Frontier - calibration, film channels question

Hello,

 

for people working with a Frontier (model 350) - I'm curious (1) how

often the machine needs to be calibrated (and what is being calibrated

- the scanning, monitor or printing stages), and (2) does the operator

have to set the film channel manually, or does the machine read the

side markings on 35mm film automatically and needs operator

intervention only if it doesn't recognize that particular film?

 

Thanks in advance for all answers!

When I was working at Longs, they calibrated the machines about every 4 months( I think higher volume labs would need it more often). Mostly, this involves balancing the monitor, and making sure the print matches.

 

The machine does not read codes, nor does the operator need to set them. It doesn't care what kind of film you put in it.

I can believe that the Frontier has no buttons or knobs where the

operator sets film type, but I cannot believe it ignores bar codes

on film edges. Otherwise how could it produce such excellent results

with all different Fuji print films? NPS and Superia 400 are very

different in saturation and contrast, yet both look good printed on

a Frontier.

I worked on one for 5 months( after working on an SFA series printer for 5 years).. It doesn't read the codes. It also gives the same result whether then negative is in the auto carrier or in the manual carrier. It also does great with films that have no coding. It is just good at guessing where the levels should be.

I have never used a 350 .. only 370 and 390. Yes these machines do read the barcode. They also measure density and compare there result to Fujis Internal database of films to achieve the proper color on most c-41 films. As far as calibration. I Plot and graph my machine daily. The lamp is calibrated when its installed typical life is about 6 months. The scaner is calibated once each day at start up and again anytime the carrier is removed. I Process approx 100 Rolls each day. Typicaly I Moniter each image as it pops up on the screen and adjust density as needed but very rare is it I have to adjust color for any single roll. The most typical problem that I find in image quality is on low light exposures. Now mind you most of the time its by error of who ever took the picture that the image appears under exposed. There are sometimes when it will screw things up on pics that are ment to be near black. The machine will try to amp up the light to compensate for the apparent underexposure. A Night shot of stars is a good example. A Person may wish the image to be mostly black with just the twinkle of the stars and the Frontier will miss read this and the print will come out with the black sky not black but seaming to have a haze on it. Simply increasing the density to 5 or 6 fixes this on that frame.