I'm done with film.

What I found out through all this experience is I do not like the look of film when it is scanned into Lightroom and then printed out on an inkjet printer it loses that film look.

 

I find the process of shooting the film developing the film and then scanning it and then printing it on an inkjet printer it comes up with a kind of a weird look to me that I don't like.

 

It is very plain to see. Not entirely the fault of film, my friend.

Prepping, colourimetrics, profiling, inter-image profile and corrections... you are missing a heap, and this is in my view the reason for your persistent poor results. Very high quality prints are not achievable with simple desktop scanners, nor if done cheaply, or by an operator with limited or next to no experience or knowledge of what he/she is doing, at the scanner and/or at the print step. It is not an overnight, one-hit-and-I'm-there job. Never was and never will be.

 

RA-4 and inkjet prints, either and both have their own followers, provide undeniably excellent quality print results from analogue and digital (especially analogue). Both require their own, individual metrics set up to achieve the best results for printing. What would have thought of that?

 

To a large degree, the quality of the input image — the photograph you took, also plays a big role: think of the things that are obviously wrong, or "might" be wrong: images high or low in contrast, poorly exposed, casted, excessively grains, poorly processed... all manner of things, can impart their own problems that no scanner nor skilled and experienced operator will fix, not least the home hobbyist battling demons of frustration and angst.

 

For many, the to digital results in tears. For me, it results in passing so many Fail scores at adjudications that, really, there should be mandatory film-to-digital transition courses to teach people how to be a photographer, and not a blind and imprecise spectator holding a fancy camera. Remember also that a good photograph is always created in the mind's eye, first. If you don't get what you want with any camera, analogue or digital, where do you think the problem might lie...?

Some of you know me on here some of you don't you know the struggles I've gone through with my medium format camera finding focusing screens struggling to focus trying to find diopters for my camera to help me Focus.

 

I think I've come to a conclusion that film is no longer worth the trouble. Don't get me wrong I do love film I love processing film I love the look of film when it's printed in a dark room.

 

What I found out through all this experience is I do not like the look of film when it is scanned into Lightroom and then printed out on an inkjet printer it loses that film look.

 

I find the process of shooting the film developing the film and then scanning it and then printing it on an inkjet printer it comes up with a kind of a weird look to me that I don't like.

 

I don't have time nor the space to set up a dark room to print my film with and a enlarger and doing the whole darkroom scene it's just not going to happen.

 

Between the struggles of focusing the camera which I seem to have solved this problem with my focusing screen and I did find the correct diopter for my camera I seem to have pretty much fixed the focusing issue not 100% but pretty close.

 

I think the bottom line is you need to buy an $800 scanner you need to buy the wet mounting stuff and the film holders for the scanner you need the price of film the price of all the chemicals to develop the film and and in the the end you end up with this sort of half digital half film look that I just don't like.

 

I'm sure if I had the money and the time and the space I would love to set up a dark room and print with an enlarger with my negatives that I know would make me happy but that cannot happen I think it's time to move on to digital.

 

No rolls of film no chemicals to develop no scanner needed yes I won't get that film look that film look that I'm after. But then again the cost of film, chemicals, scanners if you want to print something really big and really nice you need to go Fork out $70 to have a drum scan done and what's the point.

 

To me old medium format and large format film don't mix well with the digital age if you have a drum scanner in your garage it could be a different story I'm not going to Fork out $50 every time I want to have something drum scanned to get some decent detail to make a large print.

 

It's been a painful expensive experience and I do love film I will always love film I love to process film I love shooting film but to me the end result of not being able to print in a darkroom just defeats the purpose I don't like scanners I don't like printing scanned images on a inkjet printer I just don't like the look.

 

I'm going to simplify my life and buy myself a Fuji xt2 and go digital.

 

I think the stubbornness of trying to hold on to film for the whole Nostalgia thing and the whole process it's just not worth it it's time to surrender and go digital and learn to like it.

