[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
Alex, expect a war after your post :-) This is a long debated topic: last thread I followed ended with (more or less) the agreement that high-end scanners (drum scanners) work better with slides, whereas prosumer scanners give better results with negatives (of course, slides have the advantage of providing a visual reference for color calibration, but that's another matter). In my experience I can confirm that both the Nikon LS-30 and the Canon FS4000, especially for contrasty images, give MUCH better results with negs. I have never even seen a drum scanner, so I'll let someone else confirm or reject the other part of the statement. Anyway, if you already own a scanner and don't plan to change it, you may want to test your equipment, since that's what you're going to deal with. Alessandro Pardi One day I'll have a website. Until then, you can see some of my work here: http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=189247 > -Original Message- > From: Alex Zabrovsky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: lunedì 15 aprile 2002 13.19 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [filmscanners] Scanning negs vs. slides > > > Hi guys. > I just had a conversation with some experienced user of IV ED. > During the talk, he mentioned that once he acquired the > scanner and started to built his archive, he turned to negatives solely claiming > that he found the results to be better scanning negatives in case of wide > dynamic range captured on the film. He states that the image with > featuring high contrast (night scenic for example) will be > rendered much better by the scanner in terms of the details in dark, while > highlights are still well preserved, whilst with slides often the dark > details are missing being still resolved visually on light table under loupe. > Is that correct ? > I usually prefer to shoot slides for anything except people-related stuff, > but if is opinions have much to reflect the reality, I would > probably switch to negatives for outdoors also. > > Regards, > Alex Z > > -- > -- > Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with > 'unsubscribe filmscanners' > or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the > message title or body > Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
Thanks, I wasn't aware about the persistence of this issue on the List. Well, just after I hit Send button sending away my message, I thought it would be worthwhile to check it out shooting similar images simultaneously on slides and negs, scan then on my IV ED and then to make final decision. I think I'll do it soon. Regards, Alex Z -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Alessandro Pardi Sent: Monday, April 15, 2002 12:55 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides Alex, expect a war after your post :-) This is a long debated topic: last thread I followed ended with (more or less) the agreement that high-end scanners (drum scanners) work better with slides, whereas prosumer scanners give better results with negatives (of course, slides have the advantage of providing a visual reference for color calibration, but that's another matter). In my experience I can confirm that both the Nikon LS-30 and the Canon FS4000, especially for contrasty images, give MUCH better results with negs. I have never even seen a drum scanner, so I'll let someone else confirm or reject the other part of the statement. Anyway, if you already own a scanner and don't plan to change it, you may want to test your equipment, since that's what you're going to deal with. Alessandro Pardi One day I'll have a website. Until then, you can see some of my work here: http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=189247 > -Original Message- > From: Alex Zabrovsky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: lunedì 15 aprile 2002 13.19 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [filmscanners] Scanning negs vs. slides > > > Hi guys. > I just had a conversation with some experienced user of IV ED. > During the talk, he mentioned that once he acquired the > scanner and started to built his archive, he turned to negatives solely claiming > that he found the results to be better scanning negatives in case of wide > dynamic range captured on the film. He states that the image with > featuring high contrast (night scenic for example) will be > rendered much better by the scanner in terms of the details in dark, while > highlights are still well preserved, whilst with slides often the dark > details are missing being still resolved visually on light table under loupe. > Is that correct ? > I usually prefer to shoot slides for anything except people-related stuff, > but if is opinions have much to reflect the reality, I would > probably switch to negatives for outdoors also. > > Regards, > Alex Z > > -- > -- > Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with > 'unsubscribe filmscanners' > or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the > message title or body > Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
