Back to Film but which one

[UnTruth]

Digital has arrived and I have dabbled at 5.1 megapixels. I like
digital and can make nice prints up to 8x10 that look great. The next
obvious step is a SLR Digital. I grew up with Canon and have a nice
collection of EOS stuff. The problem is the $1600 for the EOS 20D. So
what do I do? I turn my back and march firmly into the past. I went on
EBay and purchased my first camera again, a Canon A1 for $100. The last
time I had one of these and was what I considered an advanced amateur I
shot Kodachrome exclusively. Now , in the 21st century, I will scan all
new negatives into Photoshop.
My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides? The reason I
shot slides in the past is that I had a lot of control over the image
and did not have to worry about how the printer would change my intent.
Since these are now going into Photoshop is their any advantage to
slides? Will I still be able to get that Kodachrome saturated look with
negatives? The advantage to negatives would be the faster speed and
longer tonal range. I really like the print results I get from Fuji
Reala 100. What is the megapixel equivalent of Fuji 100. how about
400?

thanks

 

[Robert Feinman]

Digital has arrived and I have dabbled at 5.1 megapixels. I like
digital and can make nice prints up to 8x10 that look great. The next
obvious step is a SLR Digital. I grew up with Canon and have a nice
collection of EOS stuff. The problem is the $1600 for the EOS 20D. So
what do I do? I turn my back and march firmly into the past. I went on
EBay and purchased my first camera again, a Canon A1 for $100. The last
time I had one of these and was what I considered an advanced amateur I
shot Kodachrome exclusively. Now , in the 21st century, I will scan all
new negatives into Photoshop.
My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides? The reason I
shot slides in the past is that I had a lot of control over the image
and did not have to worry about how the printer would change my intent.
Since these are now going into Photoshop is their any advantage to
slides? Will I still be able to get that Kodachrome saturated look with
negatives? The advantage to negatives would be the faster speed and
longer tonal range. I really like the print results I get from Fuji
Reala 100. What is the megapixel equivalent of Fuji 100. how about
400?

thanks

Color negative film has greater dynamic range that slides. Many people
think slides are "sharper". Things like saturation and color balance
can be adjusted in Photoshop so I suggest going for negative film.
The lower ISO films seem to have much less visible grain that the higher
ones, even though the number don't seem to show it.
I find 200 ISO a good compromise. Slower and you run into camera shake
and depth of field problems when hand-held, faster you get grain.
Why not buy an assortment and try your self.

 

[Ian Riches]

UnTruth ([email protected]) wrote...

Digital has arrived and I have dabbled at 5.1 megapixels. I like
digital and can make nice prints up to 8x10 that look great. The next
obvious step is a SLR Digital. I grew up with Canon and have a nice
collection of EOS stuff. The problem is the $1600 for the EOS 20D. So
what do I do? I turn my back and march firmly into the past. I went on
EBay and purchased my first camera again, a Canon A1 for $100. The last
time I had one of these and was what I considered an advanced amateur I
shot Kodachrome exclusively. Now , in the 21st century, I will scan all
new negatives into Photoshop.

What scanner do you intend to use? The reason that I ask is that it
is widely stated (I.e. I have read it but not proved it for
myself...) that the flatbed scanners with attachments for 35mm film
cannot handle as dense a negative/positive as the dedicated film
scanners. With such a device, you may be better sticking with
negative film rather than positive, especially some of the more
contrasty/saturated slide film emulsions.

My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides?

For what its worth, I find that slide film gets me a better scan than
colour negative film. Even on something like Reala 100, the grain is
still far more noticeable than on say Sensia 100. This is on a
Minolta Dual Scan Elite II 35mm film scanner.

The reason I
shot slides in the past is that I had a lot of control over the image
and did not have to worry about how the printer would change my intent.
Since these are now going into Photoshop is their any advantage to
slides?

As above, I still find the relative lack of grain in slides gives
them an advantage over negative film for me.

Will I still be able to get that Kodachrome saturated look with
negatives?

You can post-process to add saturated, correct colour casts etc. in
Photoshop. There's only so much you can do, but in general I find
that I can boost saturation on a well-exposed image beyond the "it's
starting to hurt my eyes point" before any significant posterisation
occurs on both negative and positive film.

The advantage to negatives would be the faster speed and
longer tonal range.

400 speed slide films scan for me just fine. If you need to go
faster than that, then you probably are looking at sticking with
negative films.

