[Leica] OT: Film AND Digital?

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

Jim:  The Noritsu and Fuji Frontier scans are a cut above what was 
available before from camera shops.  My verdict is that they are OK for 
casual Web shots. But for anything I want to put my name on beyond family 
and friends, I scan the best shots again myself on a 4000 dpi scanner.

I can get the Noritsu scans in 1544x1024 for $5 at development time, or 
about 2000x3000 for $10.  The smaller size will make a 4x6 or a 
non-critical 5x7, particularly on matte paper.  The larger size will 
theoretically make about an 8x10 or letter size (at ~300 dpi).  The problem 
is that they are 8-bit jpegs, so you don't have a lot of room for curve 
adjustments.  Also, the machines are often set for the typical snapshot 
exposure, which means blown highlights, black shadows, and stretched 
midtones.

That said, when I shot my cousin's wedding in New York this summer, I was 
not about to scan 9 rolls of film myself.  I took them to Costco, and they 
did a pretty good job. I did some minor batch adjustments "by the roll" in 
Irfanview, made a presentation, and sent them to the family.  I could have 
done a better job myself if I had time (and I did, for the few shots I 
wanted to print myself).  Everybody was happy, so who am I to argue?  But 
Costco scratched my film @#$%!

Now, here's a roll of Tri-X I just shot on Thanksgiving, with an M6, 35/1.4 
'Lux ASPH and 50/1.5 V/C Nokton.  I took the photos right off the CD, and 
batch resized them to 50% in Irfanview with a very slight sharpening:
http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/thanksgiving2004/

These are 1544x1024 Noritsu scans done by a local camera shop (Ballard 
Camera, Seattle).  They also develop B&W in Xtol!  These are a bit better 
than Costco, and they didn't scratch the film. But there's the same 
compression in the highlights and "by the roll" exposure that doesn't work 
for every shot.

Now, all that said, I just printed the third photo, 
http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/thanksgiving2004/01910007.html
and it makes a very nice matte 5x7.  If I want to print it bigger, or get 
detail in my Dad's hair, I'll have to scan it.

Hope this helps,
--Peter Klein
Seattle, WA

At 10:10 AM 12/5/04 -0800, Jim Laird wrote:
>Anyone had any good experiences with mass market scanning of film? I've
>seen some on the list who use film but have it scanned to CD. Is the quality
>good? I mainly use Leica M and Canon SLR and don't have access to a
>darkroom but would love to get into digital printing without the expense 
>of buying
>a good scanner. (I know...cheap ;)