philipus Posted October 8, 2011 Share #1 Posted October 8, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) This is a 100% crop of a scan of Ilford FP Plus. I've not used this film much in the past. The film was developed by a lab in town. Obviously this part of the image is not in focus. There are several white spots, particularly visible in on the tree trunks but also seen on the house facade to the right and the rear of the cars. Question 1 - What are those spots? It doesn't look like grain to me. Question 2 - Overall I am a bit disappointed with the graininess of this film. Does anyone else feel the same? Thanks in advance for your views. Cheers Philip Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/163705-is-this-grain/?do=findComment&comment=1812855'>More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 8, 2011 Posted October 8, 2011 Hi philipus, Take a look here Is this grain?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
pop Posted October 8, 2011 Share #2 Posted October 8, 2011 This is a 100% crop of a scan Philip - how large was the scan of the entire picture (that is, in pixels)? 100% does not tell us how much of the image we're looking at. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipus Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share #3 Posted October 8, 2011 Hi Philipp Sorry I should have provided more info. The scan is 5600x3600px approximately. The image I posted is a cut-out of 900x600px. cheers Philip Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted October 8, 2011 Share #4 Posted October 8, 2011 Didi they scan it with Digital ICE OFF? (You will probably need to ask them) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipus Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share #5 Posted October 8, 2011 Gah, sorry guys. I really didn't provide any info in my first post. My apologies. I scanned the image using the latest version of Vuescan with my Nikon Coolscan V. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted October 8, 2011 Share #6 Posted October 8, 2011 IMHO it is noise. Noise is white. Grain is black. I think it is over-scanned. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipus Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share #7 Posted October 8, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi Pico How do you mean "over-scanned" I have scanned it with black and white points set to 0. cheers Philip Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
earleygallery Posted October 8, 2011 Share #8 Posted October 8, 2011 It shouldn't look like that, could be poor processing or a scanning issue. The spots are probably dust, although I think the White spots on the cars are actually badges? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Henry Posted October 8, 2011 Share #9 Posted October 8, 2011 Philip, it happens when I develop myself b&w films , i have little white spots especially when I turn a little too strong in the developer in the tank ! Henry .... at post n°12 of the thread below, you can see that in the crop, Epsonscan reduces white dots but Nikonscan lets some white dots http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/film-forum/160651-epson-v700-750-very-good-our.html Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted October 8, 2011 Share #10 Posted October 8, 2011 Over scanned, noise is white, where did this BS come from? The uneven tonality on the grey houses and black tree is in fact grain. FP4 never produced fine grain for me. You got what I always get. Different developer will help very little to not at all. Fine grain developers lose speed and sharpness. The whte spots are either emulsion defects or silver that precipitated from used fix or airborn dust that settled on the emulsion when it was still wet. Most likely a combination of the last two. If you see black crud on bottom of fix bottle, that is silver and it sticks to next film and will not wash off . The developing process needs cleaning up. I never reuse fix more than 8 hours since first use . Use it up on test prints or toss it. There is no effective home filtering. The late great Fred Picker said never pour anything back into a bottle. He was correct. Glass bottles which you clean and dry dedicated to one chemical. Clean dry drying space with HEPA air filters. Hospital clean. All this junk goes away I promise you. Anti dust scanning does not work with non C 41 film. Forget it. Less grain is Delta 100 or shoot at 60 ISO and cut development 20%. Shocking what this will do. Another I promise. Took me 50 stubborn years to learn this. Start now and save yourself a bunch of grief. My spotting tools have been in the cabinet for 5 years now and I miss them not one whit. If you are counting on a commercial lab, stop. Buy a thermometer, tank, chems, and clock. You can do way better. I recommend D76 1:1 or ID11 1:1 Use Ilfords time for diffusion enlarger, cut it 10% for scanning or condenser enlarger, and 20% from that for 60 iso. CLEAN CLEAN is the key. Forgot, filter your own water and never squeegee wet film. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipus Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share #11 Posted October 8, 2011 Philip, it happens when I develop myself b&w films , i have little white spots especially when I turn a little too strong in the developer in the tank ! Henry .... at post n°12 of the thread below, you can see that in the crop, Epsonscan reduces white dots but Nikonscan lets some white dots http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/film-forum/160651-epson-v700-750-very-good-our.html Thanks Henry. It really is very clear in the comparison crops in that thread. Interesting. The uneven tonality on the grey houses and black tree is in fact grain. FP4 never produced fine grain for me. Took me 50 stubborn years to learn this. Start now and save yourself a bunch of grief. Thank you very much Tobey. I appreciate your insight into this. I wish I had the time to develop myself but unfortunately I don't. I've noticed over the years that the quality of the labs varies a lot. And as the number of available labs dwindles it seems to get worse. Sigh. So I understand your point why it would be better to do it all oneself. I will have to think about it. Perhaps I can ask a related question though about good b/w films. In the past I always used TMax (100 and 400) and Ilford (FP4 and HP5). Can you recommend other fine-grain films? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted October 8, 2011 Share #12 Posted October 8, 2011 Over scanned, noise is white, where did this BS come from? You know where it came from: me. And I stand by what wrote. That is not dust. It is not random enough in size. It could be caused by 'overexposing' (overscanning) a thin negative. And your penchant for dust control (snipped) is totally over the top. Think - when does normal dust cause problems? Final rinse, drying, printing (or scanning). I know HEPA and similar tech (ask and I'll tell you). I've never in my life seen 'dust' as the OP shows it. Older <> Wiser Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpattison Posted October 8, 2011 Share #13 Posted October 8, 2011 I'd recommend Delta 100 over FP4 anytime for scanning, it is so much more "responsive" John Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/163705-is-this-grain/?do=findComment&comment=1812993'>More sharing options...
