[shawnxji]

I took some photos with my Minolta film SLR this past weekend and had them developed at Costco. I had some great shots with beautiful colors and smooth renderings. Normally I don't do the Gold Archive DVD scans at Costco, I just develop the films and go, but this time I opted for the scans. Unfortunately they came out pretty bad - too contrasty, loss of colors, loss of details.

On an unrelated note to the photo quality, of the five rolls they scanned, one wasn't my roll so I had it re-scanned. Of the five DVDs I took home, one couldn't be read, by my home computer or work computer.

On the plus side, each photo was scanned to about 6mp, not a bad resolution to archive.

Has anybody used their digital scanning service before?

Shawn

[joeyc]

I've actually used them quite often - and made prints with the resulting files up to about 11x14 with no pixelation/degradation. Here are three examples

Bessa R2, 15mm Heliar - Fuji Superia 200 or 400 (can't remember!)



Sears 35RF - Kodak Ektar 100


Just to note, I have had a bad experience - once. I think the individual operating the equipment is the biggest variable.

[l5335l]

those pics are AMAZING!!!!! you have an awesome gift and such an eye ...you definately create that "WOW" factor...

where were those pics taken?

keep it up..those are some of my favorites so far

[Bramela]

It has been rumoured that Costco is about to hit Australia in a big way. (if we are talking of the same Co.)
If this proves to be right, you have at least gives us something to watchout for.

[Tuner571]

I've actually used them quite often - and made prints with the resulting files up to about 11x14 with no pixelation/degradation. Here are three examples

Bessa R2, 15mm Heliar - Fuji Superia 200 or 400 (can't remember!)



Sears 35RF - Kodak Ektar 100


Just to note, I have had a bad experience - once. I think the individual operating the equipment is the biggest variable.

Very nice shots, I really like the first one with all the palm trees. Sure wish I was there instead of Ohio right now!

[shawnxji]

Those are beautiful scans Joe, you didn't mention how did they compare to your film prints? I was mostly disappointed because the digital scans lacked the color/detail/contrast of the prints. I'm not pixel peeping here, the difference was very obvious. I guess the best way to illustrate would be to post some samples? I'll upload some this evening.

[joeyc]

those pics are AMAZING!!!!! you have an awesome gift and such an eye ...you definately create that "WOW" factor...

where were those pics taken?

keep it up..those are some of my favorites so far

thanks for the kind words. The first two were in Hawaii and the last was in Punta Cana. I have a roll from my K1000/43ltd waiting to process. Oh come to think of it, I have 6 rolls from Cabo too...

[joeyc]

Very nice shots, I really like the first one with all the palm trees. Sure wish I was there instead of Ohio right now!

I want to move back there! Was fortunate enough to stick around Kauai for two months back in '08.

[joeyc]

Those are beautiful scans Joe, you didn't mention how did they compare to your film prints? I was mostly disappointed because the digital scans lacked the color/detail/contrast of the prints. I'm not pixel peeping here, the difference was very obvious. I guess the best way to illustrate would be to post some samples? I'll upload some this evening.

I honestly don't have any film prints to compare. While I still enjoy shooting film, after the development, I'm 100% digital. Most need a quick levels adjust, maybe a little contrast, and some sharpening. Film scans have a decent amount of lattitude for manipulation, probably similar to high quality jpeg. I actually find I can recover more from the highlights than some raw files.

[stevebrot]

I was using Costco for processing and scans until about a year ago. At less than $5 per roll scanned with no prints, it was a good deal. I quite using them when I started shooting Ektar 100. The first roll turned out fine, but the second looked awful. The colors were off and the scans had tons of artifact. I went over to a friend's house and rescanned using his Minolta scanner. The scans from the Minolta were a ton better, but it was obvious, looking at the negs, that the film was woefully under-developed.

That was my last roll that went to Costco. They generally did a good job with consumer-grade ISO 200 stuff, but the QA and replenishment schedule apparently was not up to the demands of the Ektar film. I now send my film to a local pro lab (Blue Moon in Portland) for development only and do my own scans. Much, much, much better. While the scanner was expensive, I feel that the results are worth it in the long run.


Steve

Something I don't get. You guys shoot film then scan. As soon as you've done that you're no better than a digital camera with digital's compressed gamut. Why bother? I can see shooting film. I still do. But I wet process the prints. Analog.

[stevebrot]

Something I don't get. You guys shoot film then scan. As soon as you've done that you're no better than a digital camera with digital's compressed gamut. Why bother? I can see shooting film. I still do. But I wet process the prints. Analog.

...And when you wet process the prints, you take a high dynamic range negative and print to a medium with much reduced dynamic range and limited color gamut (for color materials). And if you do an optical enlargement, the image is degraded further by the optical system.

The core process of digitizing film images is analogous to traditional printing. You expose the original image with a certain visualization in mind. You scan that negative and select a subset of the available data to meet that initial visualization. How much of that visualization can be realized is dependent on the target medium. CRT or LCD displays are fairly limited. The better printing technologies are equivalent to the best you can accomplish using traditional wet process.

What the "figital" process gives us is an unprecedented ability to manage and manipulate the available film data. We also are able to do so in a non-destructive and repeatable manner.

Is there still value in traditional wet process? Absolutely. There are particular "looks" who's beauty are simply not attainable by any other means. Figital processing merely adds additional means to the our creative ends.

So, the question at this point is what your comment has to do with getting a good scan from film?


Steve

[shawnxji]

Thanks for all the comments, but I think I'm staying away from Costco scans in the future.

I just had the DVD that none of my computers could open re-scanned at Costco. The other four DVD had photos scanned at ~6mp, this one came back with photos scanned to ~3mp, with the same problems that I noticed before concerning contrast, color, detail, etc.

Below is one example. Since I don't have the film copy side by side here I don't really expect anyone to really see what I'm talking about, but basically there's a loss of color, detail, and most problematic of all is that the photos come out way too contrasty and blown-out.

I definitely suggest those that plan to have their films scanned to DVDs at Costco double check to make sure that the right roll was scanned, and try the DVD at the printing station just to make sure it works. I live a good 10 miles away from Costco, add in the taffic three trips to their stores due to their mistakes just isn't worth it for me.

[tuco]

Something I don't get. You guys shoot film then scan. As soon as you've done that you're no better than a digital camera with digital's compressed gamut. Why bother? I can see shooting film. I still do. But I wet process the prints. Analog.

Because my film camera can still do what my digital cannot; shoot real Black and White instead of imitation, color converted gray scale.

Because my film camera can still do what my digital cannot; shoot real Black and White instead of imitation, color converted gray scale.

But as soon as you scan it in it is no longer true grayscale any way. It is still entering an RGB world. The filmm is gray. The scans are RGB. Your monitor is RGB.