scanning negatives

[tiago_dias]

I've been working with slides only so far (mostly Provia 100F/400F),

and now I'm thinking of starting to use negatives because of more

latitude(easier to correct exposure mistakes!) and finer grain for

scanning(that's what I heard).

 

Am I really better off scanning negatives?

Is the lower grain story really true?

I just always heard that most Pros always used slides, and remember

some post here saying there was less contrast and colour in

negatives....

 

What are the 'real life' pros and cons of Slide vs Neg for scanning?

 

Many thanks for any advice,

[peza]

What ? :) Grain with Provia 100F in MF ? That must be THE scanner. See below 4000DPI scan of 35mm frame of PROVIA 100F. Where's the grain ? I like this film so much.. <BR>

What is concerning negatives and scanning, even SENSIA 100 II scans with LESS GRAIN than correctly (over)exposed Fuji Reala.<br>

I have to admint, my experiance is limited to CanoScan 4000US.

[peza]

Concerning my upper post, I wasn't prompted for image upload. MFD is a bit different :)<br>

Click on the photo for details, pelase.<br>

 

<a href="/photo/504193"><img src="/photodb/image-display?photo_id=504193&size=sm" height=110 width=200 alt="Provia 100F scanned & 4000DPI"></a><br><br>

Because I'm not MF user (yet?), I would like to kindly ask you, how much detail will be in MF shown, say with RZ/180W-N lens ?

[enrico_pocopagni1]

Hi, Petr,

in my RZ 180 folder I posted some samples of Fuji slides (mostly Velvia and Provia) scanned @ 1.000 ppi vith a flatbed HP 7400c taken with the lens you specified. Sharpness, dynamic range, saturation are better than my former 35 slides were.

I have little or no experience with negatives, but I have two considerations to say:

1) due to the red layer base color, negative contrast is inherently lower than slide;

2) in case of positive scanning, image passes through a printing lens that reduces contrast and sharpness from near 0 to something more.

Greetings to all.

[james_stanford2]

you will get better scans with neg and it is a good idea to get good at shooting both neg and slide I have been a pro for 20+ years and my experience has been that when I am called in for a portfolio review

the clients want to see slides you can study them with loupe or project them. but yes you have been told right but you did not say what kind of scanner you use some people use cheap flatbed scanners and they wont help a neg or slide if you are gonna really be in photography long term you may want to get a film scanner for quality scans hewlett packard photosmart S20 goes for $ 500 but it is ranked first in its class and will give you quality scans of negs/slide and prints up to 5x7 also in slide mode you can scan med format slides and negs.well good luck ..

[pete_andrews]

Are scanned negatives less grainy than slides? No way.<br>Even the most ardent advocate of negative film, like myself, wouldn't claim that. I don't know where you heard it, but I wouldn't listen to any more rubbish from that source.<p>The big thing that colour negative has going for it is the subject brightness range it can capture. This used to be a bit of a myth when negs were wet-printed, because the tonal range you could put on the printing paper was a lot less than the film could capture.<br>Scanning has changed all that, and now the colour neg/scan/digital-print route is definitely the king of contrasty subjects.<br>You're not stuck with the particular colour 'signature' of a slide film either. With good processing, and care in scanning, the colour from negative film can be as neutral, as saturated, or as muted, as you like.<p>I've just started scanning a series of photographs of fruit on colour neg, and the colours are lifelike enough to make your mouth water.

[scott_eaton]

Provia 100F and Velvia are both sharper when scanned (on any scanner including drums) than any production color neg film other than Konica Impresa 50. Reala and Astia/Sensia are similiar in terms of grain.

 

The rest depends on how smart the brains in your scanner are. Color negs of course have much better exposure lattitude, but not all of this can be recorded by the limited dynamic range of your scanner. You are best of using both mediums for the advantages of either.

[pete_andrews]

"....not all of this can be recorded by the limited dynamic range of your scanner"<br>I'm not sure why you'd say that, Scott.<br>No properly processed colour negative film has a Dmax higher than 3.5D. For most colour negative films, it's less than 3.0D, and this is well within the capability of most modern film scanners. That 3.0D requires a subject brightness range of around 10 stops to reach, too.<br>Compare that to the 6.5 stops range, and 3.6 to 3.8D Dmax of slide film, which most CCD scanners will definitely struggle with.