FILM AND DIGITAL MIX?

FILM AND DIGITAL MIX?

In reality I don’t consider myself as a beginer but here is the best choice to place two single questions: 1] can I continue taking photos with my old film cameras and have de next steps digitaly made? I suppose the answer is certainly YES. 2] do the results have the same feeling as film photography or it become a mere digital work, despite the advantages of this tecnology. The word “mere” has not here a depreciative sense. I have a good professional enlarger and a lot of vintage classic film cameras, from 35mm up to 4x5 and acessories and like to use them. On the other hand I wouldn’t like to learn computing to work myself with digital processes. But supplies are more and more scarce and expensive and I have no sufficient space to maintain my b/w darkroom.

You most certainly can move to a "hybrid" workflow, and I'd dare say for the vast majority of folks shooting color film now it's pretty much a given that you're going to do it(even labs that print on RA-4 paper by and large do so with something like a Fuji Frontier that digitally exposes the paper, and aside from the folks who stockpiled Ilfochrome/Cibachrome paper, there's no option for optical direct to positive).

Just be advised scanning is very much a learned skill, but I would argue that much like developing and printing B&W it's really something that you need to do yourself. Something like an Epson V800 for a few hundred dollars will let you scan up to 8x10, but I personally find the results mostly unsatisfactory for anything less than sheet film. I prefer a dedicated film scanner. In the consumer realm, the long out of production Nikon Coolscan V/5000 for 35mm and the 8000/9000 for medium format are something of a gold standard. These scanners, especially the 9000(which can also do 35mm) will set you back a bundle($2000-2500 is the going rate). IMO, they work better with the Nikon software than any alternatives, but it's not the most user friendly program around and also presents a bit of a problem if you are a Mac user with hardware made since ~2012(and running a version of OS X newer than 10.6.8).

Also, when you compare printing on an enlarger to scanning, you will be amazed at how tolerant optical printing is to dirty negatives-many times dust doesn't become a serious issue unless you're stopping down to the f/16 range on your enlarger lens, which of course is something that you wouldn't do. As a corollary to this, I could also say that you don't really know how dusty/dirty your negatives are until you scan them. With color film, you can use infrared cleaning(often called ICE, which refers to BOTH the IR scan and the software that works with it). You can also use it with films like Ilford XP2 Super, but the silver in traditional B&W films is IR opaque and will not work with this.

I'm honestly not well versed in digital B&W printing. I know that there are inkjet printers that can do a good job at home, and similar commercial models that can be dedicated to B&W printing. This can give better results than a printer used for both B&W and color, as these printers often use several shades of ink. You can also send B&W files to a lab that digitally prints onto RA-4 paper, although RA-4 still won't have the look of a good fiber based(or even resin coated) B&W paper.

It depends who you ask and what your expectations are. I think, for many people, shooting film and then doing the rest digitally, which is what you're asking about, is just fine. To a very refined and discerning eye, digital prints may not match the depth and quality of darkroom prints. That being said, digital is getting better all the times in terms of print quality, if you're willing to pay for good equipment and fine papers. The costs, as with so many things, really vary and you often get what you pay for in terms of the actual printing.

Remember, often a good deal of your viewers won't notice the difference or know the difference between digital and film processing. It may only be important to you, and that's certainly important enough.

If you don't want to learn computers, you're probably out of luck with doing refined digital processing. If you go that route, you might want to hook up with a lab that will help prepare your files for printing, but you'll pay for that as well.

I fear I have to give you "the sad answer" to your question #2, but I am of course not the most important & omniscient + whatever guy on the net.

Whatever folks do; they do it for a reason. Some of the simplest among those: "I enjoy it!" / "it feels right"...

I had a wet darkroom ages ago and own the material and space to rig it up again.

I started shooting digital.

I do probably own a still working half decent Minolta film scanner, some alternative toys, etc.

I am the very proud not owner of anything resembling a digital photo printer & have a journeyman degree in offset press operating. While I copied plates and mounted films back in the days, I haven't the slightest clue how to operate a process camera to screen half tones. - I'd be somewhat confident to reproduce text in a printable manner.

My opinion: Digitizing film is a major pain in the behind!

