What is an old photographer to do?

[tmcleland]

Bingo, Glen!

[emmajanefalconer]

I have the Canon 8600F too. It took a bit of fiddling to get it scanning how I want (had the same grain problems as the previous poster) but I hit on scanning colour as a black and white negative but colour scan with all the auto improvements turned off. That seems to work better than the actual colour setting. It's a good scanner.

[doug_williams4]

TMC,

 

With all the different answers I got maybe it will all make since after a couple of glasses of wine. Anyway it looks like I have a lot of options and it will all come down to how I want to work.

[djphoto]

Doug, I'm 71 and still a full-time working photographer who is very much not retired (and with no intentions of doing so). I bought my first digital SLR in 2003, just before my 66th birthday and began to teach myself Photoshop. I shot my last roll of film on July 28, 2003 and have never looked back except for missing my Leica once in a while.

 

I soon learned that first DSLR, with six megapixels, would make 16x20 prints that were the equal of those from my Pentax 6x7. I've also scanned enough film to know that, contrary to what some would tell you, shooting film and scanning it does not give you the best of both worlds; it gives you the worst of both worlds!

 

Jump on in! The (digital) water's fine!

[doug_williams4]

Dave,

 

Why do you say the worst of both worlds when it comes to scanning?

[JDMvW]

I can't answer for Dave, but in my opinion, the problem is that you need to buy a good and fast scanner if you are shooting film and then scanning. "Cheap" is not usually a word that goes with "fast" and "good".

 

Also, unless you do a very careful job in processing, film is usually very "dirty". When you scan in a slide or negative, just back from the commercial processor, the amount of crud, fingerprints, and so on on the film is incredible. Automatic programs claim to do this kind of removal, but good as they may be, they still create artifacts, degrade image quality, etc. In my experience, when you compare these "autocleaned" images with the originals, you will never again worry about the quality of the UV filter you put on your lens. So just like the film days, you have to manually touch up the scan if you want to keep the quality up.

 

With digital, the only comparable problem is a speck on the sensor. In really dirty conditions, I have got maybe three or four on the sensor at the same time. Caution and cleaning are advised, but not nearly the work of spotting B&W prints. If you shoot RAW, then you have got the digital equivalent of a negative, and the tonal range and resolution are actually ahead of most films.