Silent Street

It is very plain to see. Not entirely the fault of film, my friend. Prepping, colourimetrics, profiling, inter-image profile and corrections... you are missing a heap, and this is in my view the reason for your persistent poor results. Very high quality prints are not achievable with simple desktop scanners, nor if done cheaply, or by an operator with limited or next to no experience or knowledge of what he/she is doing, at the scanner and/or at the print step. It is not an overnight, one-hit-and-I'm-there job. Never was and never will be. RA-4 and inkjet prints, either and both have their own followers, provide undeniably excellent quality print results from analogue and digital (especially analogue). Both require their own, individual metrics set up to achieve the best results for printing. What would have thought of that? To a large degree, the quality of the input image — the photograph you took, also plays a big role: think of the things that are obviously wrong, or "might" be wrong: images high or low in contrast, poorly exposed, casted, excessively grains, poorly processed... all manner of things, can impart their own problems that no scanner nor skilled and experienced operator will fix, not least the home hobbyist battling demons of frustration and angst. For many, the to digital results in tears. For me, it results in passing so many Fail scores at adjudications that, really, there should be mandatory film-to-digital transition courses to teach people how to be a photographer, and not a blind and imprecise spectator holding a fancy camera. Remember also that a good photograph is always created in the mind's eye, first. If you don't get what you want with any camera, analogue or digital, where do you think the problem might lie...?

Yup. I would be extremely surprised if a hobbyist goes this way in his/her first steps in large format. The potential of a box of 8x10 costing $500 makes my toes curl... 4x5 certainly, at whatever price you can stretch yourself out to as an 'entry level' to appreciate the work that is necessary in LF. I'm still wondering about the DIY large format camera idea. While not actually abundant, used 8x10 gear would be better than a DIY job, especially in the absence of precision required for the construction and alignment. Wistas, Cambos, Linhofs... lots and lots to angle for in 4x5 and the relatively smaller size would be appealing too. Still, not a choice for anybody but the OP...

"Reduce the gamut to match that of film." No, we'd never do that. If anything, a wider gamut is more faithful to the film, but it will never be precise and exact. Still, over 50 years of printing technology, which is still evolving, gets pretty darned close.

We'll have to sit out and wait until the little yellow and blue box hits the stands. I rarely shoot 35mm transparency now (99% MF, LF), so will be mulling over the investment in a single box for comparison purposes. I ran through both E100 and 100VS in 2004 as part of formal tests for publication at the time (Australian Photography), and wasn't particularly inspired by the palette, or the difficulty in printing to Ilfochrome Classic, compared to Velvia and Provia, which again are different to Kodachrome et al. It must have been the only two rolls of that type of Ektachrome ever run through the camera at the time — the rest, as always, has been committed to Velvia and Provia!

Analogue-only RA-4 printing is vanishingly rare today. Your best option is analogue-to-digital with RA-4 (hybrid) print output, or for a significantly wider, subtle gamut, inkjet. AVOID scanning RA-4 or inkjet prints because the intense illumination from the scanner, particularly slow-pass scanning processes, can damage the print. Professional labs will scan your image for their use, and you can then request a duplicate of the production scan for your own use in promotion.

"I figured I can buy sheets of Fujichrome Provia 100F in quantity of 20 sheets per package for the price approaching $500" What the hell!? That is extremely expensive. I have never seen 20 sheets of Provia 100F in 8x10 costing that much. Where did you get that figure from?? 4x5 will be no cheaper than the uber-expensive 8x10 format if you are commercially processing. And mistakes you make during learning will make the process overall potentially offputting and disconcerting. LF requires a lot of time and skill to apply yourself to. It is the complete anathema from the easy-going nature of using and processing roll film (35mm or 120, for instance). In my mind, having individual 4x5 or 8x10 sheets commercially processed will be prohibitively expensive in the medium- to long-term, depending on your output. If you were to click away through 50 sheets and had those commercially processed at, say, $10 a pop... well, do the math!! Much easier to glove-up on an E6 kit for home use, with the only critical thing to consider being temperature control: E6 is very, very sensitive to varations in temperature. A stable temperature sous vide cooker can be very useful in this application.

The "cold blue" you speak of is characteristic of E6 films, and very much a characteristic of Ektachromes down through the ages. The description also applies to Provia 100F, but not necessarily its slower stablemate, Velvia 50.

Analogue media to digital printing (prints) is called hybrid printing. You can scan the negatives/transparencies yourself and forward them to a lab who will, if requested by you, run colourimetrics and profiling to match the printer output (be it RA-4 or inkjet -- either have different profiling characteristics). Chapter and verse could be written about the technicalities of scanning, and the scanners themselves (flatbed, bypass, wet/dry drum scanners [usually the most expensive but also superior in quality of results]. B&W images are best prepared for inkjet printing on baryta-impregnated stock (of which there are hundreds of types) -- many of these stocks are gaining a hand in archival permanence comparable to traditional silver gelatin prints. Resin-coated inkjet stock is even better. Digital prints to inkjet, vs analogue-digital prints to inkjet or RA-4 (predominantly colour work) have different characteristics and therefore require different profiling to match the printer and the media.

