Is it me or does Scala rule?

[jay bee]

Understand its pricey, but just got the results of my first foray

with Scala back and I am blown away - seems really 3-d. Can you get

prints that mirror the trannies or is that asking too much? I have a

local shop that does piezography so I'm going to give it a go.

[mark_wilhelm]

Try having ilfochrome prints made from your Scala slides, although you may not get fully monochrome prints consistently.

[scott_eaton]

Have the prints scanned and printed by any reputable lab or process that does higher end slide to digital print services, like WCI, etc. I'm not trying to put down the scala process, but from a repro standpoint monochrome slides are really not that much different than color slides because the density range is very similiar (unlike color negs vs B/W negs). Scala slides look real holographic to your eyes, but scanners and papers could care less.

 

I'd also advise avoiding the Ilfochrome route unless you use the lower contrast materials, otherwise you can kiss all the delicate highlight and shadow detail goodbye. Ilfochrome's claim to hype is wild color saturation and high contrast - not good things for subtle tonality in monochrome slides, eh?. If you want to maintain the subtle tonality from B/W trannies a quality digital scan is the way to go, not a clunky direct R-type print.

[derek_stanton2]

I also love the look of Scala slides, but i've not yet had any manner of success with scanning them myself. I tend to get 'lines' and such in the files, when i'm trying to draw detail out of some shadow areas or an underexposed frame. Also, that beautiful silveryness just doesn't translate into a digital file. I've read, though, that the former issue is largely dependent upon the scanner used. Anyone have a recommendation there?

 

I've not yet had prints made from Scala. But, i would suggest using a process that doesn't give you colour tints.

 

Please follow up and let us know the 'secrets.'

[dr5 examples]

Here I go again... Seems like I can't plug these guys enough. DR5 in NY has a process that uses regular B&W films for transparencies. They have two different developers, a "warm" and a neutral. There's lots of films you can use for different looks, I really like Panf, ORT25, and FP4 in the warm developer. In large format I rally love TXT, and I'm about to send in some Efke films in 5x7.

As far as printing goes, I've never heard anything good about Scala. I worked in a duping lab (that's all we did really), and Scala was a real problem. Several stock agencies had photogrpahers using the stuff and they wanted 70mm dupes. We used color dupe film since that is what we were set up for. We ended up getting magenta highlights with green shadows in many images, and nobody could tell us why. I've also heard of problems scanning them... I've had my DR5 stuff printed with Ilfochrome and digital processes and no one's had any problems. Dupes are great as well. If you are having trouble getting good prints from your Scala, get in touch with DR5, they print as well...

 

Isaac

 

http://www.dr5.com/main.html

 

http://www.reproimages.com/

[jay bee]

Had a peizograph (sp?) made of one slide and it came out surprisingly well (in lieu of this thread). Good contrast, depth of field. Certainly not the same 3-D effect as the slide, but a nice option nonetheless.