Is there a section for film shooters?

Bassat wrote in post #18554901
OK, sidebar.

I have a good tripod, and an EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro. Is backlighting negatives and using my macro for a scanner an option? Seems reasonable, but leaves me with negative images and and orange cast.

Another sidebar.

I honestly appreciate all the help and suggestions given here, but I don't want make this too complicated. At TheDarkroom.com, medium resolution scans (good for 8"x10" prints) are $5 per roll. High res are $9/roll. 4"x6" prints are $5/roll. That isn't a ton of money for one or the other. I'd happily spend $5/roll for decent scan I don't have to put a butt-load of time into. With that in mind, is scanning worth the trouble?

Anyone else remember when we dropped of a roll at Photo Hut, went to A&W for a Root Beer, picked up our prints an hour later, and were happy with that? Me neither.

I did see an article about using your camera to take pictures of film, mounted slides, in that particular article. Maybe an hour or two to make the jig and after that, five minutes for set up. Interesting topic. Been gonna do this for years... just can't seem to get past the "I should" step.

Some of the flat bed scanners mentioned in this thread are not cheap. You can get a dedicated film scanner for about the same price. Do your scans and sell it.

Rod

RodS57 wrote in post #18554962
I did see an article about using your camera to take pictures of film, mounted slides, in that particular article. Maybe an hour or two to make the jig and after that, five minutes for set up. Interesting topic. Been gonna do this for years... just can't seem to get past the "I should" step.

Some of the flat bed scanners mentioned in this thread are not cheap. You can get a dedicated film scanner for about the same price. Do your scans and sell it.

Rod

Keep in mind, if trying to photograph a slide with a digital camera to convert image to digital, that most dSLRS do not show 100% of the frame in the viewfinder.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18554947
just sayin'

tom, comments about printing you have made in the past lead me to believe you should avoid scanning.

Yeah, thanks. I'm kind of leaning that way anyhow. I like taking photos. I don't like agonizing at length over processing them. For most of what I do, even low-res scans (free at Darkroom) would likely be enough. Less than 1% of my photos ever get printed. Mostly web-shares. From time to time, the photography gods smile on me and I get a really good shot. Two or three of those a year get the whole 8"x10" framed treatment.

I think I'm gonna shoot a roll and let TheDarkroom.com show me what they can do for $11. Of course, if something turns out really well, I can get the local photo shop (a real camera STORE) to scan a frame or two and get me some nice files or even prints.

RodS57 wrote in post #18554962
I did see an article about using your camera to take pictures of film, mounted slides, in that particular article. Maybe an hour or two to make the jig and after that, five minutes for set up. Interesting topic. Been gonna do this for years... just can't seem to get past the "I should" step.

Some of the flat bed scanners mentioned in this thread are not cheap. You can get a dedicated film scanner for about the same price. Do your scans and sell it.

Rod

Not shooting slides. Negatives. Slide processing costs more.

I remember the neighbors' slide shows of their vacation from when I was a kid. The TRUE definition of boring: being compelled to look at slides of someone else's vacation, and having to act like you are enjoying the show.

Bassat wrote in post #18555096
Not shooting slides. Negatives. Slide processing costs more.

I remember the neighbors' slide shows of their vacation from when I was a kid. The TRUE definition of boring: being compelled to look at slides of someone else's vacation, and having to act like you are enjoying the show.

Ha............I wasn't going to add any additional comments to this thread but...............

I remember horrid times when someone else had slides to show..........now I get excited when given the chance, only because I'm looking at them differently. Finding shots of what they/them/it looked like back when and using same to restore/digitally perserve to use for whatever later...............

Same goes for old photo albums..............

An update of sorts. I found an EOS 3 for not much more than a set of ND filters. Now I have 1/8000!

Bassat wrote in post #18555096
Not shooting slides. Negatives. Slide processing costs more.

I remember the neighbors' slide shows of their vacation from when I was a kid. The TRUE definition of boring: being compelled to look at slides of someone else's vacation, and having to act like you are enjoying the show.

I realize that but my research was for slides and I imagine someone has done the same for negatives. all this old tech is being swallowed by digital but I feel my slides in their little yellow boxes are safer than the ones and zeros on a hard drive. Full stop.

In my "would like to scan" hiarchy I have in order of importance to me

1. Slides
2. Color negatives
3. B/w negatives

Some chemicals to process my remaining exposed b/w film would be cool. A guy can dream can't he.

Rod

I've been looking a bit more into slides. They are color POSITIVES, aren't they? If I shoot slides, wouldn't that take 90% of the PITA out of scanning. I mean, no orange casts, no tweaking the reversal process for every different roll, and scanning with a macro lens on a light table would be much easier, I'd hope.

BTW, If I scan, I'd only be scanning the frames worth digitizing. Certainly not everything.