Alex writes ... > ..., I thought it would be worthwhile to check it out shooting > similar images simultaneously on slides and negs, > scan then on my IV ED and then to make final decision. > For many subjects you may find very little difference. Theoretically, any difference with slides should be attributed to their optical density and the possible number of f/stops. Slides are usually attributed with an optical density of not much more than '3', which limits the number of f/stops to ~10. Negatives, on the other hand, are claimed to have the potential for ~14 f/stops. 10 f/stops is a considerable amount of contrast, and should hardly ever exceed normal subject matter, ... but you might run into problems achieving shadow detail for a properly exposed sun-lit & snow-filled scene. cheerios ... shAf :o) Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland www.micro-investigations.com (in progress) Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
> he turned to negatives solely claiming that he found > the results to be better scanning negatives in case of wide dynamic range > captured on the film. It IS true that negative film has a wider dynamic range than slide film... > He states that the image with > featuring high contrast (night scenic for example) will be rendered much > better by the scanner in terms of the details in dark, while > highlights are > still well preserved, whilst with slides often the dark details > are missing > being still resolved visually on light table under loupe. That is not a dynamic range issue, but a density range issue (they are not the same, though in the imaging world, for some reason, people use them interchangeably, more likely because the word sounds cool and they don't really know what it means ;-). Slides DO have a wider density range than negative film, simply because the image density range is from clear to black for positive film, where on negative film, it's from film base to black...but that's only half the equation. Another reason that negatives don't have blocked shadows on a "regular" scanner is because negative shadow detail is on the LOW end of the density scale, and highlights are on the high end of the density scale. Positives have the shadows on the high end of the density scale, requiring a higher dMax to get to the shadows. > Is that correct ? > I usually prefer to shoot slides for anything except people-related stuff, > but if is opinions have much to reflect the reality, I would > probably switch > to negatives for outdoors also. Two issues with slides. One is the have a far narrower exposure latitude then negative film, and the second, the dynamic range (basically the amount of tonality they can capture over the density range) of positive film is lower than negative film. Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
Alex, I found the best comment on the topic of slides vs negs in a photo magazine a few days ago: "The negs can record many levels of light (wide input range) but the slides can capture many more tones in a narrower input range". That's why usually a well exposed slide looks very rich, very dense. When I did some informal tests with my Polaroid SS4000 I was impressed with the Provia 400F scans - very good color reproduction and low grain. My 400 speed negs weren't that spectacular. Granted, I was using consumer grade film: Kodak Max 400 and Fuji Superia 400. Petru. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 21:17:10 -0400 Petru Lauric ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > That's why usually a well exposed slide looks very rich, > very dense. > When I did some informal tests with my Polaroid SS4000 I was impressed > with the Provia 400F scans - very good color reproduction and low grain. > My 400 speed negs weren't that spectacular. ...but you *can* produce scans from negs which look as saturated and punchy as scans from slides. Either way is just R, G & B 0-255. With slide you discard a lot of image information at the shooting stage, with colour neg you defer those decisions until working on the scan and have a whole new degree of freedom not to mention endless second chances when you decide you got it wrong. Slide often forces you to sacrifice either shadow and/or highlight detail. With neg, you can if you wish retain both, by combining (say) an image which has good shadows and midtone separation but blown highlights, with one where you mask off the image apart from the highlights then adjust for those. This works absurdly well, is not difficult, and enables informal photography of subjects which would be impossible on tranny without an array of studio flash fill-in. Best done in 16bit/ch though, if you don't want a histogram that looks like a dog comb. Regards Tony Sleep http://www.halftone.co.uk - Online portfolio & exhibit; + film scanner info & comparisons Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
At 12:47 16/04/02, you wrote: >On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 21:17:10 -0400 Petru Lauric ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) >wrote: > > That's why usually a well exposed slide looks very rich, > > very dense. >... >and Tony wrote: >...but you *can* produce scans from negs which look as saturated and punchy >as scans from slides. Either way is just R, G & B 0-255. With slide you >discard a lot of image information at the shooting stage, with colour neg >you defer those decisions until working on the scan and have a whole new >degree of freedom not to mention endless second chances when you decide you >got it wrong. > >Slide often forces you to sacrifice either shadow and/or highlight detail. >With neg, you can if you wish retain both, by combining (say) an image >which has good shadows and midtone