Kodak might want to answer the big UNanswered question: why they didn't just bring back E100/E100VS Ektachromes rather than squander money on the costly development of another. Ektachrome slides that I have from the 1960s and 70s have not stood the test of time in dark storage (fading and casting) as well as many hundreds of adjunct Kodachrome 64 and 200 slides, which remain minty.

MF is a 'next step' up from the postage stamp size of 35mm, but only at such point you have exhausted the possibilities of 35mm (so very, very many have never done so). I am a thinking person who has done all deliberations and assessments of a scene with the grey matter between the ears, not handing it over to an all-singing, all-dancing electronic wunderkind that today has every kid on the block by the short 'n curlies. All of my production work is made with cameras that between them are 92 years old (excluding modern day bare-bones pinhole cameras), and I've used larger format cameras dating from 1910. I began my career in 1977 when a Kodak 127 and later an Olympus XA and OM 10 (to this day I still own 2 XA cameras). I print larger than most people even dream of printing (around 1 metre+ with 6x7 — I am looking for another large format printer than can do bigger sizes). I don't think there is a feel to medium format, though many people become instantly smitten by it. It, like any other film format, requires foundation knowledge in photography, experience in execution and a thorough knowledge of the subject chosen (e.g. landscape This is the way I do it and I see no reason to change, certainly not with the silly toys called "digital cameras".

For a time in the early 1990s I used a Nikon F-401. Experience with this plastic-y affair left a very sour taste; it was slow, tedious and unrefined. I then got hold of an F-801 (pre-loved by an internationally-famous rock climber), ditched that a year or so later and traded to the F90X, which in Australia was very popular in bicycle touring, rock climbing and bushwalking circles. As for the emphasis on automatic, a lot of photographers used it in manual. I think he images presented should be more about the lenswork, not the camera per se. Exposure was never a problem in my experience. But some of the Nikkor offerings were not all that stellar for the time. I still hold an early Olympus OM mini-zoom as one of the better and still enduring optical performers of the 1980s-early 1990s. Before Canon's L-series swept me up from 1995 forever putting Nikon and Olympus before it out of sight.

Resolution is just a very small part of the story. For printing, your image will be downsampled to printer resolution (typically 300); this is done after de-specking/dusting etc. The V600, V700, V750 and V800 are all very capable for simple, uncomplicated scans of photograhic media such as for web and some print production. And 6x4.5 is a very small size, just up from 35mm. So at least you are ahead in ease-of-use in terms of scanning something the size of an image that isn't much bigger than a postage stamp! However, if your objective is for ultra-high quality and very large prints for exhibition (e.g. RA-4), then a drum scan will deliver better benefits. Original work such as photographs (or prints) should be sharp and well exposed; any alteration at the scan step of e.g. focus/unsharpness and localised contrast/highlight control can become unintentionally very obvious in a physical print. Consider saving the output scan (around 4800) should ideally be saved as an unlayered .tif file, both for use as open/export as a JPG/PNG or use as a profiled/unprofiled .tif for high end bureau print.

Careful exposure, especially with slide film. And a modicum of luck. More often too, when plans did not fall into place, manipulation, especially for travel/tourism brochures where blue skies/white sand are absolutes in conveying a positive, invigorating image, even though when you get to the destination it is grey, muggy and overcast with patchy sun! It's pretty common to get those bejewelled blue skies and blinding white sun in the Maldives virtually on-cue!

Of it is the case they mentor developing players.Next question please.

There was active experimentation in processing PKR and PKL here in Australia in Sydney a few years back. The details were published on APUG.ORG, and a call for processing of rolls was made. The results were quite promising, but there was not one taker — just hundreds of salivating carnival barkers, the type with short arms and deep pockets. Yes, the processing cost was around $250 for a single roll of Kodachrome. It worked. But too bad they wanted it done for $11. No deal. And so the process died again and here we are, 6-7 years hence, still chasing windmills. Move on. It's wishful thinking. Very. It's not coming back. Kodak will have big enough problems reviving Ektachrome to a dynamic, vastly shifted market that is not all that enamoured now by the Great Yellow Father. Kodak is not even competing against Fujicolor or other players in the analogue market producing B&W or color emulsions. Older Kodachrom-erae users and enthusiasts do not constitute a viable market, and the professional market ceased a long, long time ago (earlier than the actual demise of PKR / PKL). Kodak itself does not know about this wunder-kind market you are talking of. It is speculative. And a huge gamble. It is the hallmark of "photographers" with limited applied skills who deride Fujucolor products. A lot of us can make any of their emulsions look like anything but what they actually area e.g. Velvia like Reala. Provia like Astia. 400X like CP2...

