joe_hodge

I shoot film and both scan and print in a darkroom. Silverfast is reputed to be good for scanning, but you’ll probably need to adjust the scans for printing. Lightroom is nice, but costs. Darktable can do most of the same editing, but it has the typical open-source ‘technical’ feel in the UI, and doesn’t handle library management well at all. I’d avoid Photoshop personally unless you plan to heavily edit or transform the image. Opinions will differ, but I find it to be overly complex for my taste. If you’re getting back in to film, do you have a digital workflow now?

Yes, that’s nice. I’m trying to plan how to get there in the darkroom. Obviously there’ll be some trial and error involved, but if I can go in with an approach in mind, I’ll have more fun. Split grade is what comes to mind, and I think aligns with rodeo_joe’s suggestions.

Thanks, and I appreciate the copyright advisory. This is just a vacation snapshot from walking around Harlem - any print will end up in my house or office. I’m not in any sort of photographic business.

Another ‘handy’ sanity check is to meter the palm of your hand in the same light as the subject, and open up one stop from there. Your palm reflects approximately twice as much light as a standard grey card.

This is one of the Audubon murals in NYC. I want to emphasize the bird, but I’d also prefer not to blow out the face of the building. This is a fairly neutral scan of the neg, and I’m thinking I might want to make a split grade print rather than try to dodge/burn my way. The idea would be to just bring in the face of the building at 00 and then expose for the eye at a higher grade. Thoughts?

While my primary use cases for scanning are for 1) sharing and 2) evaluating negatives for darkroom printing, I do think that the high-resolution scans will eventually serve as the de-facto 'masters' of my photos. That's not because I dispose of the negatives, but because I expect that the only people who will ever have any interest in my photograph are friends & family. They may occasionally want a variation/crop/enlargement of a particular picture, but they're not going to do that in a darkroom. Having high-res scans archived at least keeps the possibilities open.

You might want to search for "scanwit 2720" on Ebay. I've had one for years. The software it came with was junk, but it's well supported by Vuescan. The only catch is that it's a SCSI device, which can be difficult to support in a modern computing setup. OTOH, you're getting a high-quality scanner for ~$150, which may leave enough in your budget for an appropriate computer. It won't do a 36-frame roll, but it will take 6-frame strips, has motorized feed, and autofocus.

As an IT guy, I have no trouble with the ‘computer’ aspects of scanning, but I worry a lot about the optics & mechanicals of my scanners. For 35mm I use a ScanWit 2720, and I just bought a Sprintscan 120 for 6x6, but when they break mechanically, I’m mostly helpless. In my experience, VueScan can do a lot, but the UI is definitely more techie than friendly.

Another sample from my NYC trip: Snapped with the SQ in between all of the folks waiting to pose with the bull. It's funny that I didn't anticipate the long line, but my previous time in NYC was pre-cell phone camera, so I had to set this up off to the side and hit the shutter just as one group moved out of the frame. I hate the jersey barrier, but otherwise I'm pleased. This was the last frame on the roll, so no bracketing on this one to bail me out. Scanned with the Sprintscan 120 and levels/tone curve adjustment only (and scaled down).

Sample of the left-edge artifacting: It's most noticeable at the bottom left. It's fairly minor and easy to crop out, but it also happened once (and so far only once) about 1/3 in to the frame from the left. I'm hoping it doesn't happen again, and apparently it wasn't doing this before being shipped. OTOH, the price was right, so I'm happy. Joe

FWIW this place works fine on my Android phone and iPad. Also, it’s got a good signal/noise ratio. Which reminds me, I need to re-up my paid membership...

Sprintscan 120 isn’t a flatbed, it’s a dedicated film scanner. It’s showing a bright-line artifact on the left edge of every scan. I’ll put up a sample later tonight.

It does help that I'm a long-time IT guy :) It's a shame what UPS did to it, but it's mostly working and the seller offered a partial refund to account for the damage. Shipping damage: There's more, but that gives the idea. OTOH, the film carriers are intact and now that I've put a few rolls through it, I'm feeling more comfortable that the artifacting I'm seeing is confined to the left hand edge of the neg.

@orsetto - thanks for the kind words on the composition! It was handheld with the SQ, loaded with TMX, but it's also one of three shots from slightly different angles, so I hedged my bets. Shooting was a bit tricky - I'm new to the Bronica, and even with a cross-body strap I spent plenty of time standing still and waiting for a break in traffic. There are a few frames where it's obvious that I got jostled while shooting. It was bright-overcast, so I think I was shooting 1/125@F8. Complete agreement on Vuescan - I bought my license in way back in December 2001, and it's probably been my best software purchase ever. I'm leaning towards keeping the Sprintscan - the price is right and the artifacts seem to be confined to one edge, with one notable exception. The seller packed it well - original packaging and padding inside another box with plenty of 'fragile' labels, but UPS handled it roughly enough to shatter the back end of the scanner. Assuming we can come to some accommodation for the damage, I'll take my chances with it. It's a shame, because I can see that it was in fine condition before shipping. As it is now, the back panel is largely un-anchored and needs to be supported when connecting a cable. I'll need to cover the holes with tape to keep dust & errant light out.

