Anyone else? Alt Process with a Canon

[mpphotography]

Does anyone else work with an alternative process using digital negatives from digital pics? Most of the artists I've seen that use digital negatives still work in film and scan the film in.

I would love to hear what you guys do - and samples are a bonus :)

(You can see samples of my Cyanotype work on my blog and I'll be happy to share my process if anyone's interested.)

[AceSG]

as in print the film? then some how scan/pic the image into a digital format? (jw if thats what you are asking, i wold like to know how to do this too for my school work in b&w film)

[mpphotography]

When I say scan the film in, I mean take the film negative and use a special film scanner to convert it to a digital file. This method produces far more detailed, large files than scanning in a print. There's an art to it - avoiding dust is a huge problem.

Film scanners are extremely expensive - especially for the medium format or large format film, but a lot of alt artists prefer them for the quality. If you're at a college, usually (assuming they have a good sized traditional photo department) the photo lab will have film scanners that you can use. If you don't have access to one, printing 5x7 and scanning those prints in works ok. Of course, the print has to be perfect because you cannot add detail to blown out highlights or blocked shadows after you scan it in. All in all, it might just be easier to carry around two cameras and duplicate your shots.

All that to say this: I shoot digital now. I print digital negatives on an inkjet and use those negatives to print cyanotypes. I'm interested to hear what you guys do too.

[Spacemunkie]

My father works from digital negs - predominantly bromoils these days. He's written some tutorials:

Digital negatives: http://www.davesymondsphotography.co.uk/section405136_139065.html

Bromoil printing: http://www.alternativephotography.com/process_bromoil.html

Samples here: http://www.davesymondsphotography.co.uk/gallery_338083.html

[mpphotography]

My father works from digital negs - predominantly bromoils these days. He's written some tutorials:


Very nice! I've never tried bromoils, so the articles were helpful. If I understand his process correctly, he uses a digital negative to contact print a traditional black and white image for the matrix? I love the bird pic on his website's front page - very dreamy.

[Spacemunkie]

Yep, that's correct.

I've just started messing with cyanotypes. Still lots to tweak to get consistent results so I've ordered a UV exposure unit to try to remove the daylight exposure wildcard.

I've tried inkjet and laser transparencies for negs and I like the laser negs best so far. Also tried laser prints on tracing paper today and they worked very nicely for high contrast shots:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/4972331665_041d4c7723.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4972331665/)
Dead Tiny Flower, cyanotype, 15x15cm (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4972331665/) by Spacemunkie (http://www.flickr.com/people/spacemunkie/), on Flickr

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4083/4972330939_3fdcf1b574.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4972330939/)
Aggressive Seed Pod, cyanotype, 15x15cm (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4972330939/) by Spacemunkie (http://www.flickr.com/people/spacemunkie/), on Flickr

This one is my favourite so far:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/4972946748_4f1da948af.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4972946748/)
Dandelion Seeds, cyanotype, 11x11cm (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4972946748/) by Spacemunkie (http://www.flickr.com/people/spacemunkie/), on Flickr

Great fun. I'm going to have a crack at some gums next :)

[mpphotography]

Nice first tries! Are the top two inkjet or laser? I see some banding there that looks like inkjet issues - or is that the paper texture? So hard to tell when the image is scanned in.

If you get a chance, do try the Arista II OHP or Pictorio OHP transparencies - they have a rough coating (ceramic, I think?) on one side that makes printing inkjet much easier. I personally use the Arista, but Pictorio is the main choice of a lot of the "big" names.

I'd love to talk curves, colorization, and other technical stuff if you're interested - digital is soooo much easier than going the old-school ortho film route.

477371477372

Here are a few samples of mine - crappy uploads, but the link from Wordpress is huge (note to self, must downsize files for wordpress) http://mpaulphotography.wordpress.com/cyanotype-gallery/

[Spacemunkie]

You've got some lovely stuff - already checked your blog out :)

The banding is the paper - a cheap watercolour pad I had kicking around. The negs themselves are mostly laser transparencies or laser on tracing paper.

Still just dipping my toes into this. Haven't really messed around with curves yet, although from what I'm seeing I think I need to drop the contrast of my images slightly.

[mpphotography]

You've got some lovely stuff - already checked your blog out :)

The banding is the paper - a cheap watercolour pad I had kicking around. The negs themselves are mostly laser transparencies or laser on tracing paper.

Still just dipping my toes into this. Haven't really messed around with curves yet, although from what I'm seeing I think I need to drop the contrast of my images slightly.

Thanks for the compliment :)

Paper banding, ouch! I found that the paper choice makes a huge difference in the quality of the print (toning means lots of washing, so my prints have to be super sturdy) as well as the deep blue tone - some of the higher rated expensive watercolor paper (I'm looking at you, Arches!) is utter crap unless you like a denim blue.


The more I work with this stuff the more I realize that the basic process is easy - fine tuning it is another matter! Hope you post more of your work here as you experiment :)

[Spacemunkie]

Just bought a UV exposure unit (too lazy to build one) with a timer and it's making life much easier. I can cyanotype right into the night now too which is making experimentation more plausible. Here's some from last night. I flipped that nasty paper over and used the back :)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/4989063893_6701aec894.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4989063893/)
881, cyanotype, 17x11cm (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4989063893/) by Spacemunkie (http://www.flickr.com/people/spacemunkie/), on Flickr
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4083/4989668800_6f8cfbbf01.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4989668800/)
794, cyanotype, 17x11cm (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4989668800/) by Spacemunkie (http://www.flickr.com/people/spacemunkie/), on Flickr
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4090/4989064207_d83114208c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4989064207/)
Naked Billboard, cyanotype, 17x11cm (http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacemunkie/4989064207/) by Spacemunkie (http://www.flickr.com/people/spacemunkie/), on Flickr

[Spacemunkie]

Will print some proper negatives now that exposure has been removed as a random element :)

[mpphotography]

Flip it over? What a horrible idea! (kidding, I do it all the time too!) Looking very good for test prints - doesn't look like you'll have to do a lot of tweaking to get a good negative.

btw, try double coating your paper too - it gives a much deeper shadow but can increase your exposure times (double coat right after the first when it goes matte - about a minute on mine)

I'm totally jealous of your exposure unit - I'm stuck relying on the sun for now, and it's rather inconsistant here. Darn clouds.

[Spacemunkie]

I got the UV lightbox from these guys in the UK - very reasonable until Fed Ex shipped it for an extra hundred quid. It was worth it though even if it'll only do up to A4 prints. I got fed up of having to wait for the weekend to do any work!

http://www.exposureunits.co.uk/UV-Exposure-Unit.html

Will definitely give the double coating thing a go. Also want to have a go at overprinting some gum as well to get even greater contrast into them.