Scanning the heck out of a 35mm frame takes 15 minutes on my Minolta

Tweaking and spotting it another considerable amount of time.

If you are shooting silver film the scanning process will be just 7 minutes because ICE (some IR based dust removing tech) won't work but you'll gain more spots to spot; i.e. "nothing".

Once you have your file in your machine you'll face the joyful tasks of #color mangement & # screen calibration, to come a bit closer to predicting the printed output. In a nutshell: it is supposed to help to do these things but they don't seem to work that(!) well. You pay through the nose to get a digital emulation of a final mass print but at the end off the day it will still look differently. Any attempt to reprint your files for a 2nd run will look slightly different too, but hopefully acceptably close.

To me home printing i.e. dye sub or inkjetting supplies don't look "cheap". - AFAIK you have to print one sheet per week to prevent the average inkjet from clogging. Some UV hardening ones need to be permanently powered on, to noisily circulate their inks.

Whatever these buggers (dye sub excluded) spit out won't have the handling and durability of photographic paper.

I'd be more interested in inverting a digital image into a Multigrade friendly colored negative and reproducing a 4K or higher res screen with paper in my 5x7" camera than dealing with a digital printer at home. Uploading your files to a lab, to print them on RA4 paper is of course an alternative as is having others printing for your on their hopefully well maintained and calibrated lasers or inkjets. - YMMV. I am no accountant. But please: Gauge your digital pre-print stamina and get a cost analysis for your monthly output before you rush to buy machinery.

AFAIK color lasers can produce bearable output (photo inkjets beat them) at acceptable cost but they are expensive, as big as 3 stoves and need maintenance technician access from all sides rather frequently.

Back to the fun factor: You clean a stripe and scan it frame by frame. You can of course multitask something else while waiting for your scanner to finish. - Most interesting scanners are pretty outdated by now, so they aren't unlikely to require a similar vintage machine to operate them. - Entertain or occupy yourself on another.

What is scan quality like? - Disappointing! - The scanners I know can't deal with extremely dense film, like an enlarger. (Drum scanners might be able to do so but they are horribly expensive slow to operate and sometimes huge and always big.) The clear image resolution in a maxed out scan tends to look disappointing compared to what you would expect or get from a digital sensor in the film's format.

Once you have your files, you 'll need to work on them. I consider spotting a grunt job. Tweaking contrast and curves can be as exciting as wet darkroom work and is usually also much faster than over there. - To me doing a tweak on a RAW file is similar fun as darkroom work and easier to get into too.

The nasty bit: I fear generating the equivalent of a test strip will be a complicated pre-press chore. You basically have to fill an entire sheet with named alterations, to print it out and pick the one you like best.

Clarifying: This is not my field of personal experience. - All I can tell: domestic photo inkjet seems pricier than Multigrade. For that reason I'd love to be better safe than sorry before I hit a print button and bin attempts. I'd be perfectly happy if I could run half postcards of my stock through the printer for testing purposes, one at a time.

Since I got outtyped: There seem to be a (very?) few labs offering file to FB paper services. - I read about them in connection with Leica Monochrom cameras.

I wouldn’t like to learn computing to work myself with digital processes.

IDK what you mean. - Did you boss your secretary to post here? If not, you seem capable of learning to work on a scan in pretty moderate time. You don't need to write programs, you only have to install them and learn which slider to operate why. I guess you touched a mouse before?

The rest is these days trial and error (of the rather harmless kind). - Things were very different in the early days of drum scanning, when it was impossible to afford computer memory & hardware to hold and handle the entire image. - Back then good scanner operators were very well paid specialists, able to eyeball a slide's needs and presetting their machinery to generate a perfectly printable result on 4 films at first trial.

Now we look and see, tweak a little here, a little there, become happy and maybe repeat the same for the printing process.

IDK how good you were in your wet darkroom. - I've seen professionals eyeballing and printing negs well at first trial, but I was an amateur in the at least 3 test stripes range, who sometimes decided to be not able to handle a neg, that would have required dodging burning & God knows what else.

With digital handling special needs negs should be much easier to do.

As others mentioned already: Scanners aren't easy to get anymore. Either old or underspeced for smaller formats, not cheap anyhow. Some folks digitize film via cameras.

