pbajzek

Thanks for the comment, Edward. As the hinge seems light-tight, I think this may be the

solution. I did not take any special precautions to keep the spool tight while winding, and I

can easily see how I could have mangled things in this regard. I appreciate the advice.

Interesting- the light leak would explain the appearance of the fogged area. All the seals on

my film back appear to be in fine shape, but I'll try taping it and see what happens. Thanks.

I am new to medium format photography (having just purchased a Bronica SQ-B), and after shooting my

first 2 test rolls, it seems I'm doing something wrong. Both rolls are fogged for the first 3 frames as in the

attachment. I have the manual and I've followed the instructions closely, but perhaps I missed something.

I admit I was casual about keeping things totally dark, so perhaps that's the problem. Any suggestions

would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.<div></div>

I began using a Coolscan V a few months ago and I am very ipressed with the scans I can

make. As mentioned previously, it does take some practice, but it is not rocket science. As

for graininess, your input will determine your output. Grainy film will scan and print grainy,

and in my opinion the digital "grain reducers" are useless. But if you shoot on smooth film

you should be happy. I have been very pleased with Tri-X (grainy but nice) and even moreso

with Plus-X (very smooth).

As someone who would rather make photos than insult other members' dpi count, I'll offer

my experience, as I was in a similar boat recently. I love my digital SLR for commercial

work (fast, convenient, flexible) and I think digital is awesome for color photography. All in

all, digital made it possible for me to get deeper into photography, so I'm all for it.

Having said that, my most satisfying photos (black & white artwork) have been made with

film, yes even 35mm film. After 2 years of working strictly digital, I bought a Nikon V-ED,

and I couldn't be happier with my results scanning B&W film. Yes, some folks are quite

good at making monochrome images in Photoshop. But if you really love B&W, it's just not

the same (yet, anyway). Don't worry for a moment that you will be lacking in resolution or

quality if you go the film scanner route- I can make some very large, excellent digital

prints from scanned 35mm. In fact I want to get into MF, not because I find 35mm lacking,

but rather because it's inspired me to try more.

Zoe, that is a simply beautiful photo. And a very inspiring one at that. Your point about

taking "breaks" is a very important one. Thanks for sharing.

I'll add my endorsement of DR5 as well; I've now tried 6 different films with them, and I'm

blown away by the results. Thus far the clear winner for me is Plus-X (incredible sharpness

and resolution), with Scala and HP4 looking very impressive as well. I'm in the process of

scanning a big batch right now, and I find that these slides scan very well. All in all well worth

the price.

Hi again, Conni,

I agree the control offered by the 8750 is very impressive, which is one of the things that

attracted me to it in the first place. As I said, I'll have to adjust my workflow to get the best

results. I'll say that the non-problematic images I've printed are really amazing. Thanks again

for your time.

Peter

Kevin,

I'm using only standard HP inks and Premium Plus paper, and have these selected in my

print settings. Your point about the soft proofing is a very good one, and I've spent the

afternoon trying to figure out what's going on. It seems I may have had "beginner's luck"

on the first few files I chose, none of which seem very unusual to me, but all of which

show banding when viewed with this printer profile.

However, I tried out some other images and found the banding to be greatly dimished

(though not *entirely* absent, once I know what I'm looking for). Interestingly, the bad

ones are all digital shots and the better ones are film scans. I may need to adjust my

conversion technique to accomodate this printer. Still strange that these problem images

print fine on my 7660. Anyway, many thanks for the input.

Regards,

Peter

In fact, upon further review, the most obnoxious banding actually seems to be happening not

in the hilights, but in the transition from shadows to midtones. Strange.

Hi, Conni,

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately I have a comeback for everything...

1) One of the images I'm printing hasn't been resized at all, so there are no additional

pixels "available" (if I understand you correctly).

2) I'm missing the "Print in Grayscale" check box w/ saturation slider. Neither the

Photoshop interface nor the HP imaging software seem to give me this option, unless I'm

overlooking something, which is possible. Where should I find this? I have the option to

select Grayscale in the color management pull-down menu, but then the saturation

window is grayed out.

I should mention that this isn't only a hilight problem (the hilights do not seem to be

blown out). I'm getting some banding in certain midtone areas as well. Very frustrating, as

the overall look of the B&W prints is spectacular, until one notices this flaw.

Thanks,

Peter

I've been happily printing with an HP 7660 for 2 years, and based on that experience I

recently purchased an 8750 for larger size and, reportedly, better B&W quality. My first few

color prints were stunning (and are actually hanging in a gallery right now), but this

weekend I started printing some B&W images and I've noticed a really pronounced banding

in some areas (not the "end of print" banding that some have mentioned, but a severe

posterization of tones). This is mostly visible in some high-contrast areas, and hilight

subtleties are lost. This has also affected a few color images, but seems most prominent in

B&W.

The banding areas are somewhat visible on-screen if I do a soft proof in Photoshop using

the 8750 profile (HP Premium Plus paper). Adding some noise helps smooth things out a

bit, but does not solve everything. I never had any issues of this nature with the 7660, and

I'm surprised that this newer, better, more expensive printer would have problems like

this. Has anybody else experienced this? Any insights aould be welcome.

