HI, Ken
I'm not surpriised that you got good results. I think proper use of a
digital SLR is a very cost-effective way of reproducing old photographic
prints for all but the most critical applications. I've often done it
myself with materials too large for a scanner.
However, speaking as someone with 20 years of professional experience
working with a collection of half a million archival photographs, I must
point out that there is no substitute for an original negative or slide in
terms of potential image quality, whether as a darkroom print or as a scan.
In particular, with negatives the quality difference can be enormous.
Achieving that quality requires more technical skills than copying a print
but the potential is most certainly there. ( That's not a criticism of
you, Ken. I really admire your work. But I am a seriously experienced geek
in this area.)
My main message is: Don't get rid of your old negatives just because you
think you can do better copying priints with a digital SLR. Copying prints
with a camera is OK if you don't have the means to work with film, or all
you have for an original is a print, but if the pictures are important hang
on to those little bits of film. They carry a lot more information in
terms of detail, tonality and colour than prints.
Now I'll go back to lurking..
John Poirier
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Waller" <kwal...@peoplepc.com>
To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <pdml@pdml.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 4:48 PM
Subject: K20D as Scanner
I had the need for prints from some 50 year old B+W family pictures that I
didn't have the negs for.
I don't have a flat bed scanner & decided to shoot them with my K20D & my
200mm f4.0 ED Macro.
I shot them using a tripod, making sure I was perpendicular to the image
plane, using available light & being mindful to eliminate glare off the
originals. I shot raw, ran them thru CS2 (including applying a small
amount of unsharp mask) & printed them (slightly larger than the original
image) on my 12 year old Epson Stylus Photo printer.
The results are simply astounding ! Its hard to believe the final results
came from the 50 year old original - much clearer and sharper. I seriously
doubt if wet prints off the original negs would even come close to the
digitally produced images.
FYI
Kenneth Waller
http://www.tinyurl.com/272u2f
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