Jon Buffington wrote:
went for a hike at a place that I have been to briefly once before. I knew it would be a challenge photogenically speaking as it would be swampy, it is the dead of winter and there isn't a point of interest. I decided to take my ae-1 and vivitar 28f2.5 lens and a roll of gold200. Here a some from my walk. I nope it portrays the the feeling I had walking through here. Walgreens processed, pakon scanned.
What are you guys using to scan? I find that i only get an acceptable scan every once in a while. Im using an epson v500 without the film holders, and scanning at the hightest dpi possible. Sometimes i just cannot get a sharp scan, even when using the film holders. and yes, thats on film i know is in focus haha
Anyone try digitizing their film using a DSLR? I've seen a few "how-to" articles around the web, but would like to hear what the results are like from someone who has actually done it.
I still have some images left. I also have some undeveloped film. I might send it out, or I might throw it away. Not sure yet. Maybe if other people want to see Ill do it.
clay23 wrote:
What are you guys using to scan? I find that i only get an acceptable scan every once in a while. Im using an epson v500 without the film holders, and scanning at the hightest dpi possible. Sometimes i just cannot get a sharp scan, even when using the film holders. and yes, thats on film i know is in focus haha
cool, I use the Epson V500, with pennies as holders,lol, however, I can't recommend anything, because I only shoot Polaroid fujifilm 100C and 3000B, and folks consider those low res, I guess? Good luck with your conclusion!
redisburning wrote:
I still have some images left. I also have some undeveloped film. I might send it out, or I might throw it away. Not sure yet. Maybe if other people want to see Ill do it.
corposant wrote:
Just send it out, RIB - minimal effort, maximum results.
Id have to pay for scans too. I have all of my stuff packed up and Ive decided to not shoot film anymore anyway with Fuji being complete cocks. I tossed months of exposed film during my last move. Ive moved again and I dont think 5 or 6 rolls would be the end of the world.
GoranPhoto wrote:
Anyone try digitizing their film using a DSLR? I've seen a few "how-to" articles around the web, but would like to hear what the results are like from someone who has actually done it.
I played with this a little last week. I need a better setup but it worked pretty well doing some rudimentary testing. if I could get it down so I could shoot a roll of 36 in like 15 minutes it'd be great. I need a little holder with sprockets that I can advance the film through from frame to frame or something. also because it'd hold the film flat.
I like the results as much or more than what I've been getting out of my v600. I have to use unsharp mask with the v600 to get even reasonable sharpness... the shots from my 5d3 were better in this regard by a little bit. the files also respond differently in post, which needs to be considered.
that said - and someone correct me if I'm wrong here - 35mm film ain't 120 and it ain't digital. my feeling is that digital has left 35mm in the dust. now, I don't mean that 35mm isn't good enough. what I mean is that from an on screen technical analysis perspective 35mm just isn't going to look that good if you're comparing it to modern digital. (120 film, I think, looks miles better in comparison.) but when you get right down to it you have to make a print. 35mm at screen viewing size looks fine when you're not blowing it to 100%, right? I printed some of these "looks awful at 100%" shots to like 12x18" and they were ok. not sure I'd wanna go a lot bigger than that, but honestly I don't need to go much bigger than that most of the time. and there's always 120 and digital if I know I'm gonna want bigger prints.
another point: noise/grain. digital shooters don't realize how good they've got it. film at 800 is like modern digital at friggin 54,000! I'm being hyperbolic, but it's kind of true. I shot some delta 3200 and it was a real "holy crap" moment when I scanned those negs let me tell you.
but really my point is that 35mm has it's limitations, but they're manageable if you have the right expectations.
I kinda drifted off the original topic. because I was kind of responding to the other post on the previous page about getting "lousy" scan results. but that goes hand in hand with the DSLR "scanning", which is a viable option that may improve your results. but even doing that I don't think it's going to yield the kind of results people coming from something like FF digital may be expecting.
clay23 wrote:
What are you guys using to scan? I find that i only get an acceptable scan every once in a while. Im using an epson v500 without the film holders, and scanning at the hightest dpi possible. Sometimes i just cannot get a sharp scan, even when using the film holders. and yes, thats on film i know is in focus haha
also, more specifically, scan at like 2400 or 3200. the max settings just make monster files that aren't really any better and take forever to scan. at least as far as I could tell. scan the same 6 images at like 4 settings and see what you think.
alos, why aren't you using the holders? how's the flatness of your film? that can be a problem.
also, are you scanning with unsharp mask? if not, what are you using for post? IMO lightroom' scanning module is not equipped to handle the kind of sharpening that files without unsharp mask at scan time need. I've been using unsharp in the scan workflow because of this. I ditched photoshop last year but may try it out again just to see how it handles this.
completely unrelated: I got my rodinal the other day and am going to try stand developing soon. will report back!
someone on here turned me onto the kodak pakon f135+. I am finally getting 35mm scans that I am happy with. Add to that I can scan a roll in less than 3 minutes. You can find them used for 250 from AAA imaging (over 10k when they were new). I highly recommend for those on here shooting 35mm negative and B&W to go this route. I am finding I am shooting primarily film now with very little digital. The scans are 6mp scans which are giving me much more useable resolution than I was getting on a 4800dpi flatbed scan. Scans are clean too. Great facebook group to answer all questions needed (the software is finicky and only runs on XP or vmware with XP).