Nice post, Simon. This is kind of my point though: how do we know that a thought has

never been thought before? I certainly don't see how we can measure or verify a claim like

that. But a thought may occur to each of us for the first time, being new to us, regardless

of whether it's been thought before.

I think I was unclear in my post before: I did not mean to imply that we should just go

ahead and copy because we can't be bothered to think for ourselves. Rather, we should

think for ourselves and make art for ourselves without worrying about whether someone

else has thought this thought or made this piece. In other words, to act from a positive

impulse rather than making an exercise of avoiding things.

This is in no way meant to invalidate your post, just to clarify my own. I appreciate what

you've written though I find it a bit idealistic, strictly speaking.

Thank you all for the informative answers. I had assumed I wouldn't even bother giving

this one to DR5, since their process is supposedly not very forgiving. I like the idea of

burning another roll in the same way and seeing what results I can get before writing this

one off.

I'm not usually such a bonehead, but I'm not afraid to laugh at my own mistakes...

As to DR5, I have sent a few projects to them (mostly on Scala, which was formerly my

favorite film) and I have to say the results have been breathtaking. I was originally a slide

shooter before moving to digital, but the quality of their slides is in large part what has

pulled me back to film recently. The slides have much more shadow detail than my

Coolscan V can capture.

OK, I've just committed the dumbest mistake of my photographic life: I was working with a

model on a nude shoot, using FP4 rated at ISO 100, using studio flash metered for f11. After

a whole roll of excellent work on the model's part, I realized that I had forgotten to set my

aperture to f11, and had been shooting at (wait for it...) f2.0!

OK, now that everyone is done laughing at me, is there anything I can do to try to salvage

this roll, or should I just scrap it? We went back and recreated our earlier work (better the

second time, I think/hope), but obviously I'd like to save something if at all possible. I'll

mention that I do not do my own processing, as I usually shoot slides and digital. In fact, my

intent was to send this roll to DR5 to make B&W slides because I love their process, but that's

out the window now; I'll have to go to a local lab if I do anything at all. Fire at will. Thanks.

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks to everyone who has posted.

I am very skeptical of the term "creativity" as commonly applied to art (assuming we're

talking about art here). I think it sets us off on the wrong track. As I see it, creativity

(coming up with a new or novel way of doing something) is more of a problem-solving

skill which will undoubtedly be useful in making art, but it's not the driving force behind

things. I think with photography in particular (but all arts really, in different ways),

successful work is less about inventing and more about observing.

By the same token, I have a problem with valuing a piece of art by it's "newness" quotient,

as if the sole point of a work is to shock with novelty. I can think of very few masterpieces

of art that would live up to this. Pick any piece of art that moves you, and almost certainly

a great deal of creativity went into realizing the piece, but is that really all you see, or even

the main thing?

As to precedent and inspiration, I like to think of it this way: everything may in fact have

been done before, but not by me.

I had my reply all lined up, then I got to the end of the thread and saw that Peter Nelson

expressed my answer verbatim. Personally nude photography is my chosen subject matter,

and one that interests me more than any other, on many levels, when it's done well. Which

is very seldom. As much as I love the nude, nudity does *not* automatically equate to art

in my eyes, and I actually have a difficult time finding nude work that really moves me.

As a side note, while I certainly enjoy seeing new things, I don't see any reason to reject

work for failing to be completely revolutionary. If that were the primary criterion for

judging artwork, we should have all given up long ago (this does not excuse laziness or

shameless plagiarism, by the way). I don't care whether an image is completely unlike

anything that's ever been seen before, I care if intrigues me and engages my imagination,

intellect or emotions.

"Often criticisms on p.net are of the "horizon not straight/ear chopped off" variety when

applied to photos where that is notreally an issue."

This is a very astute observation (and a practice of which I admit I have been guilty at

times). I often work with intentional blurring, be it motion blur, shallow DOF, etc., and

while I go out of my way to explain this in my photo descriptions, I always get a slate of

"this photo is blurry!" comments.

At first I found this frustrating, but I realized that due to the format of this site, the

majority of viewers/raters/commenters are probably clicking through the "recent photos"

features and not reading the poster's description. Of course this dilutes the educational

value of the process, as often the parties involved are not on the same page in terms of

what sort of feedback is being sought, etc.

With this in mind, I find it's usually possible to distinguish useful commentary from

useless. I have taken to ignoring most comments unless I have asked a specific question.

But then I sometimes miss a sincere question or offering...

Sorry if this seems a tangent. I agree with the several people who have stressed that

horizons, crops, etc. need only be appropriate to the photo in question, and there are no

absolute rights and wrongs. The "rules" of composition did not start out as rules to be

followed, but rather as analyses of some things that had been successful in the past. I

think it is important to understand these precedents and use them where appropriate, but

photography would be really boring if we all slavishly followed the rules all of the time.

I agree the slideshow is a cool addition. I'm curious as to how the sequence of slides is

chosen.

I frequently use my 50/1.4 wide open, and while the DOF is very tiny, the sharp zone is very

sharp on my lens. I may be lucky, but I don't find it to be as soft as often reported. I do,

however, find that the shallow DOF does not always play well with the rather sloppy

autofocus on my 10D.