 

Thank you everybody for your advice and your help to help me get through all of this it took some time some money and some effort but I think I'm going to be a lot happier buying myself a digital camera.

 

Been awhile since I have frequented these forums...nice to be back.

 

Film versus Digital is only one half of your conundrum...there is also the question of mechanical versus electronic.

 

Anyone who is into photography should be doing both film and digital by now...digital simply makes the learning process much easier since you get immediate results.

 

However, taking the lessons I have learned from wristwatches, one should not make the decision about mechanical cameras lightly.

 

Twisting a quote I have used many times on wristwatch forums "If you leave an electronic camera and a mechanical camera in a drawer for 100 years, which one will have a better chance of being operational when it gets picked up?"

 

With 3d printing systems still in their infancy it is possible that mechanical systems may be serviceable "forever" while electronic systems are not as simple to replicate. Not to mention the realities of cameras getting left somewhere with the batteries still in them.

 

In general, the inception of mechanical systems came before modern engineering techniques and thus don't suffer from built in obsolescence. In other words, electronic systems are meant to remain energized and used were as mechanical systems often do not have this requirement.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Hedghog

It is very plain to see. Not entirely the fault of film, my friend.

Prepping, colourimetrics, profiling, inter-image profile and corrections... you are missing a heap, and this is in my view the reason for your persistent poor results. Very high quality prints are not achievable with simple desktop scanners, nor if done cheaply, or by an operator with limited or next to no experience or knowledge of what he/she is doing, at the scanner and/or at the print step. It is not an overnight, one-hit-and-I'm-there job. Never was and never will be.

 

RA-4 and inkjet prints, either and both have their own followers, provide undeniably excellent quality print results from analogue and digital (especially analogue). Both require their own, individual metrics set up to achieve the best results for printing. What would have thought of that?

 

To a large degree, the quality of the input image — the photograph you took, also plays a big role: think of the things that are obviously wrong, or "might" be wrong: images high or low in contrast, poorly exposed, casted, excessively grains, poorly processed... all manner of things, can impart their own problems that no scanner nor skilled and experienced operator will fix, not least the home hobbyist battling demons of frustration and angst.

 

For many, the to digital results in tears. For me, it results in passing so many Fail scores at adjudications that, really, there should be mandatory film-to-digital transition courses to teach people how to be a photographer, and not a blind and imprecise spectator holding a fancy camera. Remember also that a good photograph is always created in the mind's eye, first. If you don't get what you want with any camera, analogue or digital, where do you think the problem might lie...?

 

my point exactly most desktop scanners are not worth a crap there for you have to get things drum scanned or whatever that Hasselblad scanner is. I'm not going to Fork out 30 or $40 every time I take a good picture to have it scanned so I can make a print.

 

I can achieve damn close to the same look using Nik software and Adobe Lightroom and the prints look good on my Canon Pixma pro-100.

 

I don't see the point in spending money on film and scanning to achieve what I can achieve in other means for much less money. I'm over the Nostalgia that I'm a film shooter and I shoot medium format film I'm over it.

With my Sony a7r II and my 85 mm Batis lens stuff looks pretty damn impressive loads and loads of detail I love it.

 

I take my images I run them through Nik software and Adobe Lightroom andand then on to my Canon Pixma pro-100. I'm using ilford galerie prestige mono silk paper it's made for black and white prints, they look pretty damn amazing couldn't be happier.

?...looks pretty damn impressive loads and loads of detail I love it.

 

...prints, they look pretty damn amazing couldn't be happier.

 

 

Well. There you go. Case closed.

Well. There you go. Case closed.

 

Indeed-I certainly can't fault someone for finding an equipment/workflow combo that gives results they like.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean it's the answer for everyone. I love my D800(and D600), but they complement rather than replace my 500C and RB67.

