m.sawyer photography

film: scanning observations and tips

Well, the future is now. And I’ve invested in a scanner. I decided to go with the Epson V500. After a lot of research (and after not having much cash to spend), I figured the differences between the V500 and V700/V750 were not worth the money at this point. I would say that I’m dreaming of one day getting a Nikon 8000 or 9000. However, by the time I can afford one of those, I think either A) medium format backs may actually be within reach, or B) the quality of upper-end full-frame DSLRs may punch through the dynamic range barrier that medium format digital kits currently transcend.

As of now I’ve scanned around 7 or 8 rolls of 120. And I see what everyone was talking about when they mentioned a scanning “learning curve”. So without further rambling, here’s a nice little list of what I’ve learned:

Hardware:

• Can’t speak for 35mm film, but for 120, you might as well throw away the film holder that comes with the scanner and get one of Doug Fisher’s Better Scanning holders with the glass insert. Without one, you’ll invariably experience 1 or 2 major problems: newton rings, and out-of-focus scans.
• The Epson V500 is rated at 6400 dpi. For all practical purposes, this number is meaningless. Kinda reminds me of the annoying and useless feature called “digital zoom” on most point-and-shoot digital cameras. The V500, from my not-so-scientific testing, seems to me to have a maximum resolution of around 2000 dpi. This would yield a decent 5x7” print from a 35mm shot, or about a 12x18” print from a 6x7cm shot. Not too shabby. But this depends on whether your scanning and post-processing technique is adequate, and ultimately on how sharp the negative/positive is in the first place.

Software:

• Forget about the software that comes with your scanner. Get Vuescan Pro. It gives you just about every feature you could want in a scanner: multi-pass, multi-exposure, raw scanning, DNG files, 48-bit, and more. Silverfast AI is too expensive. Silverfast SE is possibly the most laughably horrible software I’ve ever seen. EpsonScan isn’t bad, and actually it’s probably the easiest to use. But it doesn’t give you enough control. The only thing that drives me crazy about Vuescan is that its multi/auto cropping tool is amazingly bad. But since I’m not scanning a zillion frames at once, I can live with it.

Film:

• The new Ektar 100 is awesome! My style in digital photography lately had been shying away from any vivid colors, prefering an aged, desaturated look. But seeing the poignant colors come up on the screen from the Ektar made me revisit my thinking here. Not that I’ll abandon the desaturated look though.
• Using old, cheap, expired film has its drawbacks. The quality from edge to edge of the frame is unpredictable. Sometimes this gives a nice pastel washy effect, but sometimes it looks dingy and unintentionally dirty (not in a cool way, in my opinion). The Fuji Superia 400 I used was also somewhat crinkly and difficult to work with in the scanner.
• Fuji Neopan 400 is an awesome film to scan (and great for home darkroom processing, so I’ve heard). It lies very flat, has moderate, pleasant grain (in 6x7 anyway), is pretty sharp, and has just beautiful tonality. The histograms show a nice soft falloff, making the digital files extremely easy to work with in Lightroom. I was able to overexpose it by several stops to retain all the shadow detail and I almost never lost any of the highlight detail. Highly recommended.

Technique:

• If you’re going to do much beyond just posting the images to the web, take the time to learn how to sharpen your files well. This doesn’t just apply to the digital processing of film photos, it also applies to digital photography (albeit less importantly). Files straight out of the scanner are going to be pretty soft. Here is a great tutorial about sharpening in Lightroom: here and here. Here is a great post about 3-step sharpening in Photoshop.
• The dynamic range and tonality of film are a lot of the reason why I love it so much. I was pleasantly surprised that my V500 was able to capture this decently well. Of course this was after painstakingly perusing Vuescan’s features, doing lots of tweaking. I think there are two reasons why I was able to capture great tonality and range: 1) scanning in 48-bit mode, and 2) using the multi-exposure feature of Vuescan. This produces giant files but I don’t mind. The quality is totally worth it to me.
• Vuescan totally confounded me at first. It was producing crazy, useless, color-shifted images until I found out how to get the proper settings and calibrate it for the particular film:

1. 1. Load the film up in the scanner and hit Preview.
   2. Drag a selection window over a strip of film that is blank, in the margins of the film.
   3. Hit Calibrate.
   4. Preview again.
   5. Check the box for “Lock Exposure”.
   6. Preview again.
   7. Check the box for “Lock Film Base Color”.
   8. Turn off any color correction that may be applied automatically by Vuescan. You’re probably better server by adjusting these things in Photoshop, not Vuescan.
   9. In the output section, make sure you’re Saving “As Film”.
   10. Hit Scan and you’re on your way.

That’s all for how.

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.

wedding: jeff & melissa (and lessons learned)

Well, I am happy to report another successful wedding shoot. Both Jeff and Melissa confirmed they absolutely love their photos upon first viewing them tonight (along with some tears from Melissa). This was probably the biggest and definitely most traditional wedding I’ve shot. As such I was a little nervous when, the day before the wedding, I noticed they requested over 90 combinations of group shots.

Group photos are probably the hardest part of the wedding for me to shoot. They are probably better suited to the loud, extroverted photographer who has the whole gaggle of subjects in the palm of his or her hand. I am much more a pensive, cautious photographer and this probably doesn’t make big groups of people too comfortable or at ease. Well, I’m getting used to it, and the groups mostly looked at ease and happy in the photos.

Another lesson learned regarding focus problems with fast (i.e. shallow depth of field) lenses: I’d seen this before when I’ve used fast lenses such as the 17-55/2.8, and again this time with the 24-70/2.8. At first I thought possibly the lens was back focusing (and it’s difficult to determine this until the wedding’s over and you’re looking at the photo at 100% magnification). But I believe I have realized something in this. Because I am so used to spot metering and only using the central AF point, I’m holding my AF lock too long (to make things worse, not using a tripod either, I know, I know). I confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the lenses on a portrait session the following week. With these portraits I was very careful about AF lock and recomposing, and voila, the photos came out razor sharp (well, except for one of them), and I’m still talking about shooting wide open.

So the actual lessons here: 1) use a tripod for group photos 2) instead of using only the center AF point on portraits/group portraits, use all of them or at least the center line, 3) if not using a tripod, don’t wait forever to trip the shutter after AF lock, because it’s bound to be out of focus. Simple and seemingly obvious lessons I know, but when you’re in the moment it has seemed easy to forget about.

If a long time pro is reading this he or she is probably either laughing or scoffing at my shortcomings. Well that is why I’m willing to learn, pick myself back up, and keep going and improving at every step of the way.