david_powell3

The correct way of getting high quality 8.5x11" prints (or larger) from 35mm film is: use a good, sharp lens; use a tripod; meter correctly; ensure your lens is pointed at a scene capable of producing a "high quality" image; process the negative correctly; print/scan the negative by a competent printer/scanner; edit if necessary; print again.

in other words, quality 8.5x11" is well within the realm of feasibiliity by 35mm film. at 12x18 it gets tougher but certainly is possible. at 8.5x11, 400 speed film is generally adequate; by 12x18, 400 speed's limitations become readily apparent, and ISO 100 film is advisable.

worry less about the film and more about the shot and technique.

I'll second the Fuji Reala suggestion. You'll have to ensure you have plenty of light, as was pointed out, but at 16x20 I'd hate to see a portrait marred by the grain of an ISO 800 or even 400 film.

With Reala and your 50 f1.4 used relatively wide open you ought to get some decent shutter speeds (1/30th to 1/125 I'd guess)...It'll definitely be harder with the 100 f2.8.

Using your Rolleiflex of course would allow the use of faster, more grainy films. Is it in need simply of a CLA? If that's the case, I'd probably use it.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

ari, i love that image! her pose is wonderful and the depth of field is exquisite! if it was at f5.6 you must have been pretty close to minimum focus distance, as the depth of field is quite shallow; was that the case?

she makes me smile!

nice shot...looks a touch soft...do you remember aperture/shutter speed? i ask because i'm interested in purchasing this lens and haven't seen many examples of it wide open...i'm guessing this shot is wide open due to the softness of focus. do you have any other examples you can post? i'd be interested to see.

how do you like the lens overall? if other posts are any guide, i'm guessing you love it!

thanks for the sample.

mike, B&H's used department does currently have some FD "L" glass. they typically say "L" right after the aperture. for instance, the Canon Telephoto 300mm f/4.0 L FD Manual Focus seen here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=800391851&is=USE&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

there's others on the site too.

be sure to check out keh.com as well for a wide selection of FD gear, including "L" glass.

good luck with your quest. for what it's worth, the 35mm F2.0 SSC (concave, radioactive thorium glass) is a terrific performer and can be had relatively cheaply if you keep an eye on ebay. got mine in great condition for about $50US. the yellow cast is noticeable on slides, but is wonderful for black & white and not a problem for color negative work. i highly recommend that lens.

bill, you're right. exact frame size depends on the particular camera used. sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller.

to print full frame on a frontier using version 6.0 of the software (don't know any other versions) you go to the "printing" menu and down to "full frame print." turn this on. also in the "printing" menu is "center-cropping" which must be turned on as well. this allows the operator to decrease the magnification, effectively zooming out, to whatever point desired. i've noticed that typically the top and bottom edges (i.e. sprocket holes) tend to be displayed on a print more than the gaps between individual frames, leading to my belief that most cameras shoot more that 36mm long and less than 24mm tall. this may be a false asumption however. it could be that the aspect ratio of the cropping box on the frontier is not exactly 3:2. i don't know any way to find out.

note that "free cropping" cannot be enabled when doing "full frame print." only "center cropping" must be turned on. gotta love fuji's unintuitive software.

hope that helps!

frontier labs have the ability to turn auto-cropping off and use "full frame" printing. if you measure your 35mm negatives, however, you will find that they probably are not exactly 36x24mm...they're typically something like 36.3x23.6mm, which as you see is not an exact 3:2 ratio, so a full frame print of a 35mm frame will include some borders on the top and bottom of the image (on the frontier if you zoom out so the whole image fits on the paper, you see the sprocket holes of the film strip in the print).

and whoever said that bordered prints use more of the 35mm frame than borderless was correct. not sure how much exactly, but it's certainly visible when compared side by side.

I purchased a "bargain" F-1N body from KEH a few months ago -- very

happy with the camera. I have a couple of questions for fellow F1-N

owners....first when i open the back and release the shutter, i get a

distinctly different sound than when the back is closed....it doesn't

really bother me, i've just never experienced this effect with other

bodies. when the back is open and i shoot at 1/15, i hear a hinkd of

hollow "popping" sound. it's kind of similar to the sound the camera

makes at the end of the film advance action (when the back is

open)...that pops too. when the back is closed i do not hear the popping.

also, vibrations are pretty evident to me when i'm firing the

shutter...is this common with this camera? for instance when i release

the shutter holding the camera with both hands, i can definitely feel

vibrations in my left hand as it's holding the body.

it's seems my old (broken) AT-1 was a bit quieter and had less

vibrations. but it could be my imagination. I guess the vibrations

would affect macro images or very long focal length images with

shutter speeds of 1 sec though 1/15 sec or so...(there being no mirror

lock up on this body)

and finally, is there any way to turn the self timer beeping off? or

am i stuck with a camera which sounds like it's going to blow up as it

approaches its self-fire?

thanks for any insight. love this camera despite the above.