If I do 3 weeks vacation with full 35mm kit, I'll surely overshoot my darkroom printing stamina and even horizon. I can mentally handle maybe 3 rolls in total and work on a 6 keepers; i.e. "print something, after a session".

I went digital.

For me, as tempting the LF cameras, that I can't really move around, might be; digital seems the contemporary mid term cheaper way to do photography half assed and conveniently.

Digitizing negs takes more effort and patience than I have and the cost involved (to buy film & scanner) is "scary", compared to "wearing out a half decent digital camera, selling for 50% used" which you could use to "kind of digitize" existing & added negs too. As I see the lack of scanner resolution issue: If you shoot fast 35mm film anything digital should be more than sufficient to capture your results with a macro lens (if you manage to align the film in front of it).

For bigger negs you get less resolution than you have inside them, unless you start stitching multiple captures of the neg together in software. - OTOH: If you have no space to put your darkroom; where would be space to hang huge prints? Isn't viewing on a huge insanely high resolution screen more pleasant than owning boxes full of 8x10"s? It would at least avoid the extra cost of having everything printed by somebody else, to get an idea what you shot.

Best of luck finding your compromise!

When I "converted" to a hybrid process, I think it was easier (in the past). I bought a Nikon Coolscan V (mostly on the name). I still have it and it still works and does a pretty good job of scanning slides and negatives (35mm only) to get me to where I am when I connect my digital and upload all the pictures, EXCEPT that the work of scanning, removing dust and scratches, and importing takes more time than just plugging in a digital. Also as said above, scanning is something of an art and I'm an amateur using base settings pretty much. I used to have a darkroom, but I don't have the room these days. When I go out and shoot my old cameras, I maintain the chemicals to develop the black and white and that's most of what I shoot. If I shoot color I'd have to send it to someone to process but then I could scan it. Keeping the chemicals doesn't cost too much in terms of space.

In another post I was trying to determine if scanners today were better than the one I had but I didn't really come away with much information. There are a couple of film scanners and the Epson flatbeds for sale from B&H but I'm not sure how good they are. I was never a really good darkroom man which is why I really rejoiced when it became possible to scan.

I used to print on Epson inkjet printers, and the results (for color mostly) are quite good. They were good enough (at the time) for me to compete successfully with people doing darkroom work but it was frustrating because Inkjets have VERY expensive ink and you have to use them continuously or else the print heads dry out and make the printer useless. You end up running endless cleaning cycles which uses up more expensive ink, so printing is something I wouldn't do today unless I was planning on doing it regularly.

Hope that helps a little and I wish you good luck in trying the hybrid process.

I like taking advantage of both.

I enjoy shooting film and the black and white developing tools and chemicals all fit in a small Rubbermaid tub.

I send all of my E6 and C41 film to Dwayne’s and get good service.

Enjoy what you enjoy.

To echo the others: sure you can, and yes, scanning has a learning curve and can be a tedious job.

Good flatbed scanners capable of scanning negatives are fine for medium format and larger. I would not recommend them for 35mm though, if you expect a decent-sized print from the scanned file. The default name for 35mm scanners seem to be Nikon, and sure they're very good, but also costly and only available 2nd hand. I'm using a (much cheaper and available new) Reflecta scanner, which nearly matches the Nikons in the quality of the files it can deliver. Another brand is Plustek - if you read the forums here, there will be a lot of negative opinions on them from people who never used either brand. They don't match the Nikons, but for the money, they do deliver, no matter what nay-sayers claim. For medium format, I use a Canoscan 9000, but the Epsons are probably better - the Canon is a lot cheaper, but cannot do larger than MF.

For printing, if you do it yourself with a good quality printer, you will find there is a wide choice of paper for inkjets, and they do make a lot of difference - it drives up the price though, to the point where often having prints made can actually be cheaper.

A fun option can be to re-print scanned negatives on a much larger size to use for contact print processes. So sure a "hybrid" workflow is different, and not less work, but it does also open new options, and that can be new fun to explore too.

For medium format, I use a Canoscan 9000, but the Epsons are probably better - the Canon is a lot cheaper, but cannot do larger than MF.