I may have found my solution - I've got hold of a Polaroid Sprintscan 120 that I'm testing now. It got a little beat up in shipping which is causing me some concerns, but it basically seems to work. Sample: Full frame: 100% crop: The seller and I are working out how to deal with the shipping damage, and it's showing some artifacting on the left-hand edge of each frame that I've cropped out, but overall the scans look good. Does anyone have samples from an Epson for comparison?

I went with a Bronica SQ-A. I had a little trouble with it at first (film not advancing), but I was able to pick up an extra 120 insert which straightened that out. I've got close to 10 rolls through it, and have been to the darkroom to print twice, so I'm getting up to speed. My 35MM workflow was: shoot, develop at home, scan at home, use scans to select keepers & share with family/friends, print in the darkroom. I knew I wouldn't be able to scan 6x6 to share online, but I hadn't really anticipated how much harder my darkroom work would be without the scans to guide me. I use a community darkroom and can only get in for a few hours per week. Since I've seen camera 'scanning' for 35MM discussed extensively, I thought to tap in to any experience anyone has with a similar setup for 6x6. Would something like this work? EOS 50/2.5 macro lens Tripod with column reversed 6x6 negative holder from an enlarger on top of a light table I can picture how I could set that up vertically to achieve flat and parallel. Using a speedlight seems like it would be more complex.

I’ve recently begun shooting 6x6, but I’ve quickly become aware of how much I have been depending on scanning my 35mm film to guide my darkroom work. Specifically, scanning let’s me pick the negs I want to work in the darkroom and approximate the contrast and tonality I’m looking for. Also! scanning is nice for sharing with family & friends. I don’t have a 120 capable film scanner, and I’m dismayed by how much they’ve selling for. My question is: what would I need to ‘scan’ 6x6 with my digital (EOS M5)? From what I’ve read: 1. Suitable macro lens. I’ve never shot macro, so which one? 2. Light: either a lightbox or speedlight 3. tripod - I’m good there 4. some sort of film holder 5. bellows? Extension tubes? I’m lost at this point Any advice?

I'll take a stab at this: When your film is developed, areas that were exposed to more light develop more density. More density = darker on the negative. Areas that were exposed to less light develop less density. Less density = lighter on the negative. How the print looks is essentially the reverse, since you are exposing the paper with light passed through the negative. You can expose that paper to produce a range of prints with more or less contrast, blacker blacks, whiter whites, etc. The difference between the areas of more and less density produce contrast. With the whole negative underexposed, there isn't enough difference between the more & less dense areas to produce a print with strong contrast, especially if the print is being produced by an automated system that is aiming for a medium-gray midpoint. If it's a critical or irreplaceable picture, someone with strong darkroom skills may be able to produce a better print within the limitations of whats captured on the negative. Here's a quick post process as a example of manipulating the contrast. It could probably be done better in a darkroom:

Second on this advice. I've been an IT guy since the early 90s, and buying the right computer has always been about knowing your workload. Some general advice: If you are disk I/O bound, look at a system that can take multiple M.2 NVME drives If you are single-thread CPU bound, look for the highest clocked (base, not boost) Intel CPU If you are multi-thread CPU bound, consider the new AMD Ryzen 3000 series If your software requires or can use any special CPU functions (AVX-512 for example), select a CPU with those functions If you are RAM bound, look at an entry-level Xeon - they can generally support more RAM and possibly more RAM channels If your software can be GPU accelerated, buy whatever GPU they support. Probably NVidia. If you don't know, and don't know how to find out, consider hiring someone like me for an hour or two :)

I picked up another used 120 insert, which has worked fine. I can't see any difference between the new insert and the original, and I need to spend some time soon switching them back and forth to see if I can work out why one works and the other doesn't. Once I got a working combination, I stuck with it since I was on vacation in NYC last week, and wanted to shoot rather than experiment with the gear. I have a few more roles to process and print before I go back to twiddling. I've also realized just how much I've been depending on a pre-darkroom scan to pick the frames I want to print and work up a rough idea of the tones and contrast I want. Printing these two took a full darkroom session since I had to start from scratch.

I finally sorted through the problems I was having with my new (to me) Bronica SQ, and I've had a chance to develop/print a few rolls. I'm absolutely in love with the detail I'm seeing! I wanted an MF camera for walk-around, off-hand shooting, so that's what I've done to test it out. So far, I've found it carries better on a strap than my Canon - the shape and lug placement let it naturally hang lens-down. Shooting sunny-16 has been fine, thanks to the wide latitude of B&W film. Here are two samples, scanned from prints (I don't have a 6x6 capable film scanner). No cropping or retouching other than levels & a touch of sharpening to match the print.

Yeah, I know I missed it. Too bad, because I like the shot otherwise.

I think I missed the focus point on this one, except that details on his jacket are crisp at essentially the same depth as his eyes, so I'm a bit puzzled. No EXIF, so: EOS-630, Tri-X@320 in HC110-B.

I’m in DC, and the camera is at Pro Photo in Foggy Bottom. I work right down the street, and I’m expecting to hear from them next week.

In the shop now. Nothing I did made any difference in the behavior, and I'm tired of wasting film, so I took it in for evaluation and a repair estimate.