and the character of the LCD elements decreases tonality and makes colour rendition worse.

MiniMoke said:
But what now?
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Film photography existed without scanning for more than 100 years ;). You don't have to scan. Period.
Just use the method, which gives you
- the highest possible quality
- at the lowest costs
= using reversal / positive / slide film. Both in colour and BW.

With reversal film you already have a finished picture in best quality which can be looked at.
Using a very good slide loupe and a daylight lighttable delivers an outstanding, almost 3D like quality for smaller enlargements.
The picture quality is much much better than any scanned film on a computer monitor. With a slide viewed through a slide loupe you get full resolution, sharpness and the best colour quality. No quality loss by scanning and the limits of the monitor.
Professional photographers have worked exactly this way for decades.

And if you want an even more impressive picture quality just project your slides. With a good projetion lens the quality is absolutely outstanding and surpasses by far any digital projector (they have extremely low resolution and bad colour reproduction).

Very good slide loupes, lighttables and projectors are very cheap (even new), and cheaper as a very good scanner. And it is much much cheaper than scans from a professional lab not only in the long run, but even in the mid term.

You also have not only the option for colour slides, but also for BW slides (which are absolutely unique in their tonality and sharpness).
Just use the best professional lab in your neighbourhood:
www.photostudio13.de

They offer lots of different excellent BW films in reversal processing as BW slides:
http://www.photostudio13.de/news/ne...er/11/article/schliessung-olgastrasse-80.html

http://www.photostudio13.de/fileadmin/storage/images/Scala_Informationen15.pdf

With this workflow you have
- a lot of cost savings = more cash for films, or equipment, or photo travels, or models, or photo workshops.....= for all the real fun things in photography :)
- the best quality which is obtainable.

It is a win-win-win situation.

Some years ago I was in the same situation as you.
I've come back to reversal film (colour and BW) and printing in my darkroom.
And I've never looked back.
If I need a scan from time to time (seldom), I use a professional lab.

Cheers, Jan
 
Honestly, I've never really understood all the marketing hype about "The Find Lab", "Indie Film Lab" etc. in the US,
and the labs like "Carmencita", "UK Film Lab" and at last "Mein Film Lab" who just copied the American marketing idea 1:1.

They are concentrating on scans. And not on high resolution scans, but only minilab scans.
And that (well, depending on the lab) with high to very high prices.
Often no real silver-halide prints are offered.

But scanning make sense with a real high-end-scan, and then printing it in high quality on real photo paper, on silver-halide paper.
In this case Scanning has a strength.

But it makes really no sense to just scan and watching the picture only on the computer screen. That is wasting quality.
It is the worst quality possible with film at the highest cost.

Same case with spending thousands of dollars for a 18, 24, 36 MP cam and destroying the potential by watching the pictures on the very low resolving 2k / 4k computer screens.

It is right: By using slide film you can indeed escape all these problems. It can deliver highest quality at lowest cost.
 
I scan not to view on a computer monitor but to post process and inkjet print on the kind of paper I desire...

robert
 
joeswe said:
So, how do you print your reversal film in your darkroom?
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BW slides in a direct print with Harman or Imago direct positive paper with may enlarger. Probably I will try the new Galaxy paper solution next year as well.

High quality prints from colour slides is the case where a high-end-scan really makes sense. This highest quality scan is then exposed by a laser exposer like Durst Lambda or a Lightjet, or a Agfa dlb2+ exposed on RA-4 paper or Display film (for gigantic slides).
If I need that, I just get it done by a professional lab.
But labs like 'Mein Film Lab' or the other labs with that very limited business model just don't offer that.

But fortunately we have enough high-quality full service labs in Germany which offer that at very reasonable prices, like Photo Studio 13, 24h-Fotoservice, Jan Kopp, Foto Görner, Wolf, Pixelgrain etc.

For me it is about 5% of my colour slides which are also printed.

By the way, colour prints from slides often even look better (better sharpness, resolution and colour brillance) than prints from CN film.

Cheers, Jan
 
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robert blu said:
Hi Frank, Hi Philip,

And I like to shoot my old film cameras, this is why I'm trying various labs which can develop and scans.

Pbut I'm not always very rational robably from a real rational point of view an appropriate digital camera should be the way to go...but I'm not always very rational :)

robert
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From a rational point of view, film should be dead by now. But we are not rational, aren't we?

I'd take any film camera over a digital one, though I tried quite a lot (mostly Fujis) but they all overwhelmed me with settings, film simulations, special effects....

I will continue to shoot film, though temptations is always there.

Now a Leica M60..... that would perhaps be another story, but I can't even think about buying one.
 
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