For dynamic range, the wider response of negative film can be an
advantage. However, I have sometimes got round this by taking two
separate exposures on slide film, one for the shadow detail and one
for the higlights, and then combining them digitally. A bit of an
effort, but sometimes worth it. Less work is to expose carefully for
the highlights and then bring out the "lost" shadow detail in
Photoshop. If the brightness range is not *too* great, this can work
OK.

You can also, of course, do it the old fashioned way and get out the
graduated ND filters to hold back bright skies ;-)

I really like the print results I get from Fuji
Reala 100.

Yep. The differences to me are normally small, and if you are only
ever going to do 6x4 prints then they are, IMHO, not worth worrying
about.

What is the megapixel equivalent of Fuji 100. how about
400?

An area of much debate. Go there with caution ;-)

FWIW, my 2820dpi scanner generates somewhere around a 10-11MP image.
If I haven't used a tripod, or have used my (cheap-ish) lens wide
open then it is normally pretty clear that scanning at a higher
resolution would not yield significantly (if any) better results.

As I understand it, a good 35mm film is capable of recording much
more than 10MP *in ideal conditions*, but much of the time I do not
shoot under those. I would like to blame my less-than-top-of-the-
range equipment, but poor/lazy technique is probably more to blame.

Having stated all of the above, my final recommendation is for you to
go out and buy a few rolls of different films and try for yourself.
Your own personal preference / subjects/ shooting style / scanner /
preferred workflow will all influence your final decision.

Hope some of this helps.

Ian

 

[Carsten Schurig]

I find 200 ISO a good compromise. Slower and you run into camera shake
and depth of field problems when hand-held, faster you get grain.
Why not buy an assortment and try your self.

I'm using Fuji Superia 400 for a while now. Some test say that this 35mm
negative film has a resolution which even some 100's don't have... An
advantag in my eyes is, that it has an really large range of exposures.
I found +3,-1.5 acceptable. If the available light is sufficient, I'm
using it as a 200. Then this film has a better colour saturation. If
it's needed I'm sometimes use it as 400 or even 800.

I wouldn't recommend using AGFA film. In my experience the 100's
negative 35mm films (for consumers) is even worse in resolution compared
to the Fuji ones...

I'd recommend using negative film if you don't want to use the slides
the "classical" way -- projecting them. The negatives have a better
resolution (at least at higher sensitivities), a much large dynamic
range (so not such big problem with under-/overexposure and you can get
highdynamic pictures directly of a scan if your scanner has 48bit
output). One problem with scanning is, to get the "real" colours because
of the orange mask, though. But good scanning programs help you there...

 

[Don]

Digital has arrived and I have dabbled at 5.1 megapixels. I like
digital and can make nice prints up to 8x10 that look great. The next
obvious step is a SLR Digital. I grew up with Canon and have a nice
collection of EOS stuff. The problem is the $1600 for the EOS 20D. So
what do I do? I turn my back and march firmly into the past. I went on
EBay and purchased my first camera again, a Canon A1 for $100. The last
time I had one of these and was what I considered an advanced amateur I
shot Kodachrome exclusively. Now , in the 21st century, I will scan all
new negatives into Photoshop.

Hey, I (still) have a Canon A1! Plus a bunch of extras (28 wide angle
lens, a 100-300 zoom, a bunch of filters, close-up lenses, etc...)
Great camera! I love my A1!

And I almost exclusively shot Kodachromes too, which I have been
trying to scan now for about a year and which are causing me untold
amounts of grief and a lot of gray hair... ;o)

My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides? The reason I
shot slides in the past is that I had a lot of control over the image
and did not have to worry about how the printer would change my intent.
Since these are now going into Photoshop is their any advantage to
slides? Will I still be able to get that Kodachrome saturated look with
negatives? The advantage to negatives would be the faster speed and
longer tonal range. I really like the print results I get from Fuji
Reala 100. What is the megapixel equivalent of Fuji 100. how about
400?

The key - the way I see it - is dynamic range. Slides have a dynamic
range which, although nominally is covered by most film scanners these
days, in practice leave a lot to be desired. I have a Nikon LS-50
(a.k.a. CoolScan V) which is 14-bit and has *no* multiscanning.

In my tests, however, I have determined that in order to really get
every detail out of those dense Kodachrome shadows, I really need
17-18 bits of dynamic range. I achieve this by scanning twice (once
for highlights and once for shadows) and then combining the two.