once again, appreciate all the replies. i've relagated the at-1 to the cabinet (with its bag of loose parts) and have decided on the F-1N (latest) as its replacement. got a "bargain" one at KEH for $235; here's to crossing my fingers hoping its got no major problems.

but i've heard good things about KEH, so i'm not too worried.

i'm a sucker for match needle metering, so the other a-series canons just didn't do it for me.

i did try out the a-1...while i like the convenience of aperature and shutter priority, i found shooting it full manual too cumbersome for my tastes. once again, i'm too used to the needle, which made the f-1N the logical replacement/upgrade.

and one more question: how does anyone deal with the two older versions of the f-1? i tried out both and the self-timer/DOFP button upset my grip of the camera quite a bit. i suppose it'd be a lot better with the motor winder, but without it, i just couldn't get used to that silly contraption impeding my grip. thankfully the f-1N is absent that feature, having the plunger depth of field preview instead, which i much prefer. and the battery door makes a great grip.

anyhow, wish me luck with my new (old) camera!

thank you everybody for your responses. i knew i would get some thoughtful suggestions for this group.

upon further inspection, i have discovered a small crack and indentation on the body just below the shutter speed dial. evidently the camera suffered some kind of impact. i don't recall dropping it, but it's certainly possible it got knocked around a bit lugging it from place to place. i suspect this dent/crack are responsible for the problem i am having.

there's a good repair guide and schematic on mir.com for this camera, i'm going to open it up and see if i can find anything obviously wrong. it's worth a shot, as i agree a repair job isn't worth it in this case. if worst comes to worst i'll just have to buy another fd body. any suggestions on a new (well, used) body? i guess the ae-1 is an obvious choice. we'll see.

anyhow, thanks once again for all your great help, it's very much appreciated!

i've been having great fun reading the archive of this forum, and it's

helped me select several new (well, used) fd lenses to add to my

collection.

however, i have just encountered a problem with my canon at-1. it was

working perfectly till yesterday. no shutter sqeak or anything. now it

is unusable. if anyone recognizes this problem, i'd be so thankful for

some insight.

my problem: when i turn the film advance lever, it now triggers the

mirror to slap up and the aperature lever to move. the shutter curtain

also moves. pressing the shutter button does nothing, it just sinks

down with no response, regardless of where the film advance lever is.

the film advance lever also moves past its normal position. it

normally rests above the edge of the back of the camera and, when

winded, moves till the tip of the lever is even with the back of the

camera. now, however, it moves even with the FRONT edge of the camera

body, approximately 30 to 40 degrees further than normal.

this occurs with or without a lens mounted on it.

sorry for this long-winded explanation, but i hope it's relatively

understandable! in a nutshell, it appears my film advance lever is

acting to fire the camera on its own when it's advanced, and the

shutter button now does nothing!

i've posted similar messages appealing for help at the mir.com forum

and the canon fd forum on yahoo! groups. i'm hoping to avoid an

expensive repair job and/or the purchase of another body.

any help would be so greatly appreciated!

thank you.

frontiers (or at least the 350 with SP 2000 that i work with) has an option for "full frame print." if you're friendly with your tech, you can probably get him or her to use this option while printing/scanning your negs.

the instruction are:

go to printing menu and turn on "full frame print."

go to printing menu and tunr on "center cropping."

now when a roll is fed into the scanner, the tech will see even the beginnings of the sprocketholes of the film. he/she will also have the ability to zoom out up to the sprocket holes, if desired.

following is a direct scan of black & white film (neopan i think) done with the frontier.<div></div>

if you bolted the kit lens from the d70 on a 35mm SLR, you would have a 18-70mm lens. HOWEVER, on the d70, because of the FOV multiplying factor of the smaller sensor, you'd have a 27-105mm lens.

with the d70 you have to multiply ALL lens lengths by 1.5 to understand what you'd see in 35mm terms.

so to supplement the kit lens on the telephoto side you'd want say a 70-300, which would be equivalent to a 105-450mm focal length on a 35mm system.

yes, that's typically the response i've gotten from customers as well. i operate a frontier 350 attached to the sp2000 scanner. scanning a roll as 4x6 and burning a cd does result in pretty noisy images....i think the problem is due to the aggregate of the frontier's sharpness setting and the PIC's lousy JPG compression. as a test, i have scanned images from fine grain negatives (reala, konica impressa, etc) with the sharpness on the frontier turned to "low 2" and then burned the image as a tiff, instead of jpg. the resulting image exhibited almost no noise at 100%. i've not yet scanned at "low 2" sharpness and burned as a jpg, and vice versa, to determine if the sharpness setting or the jpg compression is more liable...though i think it's probably the combination of the two that results in the terrible scans....

it'd be interesting to hear from someone who operates the machines down at the fuji outlabs...what kind of machines they're using and what settings....

david.

seen plenty of threads on this in the forums...looks like lacie electron blue IV is a top choice...some contend that the mitshubishi/nec is basically the same monitor for about $50 cheaper...

i've also read many people prefer to buy locally, to avoid any possible damage to the monitor during shipping. plus a $75 and up shipping bill is avoided.

personally, i'd go with the lacie. and of course a monitor calibration system of some sort...but that adds another $150-300 onto the price of the monitor.

as i said, lots of threads on this

Brief background: my workflow consists of scanning negatives and

chromes using a Fuji Frontier scanner, editing the tiffs in

photoshop on a Eye-One calibrated and profiled monitor, and sending

the files back to the same Frontier for the prints. I have only a

generic profile for the Crystal Archive paper the lab uses (still

working with drycreek to get a machine-specific profile).

