Autumn Foliage

I love Velvia.  The tree seems to split the picture.  Nice shot.  Alan

Which scanner were you using and the settings?  Film size?  Alan

Hi Alan,

Yes I am also fan of Velvia. The slides are stunning on light table. The details and colors are unmatched by my digital camera. The only gripe I have is I can't get all the beauty out of slide into digital photo. The scanner is Plustek OpticFilm 7200. It is good for medium price slide/negative scanner. The film is RVP 100. Do you still shoot slides?

Sandeep

I also love the Velvia. Fantastic colours and saturation. Great colour tones. Very well captured. What a pleasure to film photography! Well done and regards. 

Sandeep: No, I'm not shooting slides again.  Not yet.  I just got an Olympus E-PL1 M4/3 digital that I'm playing with.  I've also started to scan a lot of my old 35mm and 6x7cm medium format film taken years ago.  I'm using a Epson V600.  I'm creating slide shows with background music and burning DVDs to play on my HDTV.  I posted one of them on YouTUbe to see how it works out in case you'd like to take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AlanClips

You can see some of the scan in my Portofolio.  I have two folders there just for scans.  Ones for 35mm the other medium format.  If I go back to shooting film, I'll probably use my medium format camera to start.  I've got some Velvia 100 already in my refrigerator just waiting.  Cheers.  Alan

http://photo.net/photos/AlanKlein

Alan,

The video looks awesome. Nice way to display your slides with music. I see those pictures from key largo. I used to live in Boca Raton and key West/Largo were my favorite weekend spots. Those fishes look so colorful!

I see same issue in your V600 scans that I get from Plustek. The shadows become too dark. In your slide 'Swan in Autumn', the tree on left is probably dark green in slide but appears almost black in scan. If you increase exposure, the swan will lose details (limited dynamic range problem). I scan my slide three times using different curves. Once for shadows, then for midtones and then highlights. Then merge them in photoshop using layers. That is the only way I can get sufficient details out. It is bit more work but Velvia slides have so much detail, I don't mind this routine for select few. Photomatrix can also be used for merging. The Notre-dame pictures in my profile have been merged this way. I may upgrade my scanner to Canon 9000f or V700. 

Cheers... Sandeep

Thanks for your suggestions on how to get the best from scans.  Triple scanning sounds like a lot of work.  The Notre Dame photos show it.  I'm finding the 35mm slides choke up a lot more than the 6x7 medium formats.  The swan tree is actually lighter in the original scanned results.  But I tend to like contrasts so I let the shaded areas go black sometimes for dramatic effect.  Not sure if this works for others but I like it better than muddy shadows. 

I just scanned and posted my first from a negative; from Ektar 25, no longer made by Kodak.  It's the Birch photo.  It seems to pull more out of the shadow areas.  I have to do more scans with negative film to see if that holds true .  Have you worked with scanning negatives and what were your results compared with transparencies?

I see in your biography that you recommend Safari browser.  Is that just for Apple?  I'm using Windows.  Alan.

Hi Alan,

I have scanned negatives also and they work fine. Sometimes you get color cast that you need to remove in PP. The yellow stone and grand canyon photos in my profile are negative scans from Kodak 400 uc. 

I am using safari browser in windows. You can try it out. Your photos will show better color as compared to IE. The whole PN web site looks better :)

Your birch photo looks fine, just the colors need bit more saturation.

happy scanning... Sandeep