m.sawyer photography

film: processing/scanning results

After many games of ping-pong in my head about where/how to get my 6x7 negatives processed, I finally decided to bite the bullet and take a few rolls (not all, because it’s so darn expensive) to my nearest pro lab, Apertures Photo. I had them processed and scanned to a CD. It was something like $5/roll for processing, $5/roll for scanning, and $6 for the CD itself. The images produced by their Noritsu lab were about 5MP, 8-bit jpegs. Not the greatest quality or even usable for anything other than proofing or posting on the web, but I guess this is the digital counterpart to the old light table. The images actually looked decent though they were a little noisy and couldn’t be manipulated much on a computer. I was quite happy with most of the black and white shots (Fuji Neopan 400). Great tonality, range, and sharpness, but noticeably grainy. The color shots were all expired Fuji Superia 400, a cheap consumerr-quality film that had been sitting in my freezer for a couple of years. I was not terribly impressed with the color of the Superia or anything else about it for that matter, except that it seemed to have adequate sharpness (and that was shooting wide-open, handheld).

Well I decided I really like two of the shots I’d had processed so far, so I took them a step further. I brought those two negatives back to Apertures for a 4000 DPI scan on their Nikon 8000 film scanner. The files produced here were just enormous: 270 MB TIFF files, approximately 85 MP. My little Macbook had trouble opening each of them in Lightroom, lots of spinning pinwheels happening that day. The resolution on these files was obviously supreme, but I think a bit overstated by the technical specs of the files. I think the real resolution was probably somewhere around half of the stated 4000 DPI. And the other problem is that I’m still getting 8-bit files. So far my opinion on film scanning: why would you give up the dynamic range of the film by compressing bit-depth like that? I’d like to have a 16-bit file that’s about 2400 DPI. That would be perfect I should think. Now if I can find a lab that’ll accomodate without costing me an arm and a leg.

Click here to see some of the results (as well as old film shots).

film: the Mamiya RZ67

I eventually pulled out the camera and started shooting with it. I was addicted after the first few snaps. Obviously the camera is huge and heavy as you’ll read anywhere. But I found handling it to be surprisingly easy. It took me almost no time to get used to handling it (maybe because it’s so simple?). The hard parts were using the waist-level viewfinder (where the picture is reversed from left-right) and using a dedicated light meter for the first time. I wasn’t really too happy about having to carry this extra device around, but that’s about the only way to get perfect exposures with this setup. (Speaking of perfect exposures or a lack thereof: I learned later that night that the first roll I shot was loaded in the wrong way, and so I’d wasted it completely. Oh well.)

As far as slow, pensive landscape shooting goes, this camera seemed to be well-suited. There was plenty of time to manually meter the scene, setup the camera on the tripod if necessary, adjust the exposure on the camera, compose, focus (which was almost always at infinity anyway) and click. Oh and there was often the added step of using a cable release to prevent mirror slap.

At some point I really want to shoot people with this camera. I’ll have to get a more portrait-friendly lens and I haven’t decided which one to get yet. Maybe by then I will be more proficient in metering/setting up on a tripod/exposing/composing/etc with this thing and portraits won’t have to be too tedious.

more details on the film experience coming soon…

initial anecdotes on film

Well it’s been a couple of months. A couple of months of the day job and other projects dominating my life. But: the never-ending project has launched, Damion and I have finished mixing our album, our band, Ithica, has played at DFest 09, we’re almost done with the film score to The Rock and Roll Dreams of Duncan Christopher, and, wow that is a lot of stuff.

The good thing is that I’ve had a couple of months to soak up and collect my thoughts on returning to film. To kick off the experience, I bought a Mamiya RZ67 with a 50mm lens, and Lance Miller and I headed out to the Wichita Mountains (via Route 66) for a couple of days. I very briefly mentioned the trip and posted some of the digital photos in the last post. But I haven’t really discussed the experience of going film (not to mention medium format film).

On that first trip, I was very shy about getting the RZ67 out and using it for the first part of the trip. I stuck to my familiar Canon 30D/10-22mm lens combo, and got some nice shots. I found after a few hours that I was simply going to have to pick up the Mamiya and start shooting with it. Check out the next post for details.