 

Funny enough, I went a family wedding a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a "low budget" affair and they had an unpaid volunteer photographer. I packed my little LowePro Nova 4 with my D600, 24-85 f/3.5-4.5, and then my 500C with an 80mm, a 12 back loaded with Astia, an A24 back with TXP320, and some Plus-X and Portra 400 in the front pocket. I ended up only shooting the roll of Astia(which turned out great) and a few frames of TXP. I don't particularly enjoy wedding photography, and also am conscious of staying out of the way of the paid photographer. Still, though, it's often one of my sources of enjoyment at a reception since I don't drink :) . Not getting paid or having any official lets me do stuff that no sane paid pro would do, like shoot expired slide film :)

 

As it turned out, though, I was glad I had it. When I first got there, I saw one of the "official" photographers walking around with a Digital Rebel and 24-70 f/2.8L. I got to hear him brag to anyone who would listen about his $1200 lens, but then complain about how he was having trouble getting wide enough-it seems he didn't want to carry other lenses and risk damaging the finish on the 24-70. I also hear him laughing about the "the guy walking around with the old box camera." Fortunately, I was able to give my cousin some photos-both from my "old box camera" and my D600 that "official photographer" couldn't get...

With 3d printing systems still in their infancy it is possible that mechanical systems may be serviceable "forever" while electronic systems are not as simple to replicate. Not to mention the realities of cameras getting left somewhere with the batteries still in them.

 

In general, the inception of mechanical systems came before modern engineering techniques and thus don't suffer from built in obsolescence. In other words, electronic systems are meant to remain energized and used were as mechanical systems often do not have this requirement.

 

There's considerable truth in that

 

Electronics need to be free of moisture, extreme temperatures and significant physical injuries to function for longevity. Even then, soldered joints can deteriorate. Firmware can need updating. Images can become corrupted.

 

There's one thing Michael is doing right though, he's printing his images, not just leaving them in the camera card or in the computer where accidents can happen. Printing transfers the electronic images to paper and if good quality archival materials are used, the prints should last a very long time, perhaps longer than his a7r11. Personally I only use pigment ink on archival paper formulated for my printer, which is an Epson R2400, it's getting old but still prints beautifully. Every image I print I feel a sense of relief that finally it's free of all the electronic gadgets and on paper at last

 

100 year old mechanical camers ? A recent purchase was a VPK Kodak, in excellent condition and still working fine. I won't let it sit on the shelf, I'll be out shooting some Efke 127 and try to impart a WW1 theme by photographing memorials related to the era

 

Update on the custom Mamiya Press, quite a bit more to do yet to finish it off and it's getting a Graflex film back

 

There's considerable truth in that

 

Electronics need to be free of moisture, extreme temperatures and significant physical injuries to function for longevity. Even then, soldered joints can deteriorate. Firmware can need updating. Images can become corrupted.

 

There's one thing Michael is doing right though, he's printing his images, not just leaving them in the camera card or in the computer where accidents can happen. Printing transfers the electronic images to paper and if good quality archival materials are used, the prints should last a very long time, perhaps longer than his a7r11. Personally I only use pigment ink on archival paper formulated for my printer, which is an Epson R2400, it's getting old but still prints beautifully. Every image I print I feel a sense of relief that finally it's free of all the electronic gadgets and on paper at last

 

100 year old mechanical camers ? A recent purchase was a VPK Kodak, in excellent condition and still working fine. I won't let it sit on the shelf, I'll be out shooting some Efke 127 and try to impart a WW1 theme by photographing memorials related to the era

 

Update on the custom Mamiya Press, quite a bit more to do yet to finish it off and it's getting a Graflex film back

 

[ATTACH=full]1253808[/ATTACH]

 

I'm going to be moving up to the prograf 1000 from Canon which will print 17 by 22 images with pigmented ink.

 

I agree things can happen inside the computer and leaving stuff on memory cards it's nice to take the image from the computer and bring it to life in a print there's something special about when that print is slowly coming out of that printer in your digital image is coming to life.

I can achieve damn close to the same look using Nik software and Adobe Lightroom and the prints look good on my Canon Pixma pro-100.

