Shoot film/develop digitally-- workflow

[dalippe]

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Hi,

 

Spending time looking at the pictures posted on the LUF has me interested in shooting B&W film-- something I haven't done since high school! But I am completely converted to doing everything post shoot (archiving, development, printing) digitally. I know that many (most?) people here work by scanning their film and doing everything I mentioned digitally. How do these scans get done? Do most people own a home scanner, or are there services that can provide high quality scans at low enough cost to justify having them scan every roll you shoot? How hard (and most importantly, time consuming) is it to get good scans on a home scanner? Because of lack of time, I'm already behind archiving and processing my digital work. The last thing I need is to introduce another time consuming step into the workflow.

 

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

David

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[Cadfael_tex]

I'd be very interested in an answer to this question as well. I rediscovered film recently and before pumping mondo dollars into a D-slr of any description I could have lots of fun and a lot of lenses in either an older M, R, or even screwmount.

[spylaw4]

I'll take a deep breath plunge in here with some comments of my experiences as a result of my fairly recent return to using film as well as digital.

 

Find yourself a good processing company, that doesn't leave your film covered in dust spots and scratches. After a number of trails I now use a fairly local company's professional service which only costs around £6/roll and gives very good results. Of course you can, and others will advocate doing so, develop your own. I may do this eventually but there may be domestic discord to contend with!

 

Scanning services can be expensive if you want good large-file scans. It doesn't take all that many scanned rolls to cover the cost of a scanner (2nd hand from that auction site) Nikon or Minolta seem to be the most common - try to get a USB connection model. I get pretty good results from my Minolta Scan Dual IV using either Minolta's own software (latest version), or better still - Vuescan software which is a bit obscure instruction-wise but gives good results and it's not that hard to do. Although it obviously takes overall somewhat longer than a pure digital image it doesn't really take too long either and the process is quite rewarding IMO. You don't need to scan every shot!

[Michael-IIIf]

Of course you can, and others will advocate doing so, develop your own. I may do this eventually but there may be domestic discord to contend with!

 

Brian,

 

A full darkroom might raise some domestic eyebrows but developing the negs is easy peasy. All my kit fits in a box smaller than a shoebox. I load the daylight tank in the bathroom and do the processing at the kitchen sink. If I'm developing Delta 100, or FP4, the process time is only 6 mins. If I'm organised I can do Develop (6 mins), Stop (30 secs), Fix (4 mins) and Rinse (10 mins) all done and dusted before Yannik notices. What she doesn't see, doesn't cause discord

 

Michael

[ericperlberg]

I've also been thinking about using film (probably MF) along with digital. Although I don't have a significant other problem in terms of home developing I'm not enthusiastic about dealing with chemicals in my kitchen.

 

Has anyone in London tried Photofusion's (Brixton) developing service? I see they have a non-machine development option with a choice of developers. Or, as there seem to be some Londoners here, can anyone recommend a good service in near the City/Central London?

 

(apologies for the the totally non-digital nature of this post)

 

Eric

[spylaw4]

<snip> Or, as there seem to be some Londoners here, can anyone recommend a good service in near the City/Central London?

 

(apologies for the the totally non-digital nature of this post)

 

Eric

 

Try Panther Imaging in Clerkenwell Road (nr Hatton Garden). I find their professional service pretty good.

[ericperlberg]

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Try Panther Imaging in Clerkenwell Road (nr Hatton Garden). I find their professional service pretty good.

 

Thanks Brian, even within walking distance!

[dalippe]

I'll take a deep breath plunge in here with some comments of my experiences as a result of my fairly recent return to using film as well as digital.

 

Find yourself a good processing company, that doesn't leave your film covered in dust spots and scratches. After a number of trails I now use a fairly local company's professional service which only costs around £6/roll and gives very good results. Of course you can, and others will advocate doing so, develop your own. I may do this eventually but there may be domestic discord to contend with!

 

Scanning services can be expensive if you want good large-file scans. It doesn't take all that many scanned rolls to cover the cost of a scanner (2nd hand from that auction site) Nikon or Minolta seem to be the most common - try to get a USB connection model. I get pretty good results from my Minolta Scan Dual IV using either Minolta's own software (latest version), or better still - Vuescan software which is a bit obscure instruction-wise but gives good results and it's not that hard to do. Although it obviously takes overall somewhat longer than a pure digital image it doesn't really take too long either and the process is quite rewarding IMO. You don't need to scan every shot!

 

Hi Brian,

 

Thanks for your reply. I hope you don't mind if I show my gratitude by peppering you with questions

 

1) Now that you're set up, is each roll (or worse, each exposure) a custom process where you have to spend time getting things just right. Or is it plug-and-play at this point? Just insert negative, possibly make a few quick, easy adjustments and then go ahead and scan.

2) How hard was is to get a pretty good baseline setup? How much time did you spend getting to the point where each new scan "doesn't really take too long?"

