[Leica] Scanning Tri-X

[richard at richardmanphoto.com (Richard Man)]

For 35mm, don't bother with the flatbed unless it's a quick "web job." If
you scan a lot, buy a LS-4000 and one of the elusive batch attachments. I
sold it off to George on this list and may be he will give it up, but I
think it may be one of those "cold dead hands" thing.

As you said, don't bother with multiple exposure unless you want to extract
the max shadow details.

And sad to say, just because it's film, it doesn't mean you don't need to
fiddle with it post. A few quick sliders on the LR does a long way.

IMHO, if you really want to shoot film, get a medium format camera. The
large neg will hold their own against even the M9 (may be not the M 240 or
the D800 etc., but...)



On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com> wrote:

> I've embarked on an experiment to see whether I want to shoot B&W film
> again.  The "Nurse" picture I recently posted was the beginning of that
> experiment.
> <https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563 at N04/13892553280/>
>
> Here are a few things I've noticed while "recalibrating" myself--otherwise
> known as "how the heck did I do this back in '06?"
>
> Here's a side by side of the same Tri-X shot, scanned at 4000 dpi (left)
> and 2000 dpi (right). The negative was developed in Xtol 1:2 by Moonphoto,
> a good B&W lab a few miles from my home.  The scanner is a Canon FS-4000,
> running under VueScan.  Click the double rectangle above the picture to see
> it full size.
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/
> GrainAliasTriX4Kvs2Kdpi.JPG.html>
>
> The 4000 dpi scan is shown at 50%, 2000 dpi picture at 100%, so the image
> magnification is equal.  Note that the 2000 dpi scan appears to have a bit
> coarser grain due to aliasing.  But remember, this is with the negs
> magnified quite a bit.  If I view the whole frame at a reasonable screen
> size, the difference hardly matters. In fact, some available light pictures
> might appear slightly sharper at 2000 dpi due to slight added texture.
>
> A few more things.  My scanner has a "multiple exposure" feature, which
> can get into dense areas of a picture.  It was very helpful for Kodachrome
> slides, even though it takes much longer.  But it's pointless for this type
> of picture.  It can help with overexposed negatives, or very high-contrast
> shots.  Similarly, the multipass feature (take several scans and average
> them) may be helpful for underexposed or very low-contrast pictures, but
> again, it's not necessary on reasonably normal negatives.
>
> Why did I bother doing this?  Time. Here are scan times for the various
> options:
>
> 4000 dpi, single exposure    2:50
> 4000 dpi, multi exposure     7:15
> 2000 dpi, single exposure    0:55
>
> The next thing I'll try is using the lab's own 2000 dpi scans. Another lab
> near my ex-employer did 2000 dpi scans that I didn't like, too contrasty
> and worse aliasing than shown in my examples above.  If this lab's 2000 dpi
> 16-bit TIFF scans are as good as mine, I might as well use them for casual
> stuff, and save my own 4000 dpi scans for the really good shots, especially
> those I want to print.
>
> Another thing I'm going to try is to see how much worse my Epson V730
> flatbed scanner is at this. The V730 is probably faster for the lower
> resolution scans, but the question is whether I'd be happy with those scans
> for casual screen-size posts, vs. my 2000 dpi scans or the lab's.
>
> As an aside, both my horribly out-of date Leica M8 and my Olympus E-M5 are
> much better, technically, that Tri-X ISO for ISO.  More detail, sharper,
> blah blah blah. But that's not why I'm trying B&W film again.  This
> experiment is about look, feel, texture, and tonality.  Time will tell
> whether it's something I want to stay with, or just an exercise in
> misplaced nostalgia.
>
> Thanks to Ken Norton on the Olympus list for his recent post that got me
> started:
> <http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/msg19437.html>
>
> --Peter
>
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>



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