 

Don't kid yourself with that stuff. None of my work is meddled with in Lightroom, but that's because everything is completed precisely, in-camera at the moment of exposure. It's called experience. No fiddling in computers necessary.

I hear you. I'm done with scanning MF. If I shoot MF, i just do slides, and then put them in Gepe holders. Then I just occasionally look at them over a special magnifying light box. More and more though, I'm going back to 35mm, and then getting the photo store to scan me a CD with 1,000 dpi images. If something is special -- and quite often with Rollei RPX 25 film, there is something special -- I can quickly scan at 5,000 dpi with a cheap plustek scanner. On top of that, I always have my Sony A7s with me that can take up the slack and make videos and stereo photos with (also a Fuji W3 to help out with the latter).

Don't kid yourself with that stuff. None of my work is meddled with in Lightroom, but that's because everything is completed precisely, in-camera at the moment of exposure. It's called experience. No fiddling in computers necessary.

 

 

So what you're trying to tell me is you don't use Lightroom you're so good at exposure that your stuff just comes out darn near perfect in the camera I don't buy it, I would have to see that to believe it.

When I have my wits about me and pay attention to what I'm doing, I can take 50 photos and not touch the levels or curves adjustment on a single one of them. Most of the time, when I do tweak the exposure the difference is so subtle that a non-photographer looking over my shoulder won't notice. It's not hard for me to believe, especially from someone who has years of experience with slide film.

 

I still run everything through LR as its my preferred RAW converter and also a way for me to sort out the "duds." I crop as well from LR to export to a specific aspect ratio. Depending on the "mood" of the photo, I may adjust the the hue/saturation and also the WB isn't always "right" in camera. Of course, there are cases where I mess with exposure-particularly if I want to pull out a shadow.

 

Of course, there are exceptions. The first day I took my D600 out, I found that it habitually overexposed by 1/3 stop or so. I had to adjust every photo taken with it that day. Now that I've done that, I keep the exposure compensation dialed in to -1/3 and rarely do I need to work on it.

 

It can be done, and as I said someone coming from slide film won't make that big of a leap.

 

I recall a rather heated(in a good natured way) discussion from the local camera store about RAW vs. JPEG about a year ago. The contents of the discussion are not fit to be published here, but the owner had a rather poignant opinion about RAW, the amount of storage space it took up, and the masculinity of people who chose to use it :)

Michael I hate to break it to you but yes, nearly all of mine are exposed correctly, composed as I want them and don't need to be worked over in some software package. It isn't that difficult. If you really have to see it to believe it let me know, happy to accommodate.

 

Rick H.

Are we talkin jpeg or we talkin Raw?

 

What kind of Photography are you doing you can't tell me you're taking portraits of people and you don't have to retouch the skin and remove blemishes on the face it comes out perfect I'd love to see that.

In the studio and even in post portraits, lighting can do a lot to eliminate the need to do any kind of retouching. Lighting a subject appropriately is a fundamental skill that one needs to master, and it eliminates the need to do significant retouching.

 

With that said, here's a photo my uncle has framed and hanging in his living room. This was shot as a RAW on my D600, and "bit" me with the 1/3 stop over problem I mentioned. I pulled the exposure a bit(I wouldn't need to do that if I'd actually looked at the RAWs before going to this wedding-fortunately I was just along as a guest).

 

Aside from that, I did pull the contrast and saturation a bit, cropped it to a 4:5 a/r, and did automatic lens correction(distortion and vignetting).

 

I'm happy to post SOOC JPEGs I've taken also-I put a studio photo from a Fuji S5 up earlier in this thread. I do typically only do JPEG from that camera and my Kodak DCS 14/n(also a studio camera for me) as I have a tough time with the RAW files from those. Still, my RAWs get minimal adjustment.

 

Looks very nice nice shot.

So what you're trying to tell me is you don't use Lightroom you're so good at exposure that your stuff just comes out darn near perfect in the camera I don't buy it, I would have to see that to believe it.