separation but blown highlights, with >one where you mask off the image apart from the highlights then adjust for >those. This works absurdly well, is not difficult, and enables informal >photography of subjects which would be impossible on tranny without an >array of studio flash fill-in. Absolutely! to this. But I agree too with what Petru says, in my experience if you find a subject which is low contrast (studio lighting or landscapes at the right time of day are my examples) there is something about a slide that is particularly enticing - it is not only the lack of grain (compared with expanded neg grain) but also a tonal continuity or "velvetiness" or it might be a richness that I have never got from a neg (35mm). I can get my negs to be punchy and saturated and spectacular, but never that smoothness velvetiness or richness that a well exposed slide brings. But that said I use negs almost always, for the reasons Tony said here. Julian Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
Tony writes: > With slide you discard a lot of image information > at the shooting stage, with colour neg you defer > those decisions until working on the scan ... Not true. Slides compress image information; they do not eliminate it. In a slide, you get extremely detailed gradations of tone from one zone to another in the image, but the extremes of white and black are closer together; in a negative, you get far less precision in the gradations of tone, but the extremes of white and black are further apart. Thus, negatives will cover a wide range of luminosities, but with low contrast and not much detail separate like tones in the image; slides will cover a narrow range of luminosities, but with high (i.e., natural-looking) contrast and very detailed gradations of tone. This is easy to see just by looking at the response curves of these films. Negative film has a broader, flatter response curve than slide film. Both types of film provide an equal amount of image information, but negative film spreads it all over a wider range of luminosities. Ideally, then, you would use negative film for extremely contrasty subjects if you must retain more detail in highlights and shadows, but you'd use slide film for low-contrast subjects in which very fine detail between adjacent tones must be retained. This would seem to suggest slides for studio portraits and many outdoor shots on overcast days or away from bright sunlight, but negative film for high-contrast, sunny outdoor subjects, night shots (which tend to be high contrast), and things like shows where there is a lot of high contrast in the subjects. > Slide often forces you to sacrifice either > shadow and/or highlight detail. Yes, because they pack all that detail into the midrange. So you get very subtle gradations between two similar tones in the photo, but the highlights tend to all turn white, and the shadows tend to all turn black. This is because slides have to be projected. In order to provide contrast similar to the original, real-life subject, there has to be a lot of contrast in the slide. In reality, five stops is already 32:1, and eight stops is 256:1; in order to show that on a projection, you need quite a steep change in density on the film. > With neg, you can if you wish retain both, by > combining (say) an image which has good shadows > and midtone separation but blown highlights, > with one where you mask off the image apart > from the highlights then adjust for those. Unfortunately, you'll also lose the subtle tonal gradations in all the middle zones, because the detail needed for that has been spread over a larger range to cover highlights and shadows. Whether you use negative film or slide film, you _cannot_ have it both ways. And incidentally, digital photography doesn't change this, either. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
Petru, I've had slides which had apparently blown-out highlights and deep shadows, and solved it by scanning them twice in NS (LS4000) with Analog Gain turned down (to get the highlights) and turned up (to get the shadows). When I looked at these two scans in PS, I was quite suprised by how much highlight detail and shadow detail there was if you get the scanner exposure appropriate. By superimposing them and painting out the blown-out highlights from the second scan, I got a very acceptable print from an apparently hopeless slide. Bob Frost At 12:47 16/04/02, you wrote: >On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 21:17:10 -0400 Petru Lauric > >Slide often forces you to sacrifice either shadow and/or highlight detail. >With neg, you can if you wish retain both, by combining (say) an image >which has good shadows and midtone separation but blown highlights, with >one where you mask off the image apart from the highlights then adjust for >those. This works absurdly well, is not difficult, and enables informal >photography of subjects which would be impossible on tranny without an >array of studio flash fill-in. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
