On 5/14/2012 9:07 AM, Kenton Brede wrote:
I'm just getting started with film. One of the things I've read is,
unlike digital, it's better to expose for shadow detail. I've read
that a lot of detail can be pulled back from the overexposed areas on
film.
My question is, can that detail be pulled back from a digital scan of
a negative, or can that only be done via wet print process in a
darkroom? Another way to state this, should film be exposed in
different ways depending on how it will be post processed, digitally
or analog?
Thanks,
About the rule: I was reading a book by Eddie Ephraum last month and he
harked on that rule a few times. Like any guideline, it is a good
starting point but every situation is different. Unless you have a spot
meter and are able and willing to work out the exposure, it really is a
trivially generalized statement. If you are using evaluative metering
the camera’s metering system itself is trying to adjust the exposure
basedthe shadow / highlight mix. You really have to use a spot meter or
at least CW averaging to really know what you are exposing for (or not).
Regarding scanning: Assuming we’re talking about B&W negative film here
– any good quality scanner should be able to extract information from
the denser areas of the negative. That doesn’t mean that the negs can’t
get totally blocked up through over exposure and/or over development,
but any good scanner should be able to get any useable data that is
there. I’ve scanned thousands of images on a Canon Canoscan FS4000 and
in the past year have been using a Nikon Coolscan 8000, with about 800
images scanned so far in 2012. While I used to scan mostly color slides,
the last few years have been mostly B&W negs and C41 negs.A good scanner
can extract a lot of data from either, but a poorly exposed and/or
processed bit of film will never be ideal.
For a while I tried working with developer combinations and agitation
regimens that resulted in lower contrast negatives – like highly dilute
Rodinal (1+50 or 1+100) or HC110 Dil H or G (?) and infrequent
agitation. My theory was to preserve as much shadow and highlight detail
as possible, get the benefits of compensating developers, capture as
much as possible in a scan, and then adjust as needed. It was a good
theory but in reality I find that scanning a crisp, nicely contrasted
negative is a lot better than trying to work through a dull flat one. So
now I usually just develop for standard contrast and scan from that. I
do tend to go for higher dilutions just because there is less room for
randomness when developing something for 10 to 15 minutes, vs 5 to 7.
The longer development time seems to even out the inevitable
inconsistencies in processing (at least in *my* processing :-)
You may need to tweak the settings in your scanner software.Just make a
preview scan and check the histogram and make sure that the black and
white points are not clipped. If the scanner and software support
multiple passes, that should also enable more data to be extracted from
dense areas of the film. I’ve never needed that with B&W negative film,
but have used it (rarely) for dense color transparency films. If push
comes to shove you can do a few scans and blend them together. Just as
in a darkroom where you’d make a base exposure and then mask off part of
the print and burn in another section, you can make two (or more) scans
and blend them together. I haven’t tried merge to HDR with multiple film
scans, but that might be an easy way to capture more data. Both of the
dedicated film scanners that I’ve used have had exposure adjustment
tools that let you over or under expose the scan by simply increasing or
decreasing the exposure time.I think that Vuescan also has a “long
exposure pass” setting that does two scan passes – one normal and one at
a longer exposure – to attempt to get more data out of scans. It’s been
years since I used Vuescan so I don’t know if that is still supported.
Have fun!
MCC
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