So, nominally, it would appear that negatives would be a better bet
because of their reduced (compressed) dynamic range. However, they
cause other problems. For example, detail in slide shadows is not
really that visible, but in negatives these shadows become highlights
and then the detail (or rather the lack of it) as well as noise and
grain become a problem.

So, not really an answer, but a few things to consider. I have pretty
much given up film, but I'm constantly tempted to go back.

I've seen others recommending Velvia as the film for scanning because
of low grain and absence of "pepper spots" but I can't confirm this
first hand. As others have suggested, the best thing in the end may be
to try different film and stick with the one which suits your scanner
the best.

Don.

 

[UnTruth]

I'm using Fuji Superia 400 for a while now. Some test say that this 35mm
negative film has a resolution which even some 100's don't have... An
advantag in my eyes is, that it has an really large range of exposures.
I found +3,-1.5 acceptable. If the available light is sufficient, I'm
using it as a 200. Then this film has a better colour saturation. If
it's needed I'm sometimes use it as 400 or even 800.

I wouldn't recommend using AGFA film. In my experience the 100's
negative 35mm films (for consumers) is even worse in resolution compared
to the Fuji ones...

I'd recommend using negative film if you don't want to use the slides
the "classical" way -- projecting them. The negatives have a better
resolution (at least at higher sensitivities), a much large dynamic
range (so not such big problem with under-/overexposure and you can get
highdynamic pictures directly of a scan if your scanner has 48bit
output). One problem with scanning is, to get the "real" colours because
of the orange mask, though. But good scanning programs help you there...

I'll be scanning with a HP Photosmart s20 film scanner

 

[Anoni Moose]

My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides? The reason I
shot slides in the past is that I had a lot of control over the image

and did not have to worry about how the printer would change my

intent.

That thought still remains. Yes one can "fix" colors for negative
handling in photoshop, but that's you as the printer in the above
scenario. IOW, "memory" becomes the color reference for images, and
"memory" is typically bad and gets worse as time passes since the
photo was taken.

Mike

 

[Elwood Dowd]

A lot depends on what you shoot. I bought a bunch of Reala intending to
take some photos outside (with trusty Canon AE-1 and even older Minolta
Autocord TLR). The colors turned out quite muddy because I live on the
coast with lots of fog. The "cheaper" Superia gave me much better
colors to work with under the same conditions.

On the other hand, Reala or Kodak Portra in studio conditions with
controlled lighting is hard to beat.

I don't shoot slides because it all goes in the scanner. My slide
projector is about 60 years old and belonged to my wife's grampa. It
does suck down about 400 watts and is quite bright, but the lens is only
middlin and I am far too cheap to buy a newer one.

Back to original question---why buy a 20D? You can find a 10D body for
much less, around $600, that will fit all your EOS lenses and give you
more manual options than you are likely to take advantage of. If you
can shoot happily with an A1 I think you would find the 10D to be a
starship by comarison.

Best of luck!

 

[Tom Ellliott]

By accident I discovered if I exposed color negative films at plus one stop
or more I got better scans from the Kodak Pro CD scans. AND in the case of
the accidental discovery it was well over the one stop, something like
three. The reason it was an accidental discovery was that I had bracketed
the color negs, on, one over, two over and then three over (reasoning the
shadows would be better, especially with Photoshop layers). Did not have to
go the layer route when I used the three stop over. Go figure.
Yours,
Tom

 

[Daniel]

Of what I have been seeing lately, if you do not develop your own film or
slides, you are going to be out of luck with whatever type of "film" you
use. Everything is going over to digital pretty fast and there will be less
and less real film sold along with the service to develop it. I have a
friend who likes to shoot the Fuji slide film and of recently is having a
hard time finding anyone local to develop the film for him. And he does not
want to send the slides away in the mail to have developed.

Good Luck,

Dan

 

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen]

Yes, I agree. Avoid underexposed negatives if you want to scan them.
Slightly overexposed is better. I believe the reason may be that
negatives have a very large exposure latitude, so you can expose a lot
without the film blocking up. By overexposing, you are effectively
creating a negative whuch covers a wider range of film densities (more
like a slide). This may suit the scanner better, as they have problems
with both too large and too small density ranges.