Having used an older Canon scanner(2400F) and now using an Epson V700, I can offer the following from my observations:

1. The Canon MF holders are decent enough, and the card actually works quite well to hold the film flat. By contrast, the Epson MF holders are terrible, and anyone who uses an Epson scanner to scan MF should budget ~$120 for a BetterScanning holder.

2. Canon uses their own implementation of infrared cleaning called FARE. If you use Vuescan, you probably won't see a difference. If you're using the scanner brand software, though, there's no question IMO that ICE is better.

With that said, I've been able to get some great MF scans from my 2400F.

The main trouble, as suggested somewhat above, is that the 'scanning' side of a combined work flow can be a little tedious. I doubt that it is significantly more so than a wet darkroom. I've done plenty of both, and I now shoot film because I love many of the old film CAMERAS.

After development, I scan the negatives on a 4000 pixel per inch scanner. If done at the time, the strips of negatives (or slides, for that matter) run nicely automatically through the scanner, 6 at a time, on an old computer back of me. It beeps and a put in a new strip.

"Spotting" - a necessary step with small film, is much easier in Photoshop than it is on a easel with paint...

I have to do it 1 negative at a time and there is no negative carrier but it’s still pretty brisk. With my scanner you feed the side of the negative strip in till the scanner grabs it and feeds it in with its motor. Then you scan one at a time. With old cameras the frame spacing can suck so you have to keep fiddling with the frame offset. And you have to manually set the scan frame for each frame too. Not the most enjoyable activity, but it’s kind of fun in a zen sort of way. I can do a 36 exposure roll in a morning while drinking my coffee. Then I open ALL of them up with Photoshop 3 (didn’t go subscription) and blow them up looking for scratches or dust. It’s only bad when I drop the film like I did a week ago. Then after they are all saved back, I import them into Aperture and adjust them.

After we have gotten used to plug in, everything imports, quick adjustment in digital it’s a little jarring, but not totally unpleasant. Getting a good image out of a 70 year old camera (give or take) has some sense of accomplishment.

The main trouble, as suggested somewhat above, is that the 'scanning' side of a combined work flow can be a little tedious. I doubt that it is significantly more so than a wet darkroom. I've done plenty of both, and I now shoot film because I love many of the old film CAMERAS.

 

After development, I scan the negatives on a 4000 pixel per inch scanner. If done at the time, the strips of negatives (or slides, for that matter) run nicely automatically through the scanner, 6 at a time, on an old computer back of me. It beeps and a put in a new strip.

 

"Spotting" - a necessary step with small film, is much easier in Photoshop than it is on a easel with paint...

There is no way scanning is more difficult than to make prints in the darkroom I used to scan my negatives in order to determine the filters and exposure settings to make my prints.

There is no way scanning is more difficult than to make prints in the darkroom

As I said.

it's just a personal judgment about what kind of activity you do find more tedious.

There is no way scanning is more difficult than to make prints in the darkroom I used to scan my negatives in order to determine the filters and exposure settings to make my prints.

I have many negatives, back to 5th grade days. I did yearbook photography in 7th and 8th grade, developing my own film and printing it.

I also have a lot of negatives from Boy Scout camp, most of which I never printed.

So, yes, scanning is easier and faster than printing, so many of those have been scanned that were never printed.

Some are on Facebook.

People now expect pictures to end up on FB, but 40 or 50 years ago they didn't expect it, but now they are there.

I have a Pakon F135, which for a whole roll is much faster than many scanners.

I got it not so long after cutting most of my old negative rolls into strips for ClearFile pages.

It is also pretty fast with strips of five, much faster than scanners with negative holders.

I also have two Minolta ScanDual scanners. I mostly get good results from them, but not fast.

I have a cheaper, simpler, scanner that I believe uses a phone style 2D sensor.

Not the highest resolution, but it is pretty fast and enough resolution for posting here.

I have an Epson 3200, which isn't quite as good as the V700 or V800, but good enough for

medium format negatives, or medium to large prints.

Most of those scanners I bought used, some from thrift stores.

As to the actual question, often enough (such as on vacation) I take a digital and film camera.

I still have some slide film, also color and black and white negative film.

Nearby lab that does C41 and E6 for reasonable prices.

I have old and not so old cameras, old and not so old film. It depends on the mood at the time.