[dsmithhfx]

I know why I do but I can't speak for others. But clearly anyone still shooting film today is doing it for reasons other than convenience and practicality I would suspect.

(trying to get into the mindset of people who dabble in film, and then immediately drop it)

[Eagle94VT]

I use lots of film and don't really worry about scanning. I'm tempted by the EPson V800 which I've considered for years now (did the price go up?). I like the DSLR approach as well - taking a photo then using lightroom to convert it. But I guess it all depends on the goals. Mass scanning would mean I would have hard drives full of junk. (It makes me think of a guy I knew long ago who made hundreds of VHS tapes of movies for back up and another friend who spent his weekends uploading all his music and DVD's into terabyte drives when terabyte drives were wicked expensive - and now we have streaming...).

Just like my digital photos, I try to pick the keepers. The ones I think are keepers - I make prints. I have started dabbling with paying for a few high res scans to play with and use for prints. But I've only done that a few times. My keepers still go to Blue Moon for prints - and not little 4x6s. I've compared their optical prints to an equal size digital print from the same negative (11x14 of the same negative - one optical and and one scanned and printed) and the browns, greys and blacks come out in much better detail optically. I am sure if I were competent with lightroom I could make it come out similarly, but like I said, I'm just working on those skills. I don't send in orders for prints very often, but I have an order there right now with about 12 negatives (from rolls shot over the past 10 months) to have an assortment of 6x9, 8x12, 11x14 and one 12x18" prints made. When the biggie gets mounted on my wall I'll put a pic here. For my small instagram account I sometimes hold up a print and take a picture with my cell phone!

[Russell W. Barnes]

If you've already got a decent DSLR... why would you bother with the expense and hassle of film?

Because I like shooting film, always have, and a digital camera is a neat tool to transcribe the negative to the computer for wider viewing. And is film really more expensive, long-term? What do you store your digital images on? How much does that storage media cost, or that 'cloud' connection? How much is that digital camera and those accompanying lenses? How long will they last?

Did I say 'negative'? That slip of film that can maintain an image intact for a hundred years or more and can be filed away safely (in the correct temperature, humidity and light of course)? Well, there's another reason! If you shoot digital and don't print your pics, you don't have any pics. All you have is a collection of 1s and 0s that are clocked out of your camera onto whatever device will clock them out, and displayed on an equally complex piece of equipment. Will this happen satisfactorily in a hundred years' time? What will you leave your chidren? Some data in TIFF or JPG format? Will they be able to read it?


I shoot digital as well as film and it's a marvellous thing. But I like shooting film in the same way as some people like doing up old radios or fixing up old cars. I'm comfortable with it.

[jumbleview]

If you've already got a decent DSLR... why would you bother with the expense and hassle of film?

OP asked "How do you scan film?". Question "Why do you shoot film?" is valid, but can make separate thread itself.

[dsmithhfx]

OP asked "How do you scan film?". Question "Why do you shoot film?" is valid, but can make separate thread itself.

Whoosh!

[filmamigo]

If you've already got a decent DSLR... why would you bother with the expense and hassle of film?

Because film gives me a completely different look. Depending on the camera and film, that can be a wonderfully smooth gradation and seemingly limitless resolution, or it can be gritty and crunchy.

Plus -- my film results are very close to what I intended with little post-processing required. Especially when I have the pro lab do most of the work.

[dsmithhfx]

Because film gives me a completely different look. Depending on the camera and film, that can be a wonderfully smooth gradation and seemingly limitless resolution, or it can be gritty and crunchy.

Plus -- my film results are very close to what I intended with little post-processing required. Especially when I have the pro lab do most of the work.

See How do you scan your film? - Page 3 - PentaxForums.com

[Eagle94VT]

Make prints! As mentioned, the 12x18" came back today. Now off to get mounted.
The others are an assortment of 6x9, 11x14, 8x10s....In this picture the only digital picture is of the kids skiing. The albums are digital and film....Prints

[Russell W. Barnes]

Images converted to 8-bit TIFF files in Sony's ARW file-handling software thence to Lightroom 3 with Photoshop 7 for inverting to positive. Negs filed in those translucent paper sleeves and put away in A4 files as the master copy.

I'll just add that setting the custom white-balance of the Sony RX-100 II to the orange mask of an unexposed section of film makes colour rendition a heck of a lot easier and more consistent in Photoshop 7. Just tried it earlier.

[Andrea K]

I am curious as to your setup and what software is used to manage the stitch.

Assuming 1:1 magnification and 56x41.5mm frame (Pentax 645 and variants) the pixel dimensions would be about 11481x8494px (~97Mpx) with a lineal vertical resolution of ~8500 dpi before optical degradation. That is drum scan territory assuming a stellar optical path, high quality light, and precise alignment.

FWIW, such does not address the OPs issues of time and file size. The resultant TIFF files would be massive and the effort to make them, extreme.