What!? "fully catered by the host"!? You don't say... If only it was so easy and so much fun... The reality is that the host has their hands full with cats and dogs then caterers; add cameras, cables and carousels. Oh, and throw in deliveries, posties, pests and peek-a-boos...No thanks! Tell the folks to BYO tipples and twisties. ;)

I call the unreal colours "Disneychrome". Well, Kodachrome wasn't all that natural in many respects (though it was the best for printing to Ilfochrome Classic whenever reds were involved, but that's an entirely different matter). Then again, there is a trick to make Velvia appear very much like Reala, using both EI adjustment, a polariser and prevailing light (chiefly flat to emergent hazy). This "Reala look" is something I frequently do when the subject just does not need nor will benefit from the added "punch" that Velvia gives. The antitwilight colours you speak of — the pinks before sunrise and after sunset, are naturally not very strong to the eye (with the exception of the appearance in the Tropics or here in the outback of Australia in the warmer Spring and hotter summer months). This is where Velvia lifts the colours and provides better separation (see image below).

The colour model of RVP50 is several orders of magnitude deeper and longer than the comparatively narrow digital RGB model, and scanning/duplicating via digital means is a compromise requiring gamut reprofiling (effectively, loss of/narrowing of the baseline gamut). People ought not be surprised at the depth of hue that Velvia exhibits, particularly in the greens!

Velvia 50 is, frankly, bloody awful in bright sun; Provia 100F is a better choice if you must use E6 in such conditions. Velvia's design favours diffuse (fill) light over point (shadows) light. Sunset and sunrise light must be metered carefully as this is very contrasty. The sky is never metered in any of our landscape sunrise/sunset/antitwilight imaging. I have run star trails over 6-7 hours using Provia 100F; this runs purplish for long exposures. Some people like this, and if not, it is easily corrected in post; others like the alien green cast of Velvia 50. Plenty of E6 labs where I am to process our weekly work and labs are increasing their availability to meet demand. We do not use digital camera rubbish: it's 100% analogue here. There is some B&W work confined to LF, on-spec, but otherwise 98% of our work is E6 production with RA4 hybridised print production (from Heidelberg d-scans) to Kodak Endura Professional metallic (KEP-M) and sometimes giclée media.

That is awful news. Tony was a great, enthusiastic and considered contributor on APUG.ORG for a long time.

Manual-iso... That's better! ;) ---------------------------------------- I really think it's wishful thinking — long shot odds, but it could happen some time in the future. Bellamy makes a point about this in the zorkiphoto article. We just have to sit by and see what eventuates. Still plenty of analogue Voigtlander Bessa compacts (film) in use here by photographers active in MF/LF; "happy snaps" to accompany the "big shots"! My personal choice is an Olympus XA, and I've owned 3 since 1980. I have owned a GR1 (came to grief in the surf) and a Contax T2. There are Contax Ts available at over $800 in Japan, however, price gouging is rampant and one needs to shop around (use Bellamy!). That's something I got the hang of when I was in Tokyo last year! The other is how often a Panadol is needed to cope with the madding crowds! o_O

What? Come again?? "auto-iso to enable push processing". And pull processing too...?

So is it for web or print ? Any scanner at all, from a $200 flatbed from a flea market to any of Epson's and Nikon's offering, can be (and so very often is) used to scan and post images to the web, and the max resolution only needs to be 1600dpi resampled to 100 for web viewing. Monitors are not calibrated like-for-like (white point/grey point, gamut), nor is resolution. The pointy question is how well a scan that you need for exhibition translates to printing, say up to 1 metre-plus across (for example, from a 6x7 transparency). Only a drum scanner can get the job done when the outcome is a large, faithfully detailed print, no fiddling in post (all exposure metrics done in-camera) and output as an unlayered, print-profiled .tif It will be a large file, especially if it is in colour.

True dinks it isn't!! An absolutely filthy and tedious undertaking. Leave it to the devotees of Grot-o Graphix. The preparation, turps, taping, scanning, and especially the clean up (and deodorisation of the studio!!) is an abomination. Yes, I have gone through this twice, in retrospect just for a lark, and rightly disprove the populist opinion that a flatbed scanner and wet scanning is equivalent to a drum scan. It is not. Flatbed scanning technology seems to have progressed at a token-effort pace with no attempt to approach drum-scanning quality. True though, Epson's scanners are terrific for everyday jobs; I put mine to heavy use scanning many hundreds of Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides from the 50s to early 1990s.

I have my positives scanned with a Heidelberg too, before that with a Kodak, and the period dates back at least 25 years. Stay with the Tango, rather than a limp-foot shuffle. The V850 is a commendable horse for many tasks, but it is not a patch on a drum scanner, and certainly not the 4x5 format. Sometimes used drum scanners pop up on auction sites.