MF and enlargements

[dennis benjamin]

Hi All

 

I am a new convert to MF, having discovered an old Rolleicord in a box at my

father-in-law's. I figured out what it was and how to use it, shot a roll of

film which turned out well then sent it to Paul Ebel for a CLA. Meantime I've

been reading up on MF and film (my photography experience is digital only, P&S

followed by dSLR), and was surprised to learn that nowadays most if not all

prints are made by scanning negatives first, then digital printing as opposed

to projecting the image directly onto photographic paper. I'm not trying to

troll here, just reconciling what I'm learning now with what I remember from a

B&W photography class I took 30 years ago. My questions are

 

1) Does this give better final print quality or is it done for

convenience/speed? I would have thought that there would be a loss of

information in the scan relative to what a 20x30 piece of photographic paper

could record.

 

2) Are there any labs offering the "old fashioned" process? If not, is there

variation in the scanners used at different print labs? I guess the same must

be true for enlargers - some must have better optics than others.

 

I guess I was thinking that MF would be an "all-analog" process ... it seems

like if the images are going to be digital at some point between shutter click

and final print then film is an inefficient way to get a digital image. Am I

missing something? Clearly people are still using MF cameras and film, so

there must be some benefit relative to dSLRs.

 

Thanks for any advice, I really enjoyed the simplicity of the Rollei so I"m

sure I will use it even if I do end up with "digital" prints!

D

[mike_earussi1]

The resulting print from a scan tends to be sharper and contain more detail since there is no longer any information loss caused by the enlarger lens. Further losses would also occure with the photographic paper. But now the final image quality determiner becomes the scanner and printer (and the skill of the operator) instead of the enlarging lens and paper.

[wai_leong_lee]

Scanners have lenses too. Some even have ED glass, but glass is still glass.

 

To the questions:

 

1. Quality is subjective, it is not just measured in resolution. A B&W fibre print has a different feel from a B&W inkjet print. A Cibachrome print definitely has a different feel from a colour inkjet print.

 

It's done for convenience and space reasons, since medium format enlargers are big, whereas most scanners can do both 35mm and MF negs.

 

2. Some pro labs still offer the old fashioned way, but be prepared to pay a lot.

 

2.

[brucecahn]

Why not go for it and do your own printing. There is still nothing like a silver or platinum print, ambrotype or Daguerrotype.

[Ed_Ingold]

True, scanners have lenses (film scanners at least), but the resemblence to projection printing ends there. The optical path is fixed and extremely stable in a scanner, and the magnification ratio is always the same. An enlarger lens must work over a wide range of magnifications and the quality of the print is subject to mis-focus, misalignment (most home enlargers are somewhat sloppy mechanically), long exposures and vibration. The larger the print, the greater the problems. If you had ever made a 20x30 inch print, you probably wouldn't be asking this question.

 

Film scans at 4000 ppi or higher are basically grain-sharp - the Holy Grail of optical printing. With the proper inkjet printer and skill, even B&W film can be printed with tonality indistinguishable from wet prints. They might feel different, but so what. You get more from a print by looking at it than touching it ;-)

[diegobuono]

I compared digital prints and Ilfochrome (cibachrome) prints (optical print from enlarger) of the same pictures, digital prints from Lambda e D-lab from drum scan and imacon scan. The Ilfochrome prints are a lot sharper! May be it depend from operator's skill, or from Lambda used at 200dpi (is capable of 400 dpi but never found a lab that use it at that resolution), or other reason but the Ilfochrome contain more details. I think does not exist an absolute answer on the matter, probably a lot depend from the lab used. Try differents labs and differents techniques and then decide yourself.

[machts gut]

Hi Dennis,

my 2c: IMO there is a difference between colour and b&w. In colour photography your means to manipulate contrast and colour saturation in an analogue process are more limited, because much is standardised than in a professionally handled (!) digital workflow. That's the major reason fot the fact that most professional photographers scan their MF-negs.

In b&w it's something different. Even without expensive equipment and years of training you can have good results in your own darkroom. Your means of controle in analogue workflow are really great. And it's much fun!!!

On the other hand it's possible, but more difficult, to get the same quality digitally. And on the cost side, ink and good printing paper is not for free. A last argument for b&w analogue: I know many people who love the grainy look of a b&w-print, but no one who loves pixel noise.

 

Stefan

[kparratt]

My experience with Reala, clearly one of the landmark colour emulsions, is that it is increasingly becoming more expensive to enjoy it's qualities. Yes I can pay heaps at a pro lab for real darkroom, analogue printing, but until this year I could also get superb analogue prints from a number good, quality-controlled "high-street" labs.

 

The stuff I get back now is junk. I didn't need to use a lupe to look for the pixels in the first digital delivery, because it was painfully obvious that something was seriously out of order. Later I am told that "Reala is difficult to scan". And it seems no-one is going to anything else with it.

 

So am I now being coerced into using only colour transparency, simply because it scans better? or worse: dump colour film altogether? Not me.