TE> By accident I discovered if I exposed color negative films at plus one stop
TE> or more I got better scans from the Kodak Pro CD scans. AND in the case of
TE> the accidental discovery it was well over the one stop, something like
TE> three. The reason it was an accidental discovery was that I had bracketed
TE> the color negs, on, one over, two over and then three over (reasoning the
TE> shadows would be better, especially with Photoshop layers). Did not have to
TE> go the layer route when I used the three stop over. Go figure.
TE> Yours,
TE> Tom
TE>
<snip>

 

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen]

But slide film also lies to you, just differently. So you need to
correct the color in any instance, unless you have an accurate profile
for the film you are using. I have just scanned some old
Kodachromes, and even though they look good on the projection screen,
the scanner gives the scanned images a nasty color cast, which also
actaully is there on the slide, just not so obvious. I get more
accurate colors with no tweaking from Fuji Superia with Silverfast.
With more modern slide film, the results are the same as with the
negatives.

AM> intent.

AM> That thought still remains. Yes one can "fix" colors for negative
AM> handling in photoshop, but that's you as the printer in the above
AM> scenario. IOW, "memory" becomes the color reference for images, and
AM> "memory" is typically bad and gets worse as time passes since the
AM> photo was taken.

AM> Mike

 

[Chris Brown]

My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides?

Shoot slides. Scanning is very tedious, and you *will* get out of the habit
of scanning everything, simply because it's a pain in the backside.

Once you reach this point, slides have the advantage that you don't need to
scan them to see the picture. Negatives don't have this property, unless you
get your lab to run off a set of 6*4s for you.

 

[Anoni Moose]

But slide film also lies to you, just differently. So you need to
correct the color in any instance, unless you have an accurate profile
for the film you are using. I have just scanned some old
Kodachromes, and even though they look good on the projection screen,
the scanner gives the scanned images a nasty color cast, which also

yes, Kodachrome is a hard one to scan (and to copy too for
that matter). Some scanners do better than others in that
regard (as well as varying between versions of Kodachrome
too). But you at least still have a color reference -- the slide
itself. Especially with Kodachrome.

For more commonly used current films (popular Fuji chromes
and Ektachrome from Kodak) one can get IT-8 reference slides
from Wolf Faust (name from memory, appolgies if spelt wrong)
for a price much less than buying one from Fuji or Kodak. In
fact he's got a package deal with multiple film-type IT-8
slices plus a print version (all with reference data) for
calibrating flatbeds. Of course, one also has to have a
calibrated monitor and use software for image viewing that
uses the color management system for things to work out
best for viewing "going digital" .

Mike

 

[MPA]

Digital has arrived and I have dabbled at 5.1 megapixels. I like
digital and can make nice prints up to 8x10 that look great. The next
obvious step is a SLR Digital. I grew up with Canon and have a nice
collection of EOS stuff. The problem is the $1600 for the EOS 20D. So
what do I do? I turn my back and march firmly into the past. I went on
EBay and purchased my first camera again, a Canon A1 for $100. The last
time I had one of these and was what I considered an advanced amateur I
shot Kodachrome exclusively. Now , in the 21st century, I will scan all
new negatives into Photoshop.
My question is, Do I now shoot negatives or slides? The reason I
shot slides in the past is that I had a lot of control over the image
and did not have to worry about how the printer would change my intent.
Since these are now going into Photoshop is their any advantage to
slides? Will I still be able to get that Kodachrome saturated look with
negatives? The advantage to negatives would be the faster speed and
longer tonal range. I really like the print results I get from Fuji
Reala 100. What is the megapixel equivalent of Fuji 100. how about
400?

thanks

you are really on the right track. congratulations. just try out all
kind of professional films, also the more exotic ones like agfa ultra
100(very contrasty for dull light conditions). i am at the stage of
colorcalibration for scanning color-negatives. i will produce my own
target by shooting a greycard, amybe also colortarget. pls have a look
at http://www.fotowand.de and ask dietmar meisel. i think he has only
slidetargets. but you can use his card to produce colornegative-profiles
like shown here:
http://www.colour-science.com/quality test tools/IT87negatives/IT87_neg_productlist.htm
there is a german expert called erik krause who is often responding
here. he has a wonderful description about contrast control on his
website. just enter erik krause and germany in google.

