Got some drum scans back of my 4x5 and 8x10 film. Not the best comparisons but I thought the drum scans would be better. I do think they are better than the Epson but not by as much as I expected. Am I expecting too much?
Epson 4990 8x10:
Drum Scan 8x10:
On 4x5 the drum scan seems to do better.
4990 4x5:
Looks like it has better D-Max and less dust, and not a lot else. I would have expected to see more clear grain structure. That hardly looks worth it, unless you want to have the dust managed for you.
The drum scan also looks like it has somewhat higher contrast than the Epson - just looking at the grooves in the chair and the bark in the last series. If I just saw the Epson scans on their own, I'd think the black point is set too low.
carstenw wrote:
Looks like it has better D-Max and less dust, and not a lot else. I would have expected to see more clear grain structure. That hardly looks worth it, unless you want to have the dust managed for you.
I agree. A bit more sharpness, though, only in the 4x5 scans.
ken.vs.ryu wrote:
zaitz - a wet mount for your hp would probably get it real close to the drum scan.
I think you're right. The difference is very small between them to me. Perhaps it is just where I got the drum scans done, no offense to the operator if he is on here. If I send 4-5+ negatives to this place in the UK: http://cheapdrumscanning.com/
then that would be cheaper than anywhere in the U.S! By quite a bit too. They also look very professional.
The black point is set too low. I figured the drum scans would be much sharper, not marginally.
Thrift-finds this past month...
Found a box of 10-yr old fujicolor press-800....and a hp 4850 flatbed-35mm film scanner that took a while to get loaded...on my old XP machine...won't seem to load on the Win7 without getting Win7-pro with XP I guess...
Anyway...I didn't expect the film to be very good for anything but uncommon WB....so I went out at night and shot a few to see if it'll work...and got this with the Nikon 50mm 1.4 AIS...on a Rebel...I know, why not my FE...well I just wanted to see what the combination would do....
Oh boy what a learning curve, learning to shoot large format, with a meterless camera, with long exposures on film and then developing and scanning large format film all at once... well there are always going to be some teething issues.
My main issues at the moment are slightly underexposed slides (metering I assume) and serious difficulty scanning into the darker areas. I can see plenty of details in the slides, they just don't seem to scan well. I will tinker more when I get time.
Velvia 50, Nikkor-SW 75/4.5, Ebony 45s
Provia 100F, Nikkor-SW 75/4.5, Ebony 45s
Provia 100F, Linhof Zeiss 135/3.5 Planar, Ebony 45s
Oops, too much shift!
Thanks Kyle I only developed 13 sheets of which maybe 4 were completely useless (VERY underexposed). The startrails shot suffered from dew about 2 hours in I reckon, I slept for 5 hours in my car and then went and retrieved it. I should have shot that one wide open and without the centre filter. Now that I can see what I'm doing wrong I'm hoping for better exposed slides in the future! I still have about 40 shots on various negative/positive/B&W films to develop, I hope to get time during the week otherwise this will be a Sunday ritual.
I think I may order the better-scanning kit and try wet-mounting.
Great Dan, you should be proud of getting such results right from the start.
My first slide film was also underexposed and/or underdeveloped. I actually think it was the first developer that was too cold, because I'm scanning my second roll now and it looks much better with the same exposure. This time I deliberately held the water bath at 39.5°C instead of 38, because agitating every 15 seconds will probably cool off the tank rapidly at the ~22°C room temperature in my kitchen.
Your issue could as well be too sparse agitation. Or just the fact that slide film only gives ~5-6 stops of usable latitude. You should probably meter for the highlights and set the exposure so that they are +2 stops over middle gray or so.
Thanks Martin and pfish I think most of my issue relates to original exposure. The cityscape was a shot where I matched the exposure from my M9 by just adding stops for the different aperture and centre filter. I will do some tests against my meter.
I have a Jobo CPE2+ so temperature doesn't fluctuate much, I will try running on the high side though
Gotta love those ektar colours! I've shot my whole box of that stuff! time to dev some C41 I think..
Great shot Zaitz, you're a real 4x5 inspiration for me. Do you scan most of the stuff yourself? I'm using a V700 and considering the betterscanning kit and fluid mounting for the better/trickier shots.