> So gentlemen, if you would you shoot night > scenes where there is fine night illumination > surrounded by relative darkness, would you > chose slides or prints for further scanning ? If I'm shooting handheld, I use high-speed color negative film, usually Kodak Portra 800. All the Portra films are a dream to scan, usually excellent results. If I'm shooting on a tripod, I use Provia 100F slide film. It is reasonably rational in its rendering of artificial lights, and it has no reciprocity failure for exposures shorter than 120 seconds, and it has fine grain and the qualities you normally expect from slide film. Scans are no more difficult than daytime shots, and results are excellent. The main challenge in nighttime scans seems to be preserving or coaxing out the shadow detail without increasing noise too much (grain in the photo, or noise from the scanner). Light sources blow out on both slide and neg film, but you can often minimize the damage in areas surrounding them. As a general rule, night shots require a lot of post-scan tweaking to get the best results, much more so than day shots. You can see examples of nighttime shots at http://www.atkielski.com/Wallpapers/default.html Most of the nighttime shots were shot with a tripod on Provia 100F, with exposures of around eight seconds, then scanned on my LS-2000. Lots of tweaking is usually required to get the required contrast, detail, and "pop" out of the scans. The Moulin Rouge and Opera shots were on Portra 800; the originals are much noisier than equivalent shots on Provia. I'm not sure which film I used for the Champs-Elysees shot, but I _think_ it was Portra 800, judging from the exposure time. Most of these shots require color adjustment. The nighttime Louvre shot, for example, required tweaking to change the sodium-vapor light on the pavement from a yellowish-green (a typical rendering of this light on Provia) to the pinkish-orange that it appears to be in real life. In the Opera and Champs-Elysees shots, as I recall, I had to mask portions of the image and correct light sources individually--the Arc de Triomphe looks very greenish on Provia, and that had to be fixed without shifting the rest of the image. I've discovered that an amazing variety of nighttime shots seem to all boil down to exposures of f/8 at 8 seconds for ISO 100 film. I guess all lighted cities look very much the same from a distance, or something. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
Austin writes: > Well, yes they do eliminate it. Because of > their exposure latitude and limited dynamic > range. The exposure latitude clips the ends. And expands the midrange. So you are trading one type of information for another, but the total amount of image information on the slide is the same. > That's not true. Take a picture of a step > wedge and find out for your self. It cannot be otherwise, given the response curve of slide films, and the fact that film is a continuous-tone medium. Since the curve is steeper for midtones than that of negative films, the difference between adjacent tones in terms of film density in that midtone range is much greater on slides than on negatives, thus giving slides more resolution in that area. Of course, since the curve is so steep, it bottoms out and tops out more quickly, and so shadow and highlight detail is much more readily lost. > Wrong. The response curve has NOTHING to do > with representing the dynamic range/ability > to discern tones. Sure it does. It shows film density as a function of light exposure. A steep curve means that the density varies very rapidly with light exposure, producing a lot of resolution of adjacent tones, but potentially poor rendition of highlight and shadow (because most of the available density range is already being used to represent the midtones). A shallow curve means that adjacent tones are less clearly distinguishable, since they produce less variation in density, but it also implies that highlights and shadows will be more detailed, since more of the remaining density is available to represent them. And the whole purpose of the steep curves of slide film, as I've indicated, is to better reproduce the dynamic range of a scene during projection. The midtones of a slide can be projected with differences that much more closely approach those of the original scene; the drawback is that, since film density is limited in its range, highlights and shadows tend to lose detail. > Absolutely not true. The exposure latitude for > positive film is far less than for negative film, > and given that, there is less scene information > recorded on slide film. Latitude is irrelevant. The information-carrying capacity of the film is a function of its density range, from clear film to the darkest possible coloration of the emulsion. Slide film has a greater density range than negative film in this respect, and if we assume that both types of film provide the same resolution between adjacent density levels (a reasonable assumption), then slide film actually carries potentially more information than negative film. It is distributed differently, however. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
> > Do you have any substantiation that midtones > > are lost in negative film? > > The exposure vs. density curves for the films, That does not show you what you believe it does. There is no resolution to those curves, and they are NOT continuous. You don't seem to understand that 1) noise exists, and 2) the role that noise plays in this. Without that understanding, you can't understand why what you are saying is erroneous. > and my personal > experience in > trying to coax more midtone detail out of negative scans. Funny, I don't have that problem. Also, your scanner, scene, film, exposure, film development and operator savvy will come into play so you can't validly draw the conclusion because you claim you have not been able to do it. Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
