[Leica] Scanning Tri-X

[kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney)]

Peter,

The OKC Lug was having a somewhat similar discussion at our luncheon 
meeting today.  I am happy with digital b&w prints, but I can relate to 
the impulse to revert to film (for most of my darkroom years, I printed 
platinum/palladium contact prints in preference to store-bought silver 
paper).  First, I would suggest that you develop your own film.  I 
wouldn't leave the most important part of the process to someone else.  
You don't need a full darkroom, just a place to load the reels and drop 
them into the developer tank and you can use the developer that you 
prefer.  I have a Nikon LS-4000 35mm film scanner that is OK, though as 
you note "16-bit" over-sampled scans take a while.  I am spoiled since 
they are not that close to my 4x5 and 8x10 film scans.  Here is an 
interesting approach I may try someday:

http://www.addicted2light.com/2012/11/23/best-film-scanner-canon-5d-mark-ii-vs-drum-scanner-vs-epson-v700/

Good luck and I hope this helps.

Ken

On 5/1/2014 4:31 PM, Peter Klein 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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