Steve

Hi,

To compare the results with a scan I quickly processed this shot.
The lens was the FA* 645 300mm f/4.0

this is a very low resolution image only to understand the field of view

Now, 100% crop of a scan with the EPSON4990 PHOTO that, despite the marketing proclamations, has a real resolution of almost 2000dpi:


100% crop of a 4 x K-1 MKII with Pixel Shift, PEF-> Camer RAW 16bit ProPhoto TIFF -> merged in Photoshop -> color elaboration:


The result is a 95Mpx image, here the link of the JPEG (WARNING 97MB, TIFF is 550MB): http://www.wificommanderpentax.com/temp/img116_k1.jpg
I used the Photomerge collage function to do a quick example, is better to manually align the shots.

To understand the distance this was the scene taken with the FA 645 35mm f/3.5 :


Another consideration is that with the EPSON flatbed scanner was way mooooore easy to obtain a well color balanced picture.

[LesDMess]

I tried some flatbed and minilab scanners for my 35mm films and was not too pleased with the results before I finally acquired the Coolscan 5000. I then retried the flatbed scanners for my medium format film and it just didn't make sense when comparing results I get from the Coolscan/35mm film so I got the Coolscan 9000.
I will have to try DSLR scanning with the Nikon D850 as it has a built-in color negative to positive conversion. I am hoping it will be as good as the Coolscan/Nikonscan but of course there will be no dust and scratch removal.

[stevebrot]

The result is a 95Mpx image, there the link of the JPEG (WARNING 97MB, TIFF is 550MB):

Thanks for the confirmation regarding file size. I am still interested in your setup for the stitched copy images. Do you use a copy stand and 2-way focus rail? What do you use for lighting and holding the negative? What hardware/software for processing?*

As for the Epson 4990, it is what it is. The advertised resolution for it and other non-commercial flatbed scanners is highly overstated. I have never used the 4990, but have scanned 645 negatives at 2400 dpi on the Epson V700 with good results and file sizes within the limits of what my computer and software are able to handle.


Steve

* Users on this site (myself included) have encountered software crashes when attempting to work with scans from medium and large format negatives. As a result, scanning at or below 2000 dpi is often a practical necessity.

[Andrea K]

Thanks for the confirmation regarding file size. I am still interested in your setup for the stitched copy images. Do you use a copy stand and 2-way focus rail? What do you use for lighting and holding the negative? What hardware/software for processing?
....

A small table
A 30cm x 40 cm flat plywood with 4 adjustable feet to level it
EPSON v700 film holders adjusted to max height
An high quality A4 LED light pad (I paid almost 100euros) with calibrated color temperature
A solid tripod, I have a 055 xprob
A 2-way focus rail
The K-1 with Pixel Shift enabled, 2s delay and Natural picture mode
The D-FA 100mm f/2,8 MACRO
An hot shoe 3D spirit level
Dark Room

After the alignment of the film and the camera I put the lens to 1:1 ratio and use the rail to set the focus on the film with the aid of the LV. When I see the "pepper" I have the focus and multishots means multi focus check.
The lens aperture is f/8.

To process I use my laptop with 16Gb RAM and a 512SSD. I open the PEF with Camera RAW to save in ProPhoto 16bit, the "secret" to use Photoshop with huge files is to avoid that the actions history grows. In the previous example I closed PhotoShop after the merge, saving in TIFF 16Bit, and after the base color corrections.

Now a small thought, also with 4 PS shots and then 95-97Mpx I don't have the maximum resolution that a Medium Format shot can handle.... think about this. What killed the film? His digitalization instead of print or projection...

[stevebrot]

A small table
A 30cm x 40 cm flat plywood with 4 adjustable feet to level it
EPSON v700 film holders adjusted to max height
An high quality A4 LED light pad (I paid almost 100euros) with calibrated color temperature
A solid tripod, I have a 055 xprob
A 2-way focus rail
The K-1 with Pixel Shift enabled, 2s delay and Natural picture mode
The D-FA 100mm f/2,8 MACRO
An hot shoe 3D spirit level
Dark Room

After the alignment of the film and the camera I put the lens to 1:1 ratio and use the rail to set the focus on the film with the aid of the LV. When I see the "pepper" I have the focus and multishots means multi focus check.
The lens aperture is f/8.

To process I use my laptop with 16Gb RAM and a 512SSD. I open the PEF with Camera RAW to save in ProPhoto 16bit, the "secret" to use Photoshop with huge files is to avoid that the actions history grows. In the previous example I closed PhotoShop after the merge, saving in TIFF 16Bit, and after the base color corrections.

Now a small thought, also with 4 PS shots and then 95-97Mpx I don't have the maximum resolution that a Medium Format shot can handle.... think about this. What killed the film? His digitalization instead of print or projection...

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing.


Steve

[aaacb]

I use a cheap flatbed scanner, the epson v370. It claims all sorts of high resolution modes (9000+ dpi...), but realistically I get around 4000dpi,

Can you guess which part of this statement is completely off?

I did a more systematic test, where I scanned at various resolutions and then upsampled everything in darktable to exactly the same size, so I could take crops and compare. Perhaps upsampling introduces some artifacts, but I could only see a clear drop in detail from 2400dpi to 1200dpi. Then I read a bit about these scanners and found out that they top out at around 1500dpi. (semi-)Analog pixel peeping is just as conducive to GAS as the purely digital version...