Anthony, > > Are you trying to claim that the number > > of tones that paper is capable of is > > LESS than your eyes are capable of? > > Paper isn't capable of anything. Only paper combined with a > printing method > is capable of something. And current printing methods cannot > duplicate the > gamut of human vision. You just want to argue. You KNOW what was being said, or at least should have, since it was YOUR statement: "Printed paper is a very poor display medium," that was being responded to. You are wrong, the current printing methods CAN exceed what human vision is capable of in a given light. You can technically print a virtually unlimited number of tones with a dither pattern, limited by practicality and the size of the dither pattern/output. > > BTW, what do you believe makes paper a > > "very poor display medium"? > > Limited dynamic range, Yeah, but you don't know what dynamic range is, so how can you say that? Technically, everything has "limited dynamic range"...so you are merely stating something that is irrefutable, and doesn't add anything to your claim. > and the limitations of the inks and dyes used to > print upon it. What limitations is that? > > And compared to WHAT? > > CRT displays, You believe you can see more on a CRT display than on a print? Do you have a 24 x 24 display? You also believe that the 100 PPI resolution of a CRT is better for viewing an image than the 360 PPI resolution that you can achieve from printing? > direct projection of transparencies, Really? Projected on what? > and the like. Like what? > In > general, technologies that filter or produce light have larger gamuts than > those that merely reflect light. Really? What does it matter, if your medium exceeds human vision? BTW, please stop snipping what it is that is being replied to. Because of your snipping no one can see how your answer does or doesn't pertain to the issue being discussed, nor whether it may be right or wrong. Is this intentional? Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Scanning negs vs. slides
As I understand it neg film has lower density so that it can be printed with short exposure times. Neg film should actually be much more prone to posterisation/areas of uniform tone when scanned - especially if you try to capture the full dynamic range. __ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
on 4/17/02 4:00 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 08:58:20 -0400 Austin Franklin > ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > >> I don't believe those are one in the same... Yes, the dye densities are >> higher with slides, but the noise is also higher in a slide (less >> discernability between tones), and therefore dynamic range lower. > > All I can do is speculate, as I simply do not know enough. It seems logical > to me that the wider dye density range of slide should be able to better > resolve tonal nuances, albeit across a narrower range of subject > brightnesses. But that's guesswork. > > Equally I don't see why it should have more noise - and can't quite see > what 'analogue' noise is anyway in terms of film grain, except the > deviation of individual grain sizes from the median, for any given level of > illumination. But I haven't a clue what the reality is, except that fast, > large grained emulsions are worse than slow, fine-grained ones. > > All I've figured out is that, for myself, neg is immeasureably easier to > work with for the sort of photography I do. > > Against that background, an argument about absolute capacity for tonal > discrimination is - well, just not all that important. I haven't looked > into it, as it has never presented itself as a problem that needs solving, > with neg. > > However the loss of shadows and/or highlights with slide has presented > itself as a disastrous limitation on many occasions. > > So my position is : if slide has or has not superior tonal resolution, I > don't care as neg's is more than good enough, and neg's capacity for > recording huge dynamic range is valuable to me where slides' intolerance is > a pain in the arse. Not very erudite, but practical. > > > Regards > > Tony Sleep I feel the same way. I shoot in the New Mexico desert, and it is very very contrasty. Negative film can handle it. That's one reason I've not seriously considered changing to slide film. Ironically, there are still magazines that only want slides. Berry Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Scanning negs vs. slides
At 04:42 PM 4/18/02 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >I'll post some examples sometime soon, with workflow descriptions, as >dealing with colour negs seems to be a problem for many people, and it >certainly took hundreds of hours to get on top of it. Hi Tony, I, for one, would really like to see that. I mainly shoot slides and, I'll admit, I'm much more comfortable processing them as opposed to negatives. I can eventually get a decent image from most negatives but it's not an easy process for me. Any suggestions for a systematic method of correcting color casts would be much appreciated. Also, if any of your steps are scanner software specific I hope you'll include instructions for using Silverfast. Thanks, Johnny __ Johnny Johnson Lilburn, GA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
