Bad scanning

I just got two rolls of film developed onto a CD at The Camera Shop. They came

really grainy and some were even worse. Any ideas where I could go to get

better scanning?

A lab that caters to pros, not amateurs. It will not be 20 cents each.

 

Where are you located or are you willing to mail negs?

Are they properly exposed? Digital minilabs will agressively use strong curves to fix badly underexposed negatives, but the result is serious grain.

Also, these minilabs tend to blow up the contrast out of proportions, rendering the scan useless, because you can't reverse it without seeing steps in gradations. They make every negative scan look like a bad slide dupe

Ronald, I am in Pennsylvania. What do you have in mind?

You need to buy a film scanner and do it yourself. A Nikon LS-5000 or V are great for 35 mm. Film scanning done well lab is generally too expensive and the quality is highly variable.

i agree that you should do it yourself.

i have a konica minolta dimage dual scan ii, and the results are great, though i'm still learning how to use it. it's cheaper than nikon's but many reviewers say that it's not as dependable. for me it has always worked fine.

Ilkka and Gonzalo, what is the resolution of the scans?

Can you post a scan and maybe we can help diagnose? Original please

(do not downsample) so we can look at JPEG and EXIF if any.

I get film scanned at time of processing from Wolf Camera (Ritz Camera in most parts of the country). I think I get pretty good results. I'm sure somebody on here will beg to differ, though!<div></div>

It looks grainier posted on here than it does in Windows Explorer and Photoshop. Oh well.

Todd, thanks for the thought, but that's where I got these pictures scanned. Bill, here is an example:

Agreed, bad scanning, compounded by underexposure. For night-time

photography, try slide film, which stays black due to higher contrast

etc. This looks like a Frontier scan with so-called sharpening, but

it could be a Noritsu scan (during cropping you deleted EXIF, if any).

Noise-reduction software can help; see attachment. In the future,

with print film at night, you might have better luck asking them to

scan with sharpening off. Most home scanners can do better than this.<div></div>

Thanks, Bill. I tried uploading the uncropped picture, but the website wouldn't let me (it was too big). So I'll add a scanner on my 'To Buy' list.