3) Do you choose which shots to scan by reading your negs on a light table or are you having contact sheets made? What fraction of your shots are you typically scanning?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

David

[ericperlberg]

David, I'm just going to toss in my experiences while you (and I) wait to read Brian's response. At one time I had a Nikon 4000 slide scanner. Among other things it had a software addition called (I think) digital ice which was useful in clearing up scratches and spots on a scan.

 

I found the whole process mind numbingly slow. As I remember (and others pls correct me if my memory is not accurate) it took between 3-6 minutes per scan (ie, per frame) for scanning time depending on how many passes I set the scanner for. Plus, there was also a pre-scan to figure in, the prescan is used to select which frames on a strip of negs to be scanned and set the parameters for it. So maybe another one minute per frame. It drove me nuts at the time.

 

There was recently a thread somewhere here at L-Camera about using an Epson 700 flatbed scanner for scanning negs. There were mixed opinions about its quality which is about par for the course of asking anything at a discussion forum. Some felt it didn't measure up, others felt it was fine. I pointed to a positive review of that scanner by a reputable reviewer. The advantage I think of the flatbed is speed. Whether its good enough may have to do with whether you're planning on using a grainy film like tri-x for that last century street look or a smooth film for details.

 

The only reason personally that I'm even thinking of film again is because medium format second hand cameras are really cheap now and still capable of equalling or exceeding the quality of the most expensive digital 35mm digitals. I'm personally held back by a strong aversion to the soporific time spent waiting for the scanner in those days. But at £800 for a Mamiya 7 and 80mm lens compared to £5000 for a Canon 1dsIII without lens, well, film has a certain appeal. And considering a hassy 39megapixel camera costs near £30,000, well, that's a lot of film.

 

In fairness to my speed complaint, the Nikon 4000 and its bigger brother have been replaced by what I understand are faster models which gives me some hope and also because I suspect the Epson 700/750 might be "good enough" for medium format film.

 

Hopefully Brian will have hopeful news or more infectiously positive attitude towards scanning.

 

Eric

[gesper]

I just did the switch to film. I took a local class to learn how to develop B&W and as others have said it is relatively simple to do at home in a sink with no darkroom. I am also doing MF with a 60-year-old Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex TLR that I picked up at a rummage sale for $25. Phenomenal pictures! I bought a Nikon Coolscan 9000 that takes forever at high resolution but the scans are super high quality. I also plan to try some color; have the film developed professionally ($5 per roll) and scan at home. In place of contact sheets, I scan smaller low res jpegs. With the 9000 you can do twelve 35mm negatives at a time.

[tompkins135]

I recently decided to try going back and putting a film though a proper camera. I chose to us my 111g with an Elmar 50mm F2.8. The experience was great, thoroughly enjoyed it. Then came processing the film, fond memories with the smell of fix. Then the scanning and..........................sorry life is just too short, all it did was convince me that I was right to go completely digital.

 

Yes, going back to wet processing completely is a very tempting proposition but half and half? No thanks.

 

Brian.

[spylaw4]

Hi David & Eric,

 

First of all, today my time is a bit restricted so if I don't cover all your questions please nudge me again tomorrow.

 

Let me start by saying that the Minolta DS IV scanner is not the most modern - Minolta are no longer in that field - you have to go Nikon for more advanced scanners. The Minolta software is ok but a bit "clunky" by modern standards, last version is on their website. It does have a good feature though in that you can get a set of thumbnails from each strip of 6 negs, Afaik Vuescan doesn't have this.

 

I'm scanning maybe 40-60%, but only processing maybe 1/3 - 1/2 of those after import. I don't bother with a contact sheet (I have plenty of time) but YMMV.

 

Vuescan once set up (prefs. and film type) is proving pretty quick in practice. Insert strip, start at #1 (or #6), preview, scan (entering title and file no.) if you like, ignore if you don't, next arrow, repeat process, etc. Couple of minutes max. maybe, possibly less.

 

Learning curve takes a couple of hours experimenting and trying various options.

 

I do virtually all my adjustments after I import my scans into Lightroom. Spotting out the defects in the neg is the most time-taking task, so good processing is essential. Funnily enough I find that I frequently need to do less tonality adjustments with film.

 

I'm rather afraid that my much-loved Digilux 2 is being ignored right now in favour of what I find a rather satisfying if less instant process.

 

Hope that answers most of the questions.

[ron110n]

I just did the switch to film. I took a local class to learn how to develop B&W and as others have said it is relatively simple to do at home in a sink with no darkroom. I am also doing MF with a 60-year-old Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex TLR that I picked up at a rummage sale for $25. Phenomenal pictures! I bought a Nikon Coolscan 9000 that takes forever at high resolution but the scans are super high quality. I also plan to try some color; have the film developed professionally ($5 per roll) and scan at home. In place of contact sheets, I scan smaller low res jpegs. With the 9000 you can do twelve 35mm negatives at a time.