And....
I've looked into software. It seems VueScan 9 is about the best I can get. Does anyone how well it will work on negative film when using a scanner that does NOT do pass-through, but only reflective?

I'm starting to be a bit surprised that nobody has asked, "What's film?", yet.

RodS57 wrote in post #18555711
I realize that but my research was for slides and I imagine someone has done the same for negatives. all this old tech is being swallowed by digital but I feel my slides in their little yellow boxes are safer than the ones and zeros on a hard drive. Full stop.

In my "would like to scan" hiarchy I have in order of importance to me

1. Slides
2. Color negatives
3. B/w negatives

Some chemicals to process my remaining exposed b/w film would be cool. A guy can dream can't he.

Rod

Negatives are susceptible to ageing. I find that those developed with the C41 process suffer the most, especially if they are 20+ years old.

My slides have not shown any significant signs of ageing, but they can still get dusty and scratched, unless you never open the box (then why keep them?).

Here is a September 1979 Ektachrome slide, the oldest one I've found yet.

Bassat wrote in post #18555844
I've been looking a bit more into slides. They are color POSITIVES, aren't they? If I shoot slides, wouldn't that take 90% of the PITA out of scanning. I mean, no orange casts, no tweaking the reversal process for every different roll, and scanning with a macro lens on a light table would be much easier, I'd hope.

Yes, slides will be easier to do if you are re-photographing.

VueScan runs the scanner and processes the scan. It isn't a scanner. You still need a scanner that will pass light through the original. ... if you are scanning, that is. If you are photocopying, you don't need VueScan.

I'm starting to be a bit surprised that nobody has asked, "What's film?", yet.

I'm surprised you asked that.

MakisM1 wrote in post #18555846
Negatives are susceptible to ageing. I find that those developed with the C41 process suffer the most, especially if they are 20+ years old.

My slides have not shown any significant signs of ageing, but they can still get dusty and scratched, unless you never open the box (then why keep them?).

Here is a September 1979 Ektachrome slide, the oldest one I've found yet.

Hosted photo: posted by MakisM1 in
./showthread.php?p=185​55846&i=i134464053
forum: Canon Digital Cameras

Nice. Digitized how? Pass-through or reflective scanner? Any PP to do with that (or any) shot? Are slides just easier to work with?

Bassat wrote in post #18555844
...
I'm starting to be a bit surprised that nobody has asked, "What's film?", yet.

Archibald wrote in post #18555856
...
I'm surprised you asked that.

I'm surprised that you're surprised.

Honestly. Most of my co-workers are 20-something females. I mentioned to one of them that I just bought several rolls of film, and was considering a new film camera (Pondered Pentax 645, bought EOS-3. No new lenses!) She looked at me like I'd just told her my mother is Sasquatch and my father is Bigfoot.

Bassat wrote in post #18555857
Nice. Digitized how? Pass-through or reflective scanner? Any PP to do with that (or any) shot? Are slides just easier to work with?

You CAN'T scan a transparency by reflection. I mean, you can if you want, and get an image, but it will be garbage. That's because the reflected light passes through the transparency TWICE. That will cause the image to be doubled to some extent, and the contrast will be double too. Plus it will be very dark, and there will probably be ugly reflections of the scanning light. In short, garbage.

Hey, I know what film is! "Film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film, or photoplay, is a series of still images that when shown on a screen create an illusion of motion images." Seriously, I did learn photography with manual film SLR and learned darkroom processing. Think it did give me a deeper appreciation when switching to digital. Dedicated negative scanners still are best for getting flat/consistent lighting and have automated software for converting to positive images. They can get expensive but might be worth it if you're going to do a lot of digitizing.

Bassat wrote in post #18555857
Nice. Digitized how? Pass-through or reflective scanner? Any PP to do with that (or any) shot? Are slides just easier to work with?

Thank you.

I got a Plustek OpticFilm 7400 Film/Slide Scanner bundled with Silverfast software. It is a pass through scanner.

The software provided with the scanner, does quite a bit of post processing (Levels or Curves, Color Balance, Scratch removal and other) and also it has quite a few profiles for specific negative films or slides. I found that this post processing (or is it pre processing) is quite effective, rather than using LR/Darktable or PS/GIMP. You can retain quite a bit of flexibility using TIF as the output file, but the file size is massive. I did a very light sharpening of the photo when I downsized it for the forum.

Slides or negatives are the same in terms of workflow. The slides have better quality in high detail files (but you will still see emulsion patterns, not exactly grain in high magnification) the negatives will show grain. For well preserved (or newer) negatives, or slides that have proper exposure, the scanning results are near dSLR quality, I wouldn't hesitate to print the Half Dome photo in 12x18 size (as a matter of fact, I most likely will).