andybarton Posted October 8, 2011 Share #14 Posted October 8, 2011 Delta 100 is a significantly better film than FP4+ in my experience too. FP4+ is ancient technology in film terms. I don't use hepa filters or any of that nonsense. Hospital Clean is both unobtainable unless you are in a hospital and completely over the top. I do take care of my film and I do dry it carefully. But, over a radiator or in front of a glazed door if the sun is out. I don't suffer from excessive dust spots. I do use a squeegee. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
250swb Posted October 8, 2011 Share #15 Posted October 8, 2011 I don't buy the idea that its dust or 'over scanning'. Even if you think you have a better alternative film it is the case that FP4 doesn't/shouldn't produce grain like that. That is a red herring. The white spots are too fine, not even in size, but are even in distribution, so its not dust when the film was drying. That is another red herring. 'Over scanning' to that level would cause more pronounced artifacts, these artifacts are soft. That is another red herring. All of which makes me think it is either contamination in the chemicals of dust and dirt, or undisolved chemicals. If the lab just mixed a fresh batch of ID11 or D76 and plunged your film straight in for instance. Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted October 8, 2011 Share #16 Posted October 8, 2011 I'd recommend Delta 100 over FP4 anytime for scanning, it is so much more "responsive" John Can we presume that your image shows all of the frame? At roughly the same scale, the original picture would look something like this: Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Could it possibly be that the white specks are actually part of the subject, i.e. motes of dust or something floating in the air? Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Could it possibly be that the white specks are actually part of the subject, i.e. motes of dust or something floating in the air? ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/163705-is-this-grain/?do=findComment&comment=1813059'>More sharing options...
adan Posted October 9, 2011 Share #17 Posted October 9, 2011 1) FP4 is "old tech" film - it will always be grainier than the "new tech" films of a similar speed - TMax 100, Delta 100 or ACROS 100. It has other redeeming values (more tolerant of exposure and processing variations, usually slightly longer tonal range). 2) The Nikon Coolscan V or 5000ED scanners emphasize grain - their LED light sources act like a point-source enlarger head. Ollinger's Guide to Photographic Enlargers: How to Buy and Test an Enlarger (1960) "True condenser enlarger (A) utilizes point source of light and two condensers. It produces prints with maximum sharpness and most graininess." 3) Some of the white specks are dust. 4) The smallest, and most evenly sized and distributed white specks (e.g. in tree trunk at right) are pepper grain - bubbles in the plastic film base that are completely blurred away on traditional enlarger prints, but were "discovered" once high-res scanned images became prevalent. Luminous landscape Pepper grain is - like dust, of course - black in positive images (slides), and white in tonally-reversed scans of negatives. I definitely noticed the sudden appearance of pepper grain in Ilford B&W film (Pan F) in switching from a 2700ppi Coolscan II to the 4000 ppi 50000ED. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted October 9, 2011 Share #18 Posted October 9, 2011 To: jpattison It's not even sharp on a lowly Mac Air screen! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpattison Posted October 9, 2011 Share #19 Posted October 9, 2011 Yes, sorry It was a bad example. Cheap Epson scanner, done years ago. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted October 9, 2011 Share #20 Posted October 9, 2011 I don't use hepa filters or any of that nonsense. Hospital Clean is both unobtainable unless you are in a hospital and completely over the top. Even hospitals know that, but their largest concern is that they know that the worst dust is what comes from human skin which is a carrier of bacteria. It's only one of the reasons they prefer patients to don hospital gowns and put the patients clothes away because the clothes are full of stuff. OK, I use HEPA filters. Like most later model cars, the air intake on mine has a HEPA filter. I use HEPA filters in the vacuum. The furnace/air conditioner has two layers of filters - electronic, steel (and has humidity control). And in two rooms of the house I have stand-alone HEPA filters with carbon pre-filters. Sometimes I'll move one to the darkroom especially when drying LF there. And finally, I have a Senrac film dryer with double filters for MF and 35mm. I rarely have dust problems, but of course it was not always that way - before I started filtering. Most household dust comes from skin. Some people shed more than others. They are the ones who have horrible dust problems in changing bags (wear gloves). This is the room HEPA filter I use. It is much less expensive when I order in person at a Sears store. I'm getting another two. It's amazing how much dust they pick up. NOW we have a brand new problem closer to the river - FRAC SAND - the crap is being mined upstream and dumped into a 50' pile upwind to be processed and then barged or placed on trains which run through town. It's beginning to show up on cars and roofs downtown - noticeable accumulation in one day. This is very evil stuff. I'm thinking of moving before it starts to get into our area if our law suits don't help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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