 

Gesper,

 

You will cut the high resolution scanning time on 6x6 MF by half, if you use Silver Fast. I will be on a week vacation to Redding, Shasta Lake and Etna, CA next week. I will bring my Rolleiflex FX & Rollei 6008 Integral. Of course my Leica M3 and M7 plus my G9. I will be shooting Velvia 100F, Arista EDU 400, & Bergger 200 on MF. Tri-X 400 on the M3 and Fuji Provia 100F on the M7. Also SanDisk Extreme III on the G9. =) My D300 stays at home, but my F5 might come along. Also a styrofoam ice box for the pro. films.

 

Enjoy your toy!

-Ron

[DTD]

Another approach is to use a chromogenic black and white film such as Ilford XP2 and have this commercially processed in C41 at any high street lab. Many of these will also do a CD at the same time pretty cheaply. These CDs aren't usually great quality, but you've got in effect a digital contact print and back-up of the whole film.

 

Then you choose which frames you want to scan and do them yourself at high quality.

[Guest stnami]

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[gesper]

Gesper,

 

You will cut the high resolution scanning time on 6x6 MF by half, if you use Silver Fast. I will be on a week vacation to Redding, Shasta Lake and Etna, CA next week. I will bring my Rolleiflex FX & Rollei 6008 Integral. Of course my Leica M3 and M7 plus my G9. I will be shooting Velvia 100F, Arista EDU 400, & Bergger 200 on MF. Tri-X 400 on the M3 and Fuji Provia 100F on the M7. Also SanDisk Extreme III on the G9. =) My D300 stays at home, but my F5 might come along. Also a styrofoam ice box for the pro. films.

 

Enjoy your toy!

-Ron

 

Thanks, I will give Silverfast a try. I also just bought a Mamiya Universal Press 6x9 on eBay so the extra speed would help a lot. Redding is a beautiful area, especially this time of year. Have fun! P.S. Like you, I have a D300 that does nothing but collect dust (except for my daughter's track meets).

[haris]

I won't talk abour postprocessing (scanning and else).

 

About film and processing. If you use b/w, developing film is very easy and cheaper to do by yourself than to give film to laboratory. And good b/w labs are harder to find than good labs for slide (E6) or colour negative (C41) processing). So, for b/w I would advice to process film by yourself. Or to use chromogenic b/w films like Ilford XP2 or Kodak C400N, that is films which are processed like colour negative (C41 process) but give b/w images, and to give them to lab.

 

About colour negative. There are still lots of good labs, so that would maybe be best to do, that is to find a good lab and give film to them. If not, you can also do it yourself. It sounds more complicated than b/w processing, but you have standardized process (chemicals and times), and at the end it can be easier than b/w processing, because in b/w processing result depend very much of what developer with what film you use.

 

About colour slide. It is simillar to colour negative. There are still good labs, and people are used to send film to other country (or even other continent) to be processed if they can't find good lab near them. And of course, you can process it by yourself.

[Guest jimmy pro]

A scanner's got a lens and a chip and it take's a digital picture of a neg or slide. It's basicly a digital camera only with a (hopefully) wider dynamic range. So your paying for film, paying for processing (chems at least, if you DIY and you think your time's worth zilch), and then taking your time to take a digital picture of the film. Now doesn't that sound dumb, unless your motivation is to use a "classic" camera? And in that case, wouldn't you want to have the full "classic" experience, enlarger, trays of soup and all?

 

Scanning film is easy. Scanning film well isn't. A scanner will pick up all the grain and "digitize" it. If you've ever seen it, it doesn't look like film grain. It's obviously digital, in fact, the noise from the M8 at 1250 looks more like film grain than most scanned film. Dust and scratches are also a problem with silver-halide b&w because the scanner dust removal software don't work on regular b&w. So you better get prepared to make friends with the clone tool in CS3. Or, shoot cromogenic, but now you give up all the fun of argueing on forums about what's the best film/developer/time/temp combo

 

Like someone else said, going half and half is nuts IMHO, if the photograph is your main concern, verses useing a nostalgic old camera. And hell, the M8 is damn close to an M3 in most ways other than being digital.

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[andybarton]

Each to his or her own...

 

I enjoy the whole experience of using film, from the time it takes to load the film, through the processing at home (both B&W and E6), through the scanning and the printing and hanging.

 

As someone who has never made a penny from photography, I can afford a small part of my life to indulge in this idiosyncratic behaviour.

 

For my digital stuff, I am fortunate enough to own a DMR, which works rather well.

 

It is possible to live in and enjoy both worlds.

[gesper]

Each to his or her own...

 

I enjoy the whole experience of using film, from the time it takes to load the film, through the processing at home (both B&W and E6), through the scanning and the printing and hanging.

 

As someone who has never made a penny from photography, I can afford a small part of my life to indulge in this idiosyncratic behaviour.

 

For my digital stuff, I am fortunate enough to own a DMR, which works rather well.

 

It is possible to live in and enjoy both worlds.

 

I agree totally. I also listen to both vinyl records and CD's, and have audio equipment with tubes as well as solid state.