Money Where My Mouth Is

[chris_raney1]

<p>Over the last couple of years I've begged, cajoled and whined my way for information about bodies, lenses, scanners and the like. I've been gifted with a wealth of information, and I've even added a bit of my own on other forums to the tune of film development and useful chemical solutions (never said I was humble, unless it's in an area where I yet have no established knowledge).</p>

<p>So I've been shooting my M4-P for two years now, coupled to either a beautiful 35mm Summicron ASPH or a darling little Tele-Elmarit 90mm. And just recently I've purchased an Epson V600 scanner...what a joy!</p>

<p>So now putting my money where my mouth is, I'm open for comments. I've never uploaded pics to this site before, so if I fail in my efforts just go to Flickr and look me up at teacherraney@yahoo.com.</p>

<p>Have at me.</p><div></div>

[chris_raney1]

<p>Jesus, Baccante takes a while to load, and when she shows up she's grainy. Trust me, go to Flickr and give a look-see to the rest of the images and you'll see it's better than it looks (corrupting Mark Twain here, sorry).</p>

<p>

<p>Now I need advice about uploading. Lay it on me, please.</p>

[GlennS]

<p>As I understand it, to make photo-posts show up in a message you need to down size to less than 700 pixels on the long side. I often add a small amount of sharpening (USM) before saving as a jpg .<br>

Your Epson scanner seems to be doing a reasonable job. The grain is well resolved, much better than my old 3200 seems capable of. I now scan 35mm with a Nikon CS-5000 and larger formats on the 3200. </p>

[fred_haeseker]

<p>A fine classic photograph! The attachment shows up just fine on my monitor.  I have the same camera and lenses and I've been thinking about getting a decent scanner. I'll be checking out thate Epson V600.</p>

[fred_haeseker]

<p>A fine classic photograph! The attachment shows up just fine on my monitor.  I have the same camera and lenses and I've been thinking about getting a decent scanner. I'll be checking out thate Epson V600.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Chris, you are getting good tonality with your film type, film exposure, film chemicals, film development and scanning procedures. Can you tell me what combination of these you are using and details? Do you purposely underdevelop before scanning? I am usually going to darkroom instead of scanning, but am looking to do more scanning on my Epson 4980, whether 35mm (similar Leica set-up to yours) or medium format. </p>

[Alex_Es]

<p>Thank you Chris for keeping us abreast of your latest developments. The M4-P and the lenses you are using are excellent and so is your work. Your flatbed scanner seems to be doing a good job, possibly an outstanding job. I did go to Flickr and checked out the photo you uploaded here. The largest size is only 665 x 1024. This is small for checking on exactly how good your scanner's resolution is. For my sake, and everyone else who uses a good flatbed scanner to scan negatives, I hope it is as good as it appears to be.</p>

<p>I use a dedicated scanner (Konica-Minolta) to scan 35mm negatives and slides. It is outstanding in its rendition of color negatives and positives. It is good with black and white as well, only the the dust and scratches remover (ICE) does not work with it. I use a good late model "professional" Epson scanner for my panoramic shots. I've found that the scanner's ICE and unsharp mask are useless. I use anti-newtonian rings glass in the holders to maintain negative flatness, which is better than what Epson provides. I have found that the scanner is very good with fine grain 100 ISO black and white film. I"ve been considering getting a Nikon Cool Scan 9000, which may be the best dedicated deaktop scanner available. <br>

I feel it is important to get the best that we can out of flatbed scanners because there may not be any more desktop dedicated scanners in the future, thanks to digital photography. Therefore, I hod reports like this one not only useful but encouraging as well.</p>

[chris_raney1]

<p>I'm convinced that film scanners will be with us for quite some time yet. As long as there are great film cameras out there, there will also be the need to convert their images to digital. Besides, not only are many people rushing to scan the old photographs they find in granny's attic--perhaps thinking the prints are perishable--they're also discovering they'll have a need to scan whatever negatives they recover. I know it's an idiotic thing predicting the longevity of any particular technology, but as long as film Leicas, Rolleiflexes, Contaxes, Bronicas, Nikons, et al still exist in working order, and are maintained with the occasional CLA and a few replacement parts, the lot of them will remain as precious and functional as good quality guns. Can you ever imagine a time when a film Leica will be nothing more than a museum relic with no existing film to feed into it? Sorry, I usually wait until I'm well into my scotch during happy hour before I wax philosophically. This was coffee-powered... </p>

<p>To answer Arthur's question: No, I don't underdevelop for scanning. Hell, I'm still fumbling with this electronic gizmo on this end. But I have to tell you, compared to that Artescan thing I picked up on Ebay a couple of years ago this V600 is a breeze to use, but man, it takes its time doing it.</p>

<p>Since I live in a hot climate, I develop tropically. I've spent years adding sodium sulfate to my scratch-made D-76 to keep the emulsion from swelling. About a year ago I discovered the miracle of divided film development, and now I develop in David Vestal's divided D-76 formula. Gone are the need for sodium sulfate, and an acid stop bath. I rarely overdevelop, and I'm still getting that wonderful shadow detail out of my beloved Tri-X that I dearly love.</p>

<p>BTW, all of those photos I have up on flickr were taken with the 35mm Summicron attached. I never took it off to put on the Tele-Elmarit. Both lenses are fitted with B+W made K2 yellow filters which I never take off. </p>

<p>Youse guys are a lot of help! Keep talking and I'll keep learning.</p>

[carbon_dragon]

<p>Try 1024 on the long side. That is what I do.</p>

[chris_raney1]

<p>Sorry, David. I don't know what that means. And hell, I'm here to learn, so tell me.</p>

[carbon_dragon]

<p>If you right click on a picture online, it will tell you how many pixels on each side it is. I've been using two sizes, one for my portfolio, and one for inline posts. For portfolio, I've been using the resize on Microsoft Picture Manager (or Aperture 2 at home) so that it resizes the image down so that the longest edge of the picture is no more than 1024 pixels. For inline posts I use a smaller size of 640 pixels on the longest edge. Microsoft Picture Manager has a preset for web large 640x480 which works well for this and so does Aperture.</p><div></div>