What I've not come across in these forums (yet) is what importance

there is in having an accurate scanner profile. Considering I'm

using the Frontier's scanner, I've simply set my colorspace to sRGB

in photoshop, and converted the untagged tiffs I get from the scans

to that workspace.... Considering I do not plan to purchase a

dedicated film scanner soon, is this an advisable workflow? Is there

anything I could do to obtain a scanner profile for the Frontier?

I've never come across one.

If my monitor is correctly calibrated, how important IS a profiled

scanner for my workflow? So far, sRGB seems to be doing a decent

job...I am wondering if there are any adjustments I could make in

order to achieve even greater colour accuracy from monitor to

print....

Being that the Frontier is ICC-dumb, I convert my images to the

generic Crystal Archive profile, and make sure auto-corrections are

off when I print the file.

I understand the limitations of the Frontier's scanner (8 bit, sRGB,

unknown sharpening/curves algorythym applied...), but it's the best

I've got for the time being.

Is having a calibrated monitor and profiled paper the most important

aspect? How much does the unprofiled source affect this color

management workflow?

Thanks for any ideas/suggestions/comments

david

12x16 prints from a fuji frontier? i was under the impression (i operate one) that frontiers can print 10 inches wide maximum. i don't think they have the capacity to hold 12 inch paper...unless there's a new one i haven't heard about....

just curious.

stephen, dan's answer is correct; unmounted slides (whether in strips or single frames) can be scanned as reversals. unless maybe the lab you went to doesn't have the right masks for their manual carrier (or maybe doesn't have a manual carrier at all...in which case they should still be able to scan slide film in strips as long as there are at least three frames to a strip. oh wait, you said they can scan mounted slides, so obviously they have the manual carrier (MFC). dan's instructions are spot on.

dan, the scans i'm getting from my sp2000/frontier 350 at 10x15 print size are 39.4 megabyte TIFF files, not JPEG. i'm not sure why this is, but am sure glad it's working out that way. :-) and boy do i ever wish i had access to a nikon 8000; i'd forget all about the frontier for scanning! :oD

ellis,

how would you compare the frontier scans to kodak photo CD? i've never used kodak photo CD so don't know the specifics about it. are they 8 bit or higher? what's the maximum resolution and what colourspace are they in?

thank you.

david

Hello everyone, I just want to share a little tidbit that's gotten

me excited recently. I work in a photolab which is lucky enough to

have a Frontier 350 with an SP2000 scanner. We recently upgraded to

include digital services (we now have an Aladdin and PIC system),

including, as I've just discovered, the ability to scan 4535x3035

pixels from 35mm negatives (or chromes, obviously).

I've read posts elsewhere (Photo.net, et al.) tjat lament the

Frontier's inability to scan onto CD high res digital images from

35mm.

When making a CD at the time of printing, the scanner will only scan

at a high enough resolution to produce 4x6 photos at 300dpi (i.e.,

1200x1800 pixels). However, when the print size is increased, the

resolution of the scan is also increased, as the Frontier always

prints images at 300dpi. So what the lab operators need to do in

order to scan up to 4535x3035 resolution images is set the print

size to 10x15 inch. Not all labs offer the ability to print 10x15s,

but ALL 350 labs can make that print size under the setup &

maintenence menu. Doing so will allow them to have a "print size"

option that is used solely to produce 4535x3035 images.

Also, there is no need to actually print at the time of scanning

(though that is an option). If the operator selects "Digital Image

Export" from the Printing menu with the print size of 10x15

selected, 4535x3035 images will be exported to the PIC module and

can be burned onto CD in TIFF (.tif) format from there.

The files are approximately 39.3 mb in .tif format.

So this is an exciting discovery for me, as I have basically

unlimited access to this scanner.

However, I'm not sure about such specs as dynamic range, et cetera.

It seems to only scan at a colour depth of 8 bits. I have however,

scanned some of my negatives at 4535x3035, brought them home and

edited them in photoshop, and brought them back and printed with

quite nice results.

So if you have a Frontier lab near you with a PIC unit (which is the

unit that allows them to print from digital media and burn cds at

time of processing), ask the operator if he or she will do some

scans for you. Get friendly with them. If you bring your own CD-R,

they may even give you a price break.

Would love to hear any comments et cetera y'all may have.

Cheers,

David.