Back to Film !

[hjoseph7]

<p>I recently purchased a Pacific Image XE scanner. This scanner is dedicated to 35mm film. Previously I owned an Epson flat-bed V750 that did a pretty good job, with 35mm but was better at scanning 4X5 sheet film and medium format. This scanner might get me to start shooting film again. I love the smooth transitions that film offers. It is not as tack sharp as digital, but there is this smooth "easy viewing" that analog offers and that I don't think any editing software can mimic. Here is one of my first scans with this scanner:</p>

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[JDMvW]

<p>Looks pretty good, although you might need to adjust the yellow and cyan a bit.<br>

Can you show us a 100% clip of how much detail is coming through at a particular scanning resolution?</p>

<p>My old Canoscan FS 4000 (slow but otherwise nice) seems to have joined the choir invisible, so I'm looking for something besides my CanoScan 9000F or 9090 which are OK for flatbed, but just that. They are good enough for internet postings, but not what I'd like for my archives.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>JDM the Canonscan FS 4000 is a very good scanner, the achilles heel is the USB transfer rate which I heard is very slow. I was thinking about getting one used from ebay until I stumbled upon this one. I scanned this image at 5000 dpi, but I'm not sure wha's the true resolution. I would say it is around 3500+ dpi..</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>It's possible to get a more film-like look from digital, but the trick is to avoid excessive use of the clarifying tools (or contrast masking settings with unsharp masking), sharpening, noise reduction, saturation, etc. Unfortunately too many folks who use film fall prey to the same temptations and tweak their scans to unrealistic levels.</p>

<p>Whenever I scan film I keep a box full of my best prints from the 1970s-'80s from Fotomat, Fox photo, etc., which did great work. Those prints and negs are still in great shape. I use them as a reference for how a film scan should look.</p>

<p>Reminds me, I need to hook up my old Minolta Scan Dual version uno again. It's the SCSI model, and I kept one older Pentium III box and a SCSI card just for that scanner.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>When I started dipping into shooting film more, I initially did it for B&W. Lately I find I enjoy shooting colour film quite a lot - cheap consumer films with less-than-perfect colour responses. There is something about the look that I quite like. No doubt I could recreate it in post-processing, but the other part of the story is that I also quite like the film cameras I have.... it's not the bulk of what I shoot, but it makes a nice mixture.<br>

JDM, I use the predecessor of the scanner that Harry has, and for negatives I am quite surprised at the quality. I get ~15MP info, and zooming in, well, it's about 14MP worth of info, so to speak. For its price, I really can't complain. I've got some photos in my portfolio here, if you want larger samples let me know so I can send some.</p>

[BelaMolnar]

<p>It is a real photography. Period. Congratulation.</p>

[randrew1]

<p>If you are shooting one or two kinds of film, you can probably come up with profiles to improve the results. There are several threads that cover this. I scan so many different kinds of film that I don't try to maintain profiles and edit every scan on a custom basis. For this image, all I would do is adjust the red and blue curves as JDM suggested. <br /><br />This is just a suggestion. Your preferences are what counts.</p><div></div>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Harry: I enjoy shooting 120 medium format but I have scanned 35mm as well. I use a V600 which is not as good as the V750 especially with 35mm. You can check my samples on my Flickr page. Good luck. Alan</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Thanks all, for the comments on replacements for my 4000. I nearly got a used Canoscan 4000 (I have a SCSI card on my old machine and that is at least much faster than the USB-1), then I decided to get one of the new Braun machines (with magazine loading yet) only to find out that it is literally <em>only</em> for mounted images and won't do anything for strips of c/n film, unless you 'mount' them individually. :(</p>

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[hjoseph7]

<p>My monitor at home definitely needs to be re-calibrated. When looking at the original from a different monitor they look excessively yellow.</p>

[jamie_robertson2]

<blockquote>

<p>JDM the Canonscan FS 4000 is a very good scanner, the achilles heel is the USB transfer rate which I heard is very slow.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>If you use a PC, get hold of an old SCSI card and cable. The transfer rate is 5 times faster. I still use my FS4000 and, when connected to my Mac through USB, it runs far quicker than it ever did on a PC.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Here's another one(edited in Helicon Filter) :</p><div></div>

[bernard_lazareff]

<p>To avoid the kind of color cast seen in your first posted image, and the awkward game of guessing a posteriori what the image should have looked like (or delegating that to some "smart" software), I suggest you devote one frame per film to a picture of a photo-grade gray card, in typical lighting conditions. Then, (assuming you are using vuescan) one right click in the gray area sets the color balance. That is no substitute for prifiilg, but provides 80% of the benefits for 20% of the effort. You may need to repeat if the quality of light changes. But, in the days of slide film, people were happy with the slides reflecting the changes in lighting.</p>