 

 

My only use for Lightroom is management post-scan: inter- and post-profiling, scan-step USM replacement, printer illumination metrics and then sizing output as .tif. If you are relying on Lightroom or Fauxtoshoppe to correct or somehow "improve" or "make better" images, then you have failed at the first critical step: conceptualisation of the image and exposure. It is completely unnecessary and a major problem.

 

There should be no difficulty accepting that exposure in-camera can be technically perfect based on experience and judgement and knowledge of media (e.g. film) and not having a computer to tell you how things should be done, as is the case with digital cameras where automation is a hindrance. This is not rocket science. Never was and never will be.

 

Images posted online are pointless because of the huge variety of profiled and unprofiled monitors, both old and new. Come to the gallery and see the images on the walls dating back four decades. No, I didn't come down in the last downpour...

Edited July 17, 2018 by Silent Street

I do come from a time where I shot lots of Ektachrome and lots of Tri-X, dozens of rolls a week. High Speed Ektachrome and then 100 & 200 when it became a little more civilized. We were forced to get it right or it was useless. All my early digital was jpeg and you will see that here but the shuttle was Ektachrome. The rest were shot with a D2H or D1X. Nowadays of course I can shoot it all in both RAW and jpeg so I do.

 

 

I think this one looks better without the yellow cast

 

 

For me the whole object is to get what I want from the camera, digital or film.

The software is a salvage operation.

I don't shoot enough to justify film (I know...)

Mix up developers, finish 36 exposure rolls, make sure the chemicals didn't expire, shoot film (color) before they got too expired, etc.

 

I still love my film gear, and I still have some 35mm provia 400x (expired back in 2014, and it's anxiety inducing trying to figure out how how not to waste it, but knowing I have to use it soon), but I think I like other people's results with film better than my own

Well...36 exposure rolls of film were the worst thing ever thought of for photographers. It is a waste. It does induce anxiety.

Shift up to 120 and start by getting 10 exposures. A couple more for each change of format on the roll. Great stuff.

I briefly used a Hasselblad 500CM back in the mid 80's, and loading those film backs was a royal pain. Give me 35mm 36 exposure rolls any day of the week.

I briefly used a Hasselblad 500CM back in the mid 80's, and loading those film backs was a royal pain. Give me 35mm 36 exposure rolls any day of the week.

 

It's all in practice.

 

I'll take loading a Hasselblad over a Barnack model Leica any day :) . For that matter, when I'm out in the field with a Nikon F, I always find myself looking for a place to put the film back.

Many are asking why one should scan film in the first place. If you just make a digital file, why not shoot a digital camera, right?

 

The answer is, in my experience, even a scan of film retains certain qualities of film that are very difficult to duplicate with digital. The particular granularity and contrast are just not the same. There's nothing like a fiber-based darkroom print, even if Epson or Canon will try to convince you otherwise. If you just don't want any grain, don't use film.

To me, grain, especially the very tight but sill visible grain of MF, is what is beautiful about film. Anyone who jumps into MF expecting large-format results is barking up the wrong tree. If all that matter is zero grain and eye-bleeding sharpness just get a digital camera. MF was eclipsed by even the cheapest ones two decades ago.

 

The Nikon 8000, which I use (I don't currently have the space for an enlarger), can be had for under $1000. Just look at completed listings. Mine has chugged along for years. Not perfect, but I know its limitations, and it produces a sharper corner-to-corner image than a darkroom print (even with expensive enlarging lenses).

Trying to use Nikon scanning software is a waste of time--just get Vuescan. I have a new iMac and the adapter works perfectly.

 

This whole argument is similar to those arguing over whether you should play an acoustic piano or an electronic keyboard. The former has LOTS of disadvantages: it needs tuning and maintenance by someone like me (I'm an RPT). It's more expensive and takes up room in your house. Bu tin the end, as many people discover, an electronic keyboard is not an acoustical instrument. Either you want an acoustic instrument with its imperfections or you don't.