 

[Tom Ellliott]

Ah, well, "Shoot slides". Why when color negatives give you a much broader
range. On slides if you over expose, the highlights get blown and can not be
recovered and if you under expose the shadows loose detail.
Color negatives are much more forgiving. And if one errs on the side of over
exposure for color negatives the shadows get more detail and the highlights
can take the over exposure and not get blown out.
Motion pictures are shot on color negative stock for just that reason -
Color negatives are more forgiving at both ends.
Just a simple test on transparency film and color negative film will show
it.
I had to shoot under mixed flourescents in a meat packing company. Low
ceilings, large area and no budget for lighting up a basket ball court size
space.
I shot color negatives and got color prints, color slides and black and
white prints. Only in the deep shadows could you tell it was flouresent
lighting ... a little green. The red meat looked great and the client was
very happy. Kodak makes color print film from 35mm up to 8x10. This same
client wanted to have transparencies made for point of purchase display.
Color negatives solved and saved the day.
Now don't get me wrong, I do like slides, no matter what the size but if I
don't have the time to bracket (also budget = three or more frames per shot
for the right shot = three times the amount of initial film shot.) then I
will always go for color negative material.
Some art directors like slides/transparencies because if it right then it is
right and they go to color seps and print it.
Yes the technology is going more and more digital = digital backs to
computer layout direct to plate and can balance each shot on the page
without affecting the whole page.
We could get in a p**ing match of what is sharper, slide or negative but
come on, a 8x11 catalogue with ... maybe a full page photo with most 4x5 or
smaller and a 200 line screen....the grain would have to be the size of golf
balls to see.
The best example of small format photography, digital or film, is National
Geographic.
Have fun.
Yours,
Tom Elliott
http://www.tom-elliott-photography.com

 

[PGG]

Once you reach this point, slides have the advantage that you don't need to
scan them to see the picture. Negatives don't have this property, unless you
get your lab to run off a set of 6*4s for you.

I completely agree here. Scanning is tedious. Pick the slides you want
scanned. Also with slides it is easy to match color because you have the
original slide as a reference. When I scan negatives, I am basically
adjusting color to make it "look good", but I'm not sure how it actually
looked when I took the picture.

Greater exposure range? Blah...true but if your photo doesn't fit in the
range of a slide film, then it will give you problems with negatives too
even if the detail is there.

 

[Tom Ellliott]

Greater exposure range? Blah...true but if your photo doesn't fit in the
range of a slide film, then it will give you problems with negatives too
even if the detail is there.

Totally disagree. Slide film by its technical nature has a very narrow
range, and if you shoot positives (either in stills or motion picture) you
MUST fill the shadows with supplimental lights or reflectors. Bouncing the
sun into those dark areas to see details in the shadows, where with color
negatives you can over expose to get some detail in the shadows and in the
case of B&W the old addage was "expose for the shadows and develope for the
highlights" = overexposing and underdeveloping and with stills done with
sheet film this is easier because you can then choose the developer (low
contrast/low temperature short times).
So with stills you can do all sorts of "tricks" to get a full range that
will reproduce well.
In film/video you HAVE TO LIGHT THE SET/SCENE the way you want to see it.
After filming you are limited as to the type of corrections you can do,
especially if on a TIGHT budget.
So, if you can controll the light, then you can shoot transparencies and yes
it will be fantastic.
If you cannot controll the light (for what ever reason) then IMHO use color
negative and open up one full stop.
Now, in doing all of the above, callibration of equipment and being
consistant are your two most important "tools".
Measure twice, cut once.
AND
HAVE FUN! for life is much shorter than you think.
Yours,
Tom Elliott
http://www.tom-elliott-photography.com

 

[Chris Brown]

Ah, well, "Shoot slides". Why when color negatives give you a much broader
range.

I already explained why in the post you followed up to. Because one will
very quickly tire of scanning everything, and leave most shots unscanned.

With slides, you can still see the picture. With print film, you see, er,
brown.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Ah, well, "Shoot slides". Why when color negatives give you a much broader
range.

One reason is exactly that.
Slides have a more limited range because they record a higher contrast
image on the emulsion than negatives. Negatives have more latitude
because the recorded image contrast is compressed relative to the
original scene. The negative image contrast is then stretched back to
the original level as part of the printing (or scanning) process to
produce an image which is similar to the original scene, just like the
slide.

But the film emulsion recording the image, whether natural or contrast
compressed, is not perfect - and one of the imperfections is grain. On
the high contrast slide image the emulsion grain is projected or scanned
at the same relative contrast to the final image. On the negative, the
contrast stretching required to produce the final image also enhances
the contrast of the emulsion grain.

Consequently, for similar technology films, shooting on slides will
result in less grainy results. So its a trade-off - better results from
slide film, easier exposure control with negative film.

Thus has it always been.