 

As for B&W, my darkroom and printmaking studio are 100% pixel-free zones. Having only just begun to explore PMK Pyro, I'd gladly invest in the cost of travelling to Montana to do a week's workshop with Gordon Hutchings, rather than spend the same on a digital printer. And rather a new 5x7 inch Linhof or Arca Swiss, complete with lenses, than as much on any "state-of-the-art" digital camera or MF back. (Question being: who's "...-art")

 

To the classic processes aptly mentioned by Bruce Cahn, I add copperplate photogravure, who's final product is etching ink on rag paper. I'm not even using a lined screen, but an aquatint ground. "What's THAT?!" ... you may well ask. (another day)

 

However Dennis, you are not alone in the dilemma. Doing your own analogue colour printing with any degree of controlled success will take some investment of time to study it, as well as some equipment, the space to do it, and access to a suitable chemical waste facility. (The champions of digital laugh at this, but I bet none of them ever considers what happens to the billions of spent ink cartridges building up in the world. ... hmm?)

 

Cheers, Kevin. Oslo.

[User_502260]

As you have seen, there are many aspects to quality. I used to have Type R prints made from slides. Now the slides are scanned and printed digitally. The digital route offers more control over contrast and color but if I could I would still have most prints from slides made on Type R paper. When the slide is enlarged I want to see the grain pattern of the slide fim and not the pixel pattern of the digital printer. I wonder why some people still shoot more expensive slide film like Velvia when their final product will be a print. They can shoot regular Kodak Elite Chrome 100 or even color print film and just adjust the color and contrast. The qualities of color prints made digitally are much closer to those of color prints made optically than digital b&w prints are to optical b&w prints. No digital b&w print will ever have the exact same look as an optical b&w print made with a condenser enlarger. This doesn't mean the digital b&w print will be bad but it can't have the same look.

[john_calafut]

Check out these people: http://www.4photolab.com/

 

They offer traditional analog printing and I've used

them for C-41 enlargements. The results were better than

any digital prints I've received from three other labs

I've worked with! Wai-Leong is right about the cost though.

I use them for just my best stuff.

 

John

[david_henderson]

It depends on the skill and tools available to the print maker. Other things being equal - and using exemplary resources to do both and starting with a sharp, well-exposed transparency, my experience is that digital prints from a drum scan are far, far sharper than anything I've had printed in a colour darkroom. Frankly I don't see this as a marginal thing. I can have prints made four times the size of anything I feel comfortable with from analogue printing- which of course has materially disappeared in the commercial sense

for prints from slides. The fact that the digital prints are more repeatable, and colour and contrast controlled is just the icing on the cake.

 

I have less comparative experience on neg film, though in general terms I think the issue is significantly closer since in my view analogue prints from negs (colour or b&w) are often likely to be sharper than Cibachromes and other type R ever were, and indeed all my b&w work is still printed traditionally.

 

Nevertheless it is the case that whilst you can buy analogue printing still, its getting not to be easy and getting tougher daily. The real game here is finding what form and what supplier of digital prints fits your needs and your budget; sadly the fact that the best prints are digital (in colour at least) does not mean that all the prints made digitally are wonderful. Falling short in scanning, file creation skills or machine set up/control means that many digital print makers fall horrifically short of whats possible, and I think this causes more negative reaction to digital prints than anything else.

 

Finally take care to compare like with like. Its unlikely you're going to be as impressed by a digital print from a busy consumer minilab with no individual attention as you would be from a craftsman-made Ciba or analogue C type. But you know you can get digital craftsmen too, and some of them do a really fine job. Todays mini-lab prints should really be compared with the analogue "machine prints" of fifteen years ago. They were really bad, and what we get from Frontiers and Noritsus today, whilst not often being perfect, is a whole lot better than that.

[mel_unruh]

Here is my two cents worth.

 

Well, like everything else, this too is subjective. Your needs will be best met by experimenting with different labs and different processes until you find your match (the lab that gives you what you want on the paper). You can go to one lab that might be on the tail end of their equipment lease and so they're using equipment that might be a generation behind the competitor down the street. Someone else may have a new enlarger but not really have the experience that someone else has down the street. So, you have to do your homework.

 

All things being equal however, here is what I have found.

 

In the back & white arena, you simply cannot beat a properly exposed and properly hand printed photograph. Digital really cannot compete here. Some come close. Here again it depends on the type of work you do. If you work within the tonal range of your equipment, digital can do pretty good. But then, B&W photography is all about tonality. It is this range of tones that sets good B&W prints apart from their digital counterparts. There have been some interesting attempts at bridging this gap including "Digital Enlargers". THis sort of splits the difference by taking a digital file and projecting the negative image onto regular photo paper where it is then printed using the traditional wet process.

 

For color though, Although you can get traditional wet process done, the difference is minimal and totally not worth the increase in cost. Here the technology is actually equal to the hype. The printing process gives you all of the tones or at least enough of the tones that it's hard to tell the difference (except for the noise factor on big prints). Your mileage may vary.

[dennis benjamin]

Thanks for all the replies. I admit that I am more interested in B&W photography with the Rollei, not for any logical reason just an affinity for the look of older B&W prints. I could believe that I might have a go at doing my own developing, but I expect the printing would require more space/time than I have, especially given that my goal is to get some large (20x30 or more) prints on my walls. Thanks for the link to the "traditional" printers, I will definitely have a print made there to compare w/ one where a scanner is used first.

[sorry_no_photos]

I just got back some enlargements that were scanned at 4,000 dpi from my 645 negatives. I compared details in the 40 meg tiff images to the original negatives as seen under a microscope. I have to say that the scanned images were very crappy compared to the original negative.

 

I'm now going to get some darkroom prints of the negatives and compare those results. If the darkroom can pick up most of the detail on the negative, I'll be happy.

 

(Oh, and the cost of prints from the darkroom outlet are about 1/2 that of the cost of the scanned results from the digital outlet).