[germar]

Hey, everyone!

I'm interested in shooting landscapes with my Spotmatic and ME Super. I own a Minolta Dual IV negative scanner, which I've used to scan lots of family slides.

I'm looking for advice from the more experienced here.... what's your opinion of the better medium for bringing home vibrant landscapes? Color Negative or transparency? Is Fuji better than Kodak? What's your favorite?

thanks,

germar

[Canada_Rockies]

Hey, everyone!

I'm interested in shooting landscapes with my Spotmatic and ME Super. I own a Minolta Dual IV negative scanner, which I've used to scan lots of family slides.

I'm looking for advice from the more experienced here.... what's your opinion of the better medium for bringing home vibrant landscapes? Color Negative or transparency? Is Fuji better than Kodak? What's your favorite?

thanks,

germar

I am sure the neg scanner can handle slides as well - virtually all of them do. My favourite film for landscapes is Fujichrome. The greens are gorgeous. 50 ISO is almost grain free - huge prints are easily printed. My favourite prints are on Cibachrome.

[Vertex Ninja]

I agree. Velvia 50 or Provia 100F. I prefer Provia to Velvia at ISO 100 due to less black clipping. Blues and greens are just awesome with Fujichrome. Kodak Portra 160vc and 400vc are my favorite print films. All 4 of those listed have very little noticeable grain. I prefer the slides for landscapes and negatives for portraits or when I need less contrast. Fuji Pro160c and s are nice as well.

P.S. Provia scans great too. Here is an excellent 4000dpi Nikon scan(20mp) of a horrible picture, but at least it's good for seeing resolution! :P Even at that res there is essentially 0 grain. ZX-L w/Vivitar S1 105 macro.

[filmamigo]

My favourite landscape film is Kodak E100VS.

Fantastic colour!

Here's a quick snapshot that I like the colour of.

[IMG] By davidwscott at 2008-07-04[/IMG]

---

Last edited by filmamigo; 07-04-2008 at 07:52 PM.

[artobest]

Hi

First time poster!

I have the Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV and use it to scan transparencies, with great results (if I do my levels carefully and watch out for excessive magenta). I wouldn't especially recommend it (or any other home scanner) for scanning colour negatives. It is really hard to get a pleasing, smooth result. (Scanning b&w negatives works fine - if you scan them as colour transparencies and convert!)

So I guess I would recommend you stick to transparencies if scanning is your ultimate aim. I love Provia - great colours, great contrast and fine grain. I'd avoid Astia for landscapes unless you specifically want subdued colours (and even then, I'd use something else and process later in PhotoShop).

Peter

[stan8331]

My favorite for tranparencies will always be Kodachrome, 64 or 25 depending on the application. The sharpness and deepness of colors are amazing, even at this late date. I can only imagine how good it would be by now if there was an ongoing R&D effort. I have a lot of old slides (and a few new ones) I need to work on scanning, once I decide on a scanner.

[cygnet]

Fujichrome

[falconeye]

Here is an excellent 4000dpi Nikon scan(20mp)

I agree, it shows excellent detail. To be taken with a grain of salt, maybe...

The smallest details I could find are about 2.5 pixels wide. Which would translate to 1600 dpi or the equivalent output of a 5 MPixel camera (you have to reduce the digital pixel count by about 30% to get comparable figures). Say 6 MPixels.

Which is GREAT for film. But 10 MPixel DSLRs are hard or impossible to match by film nowadays, resolution-wise.

[Eaglerapids]

But 10 MPixel DSLRs are hard or impossible to match by film nowadays, resolution-wise.

You know, I just shot a quick roll of cheap Fuji print film yesterday and took it to Walgrens to get the negatives developed. The guy scratched them up so bad, somehow, he only charged me a quarter to develop them. Nevertheless there were some pretty good shots. I scanned them with a Nikon V ED which is a pretty good scanner. I've noticed this before with other film and slides and now I have to agree with falconeye. In fact, I thought it was me and it's good to see someone mention this. Resolution wise they are nowhere near as good as my K10D.
I'm not dissing film, it has it's look and feel but if we're talking about resolution................

I've also scanned many pictures for friends, some Kodachrome, Ektachrome and films. Pictures that other photographers took. Maybe it is me and my scanning methods, I'm not sure. Maybe the other photographers weren't that hot. Out of all my old pics from the film days that I've scanned, not a single scan that I've done matches up, resolution wise, to my K10D. I thought maybe it was the cheaper lens I used in those days, I have much better lens now, but the roll I shot yesterday was with some very nice lenses. One of the lenses used was the Viv Series 1 105/2.5 macro.

[cygnet]

Y'all need to learn scanning, as I think it takes a while to figure it out. My scans from a Nikon V usually blow away anything from a K20D, let alone a K10D. But I'm talking about what a final PRINT looks like, not measurebating like falconeye. I can't believe there are folks out there that actually do measure pixels. You need to look at the print. Not on a computer screen. Not compressed into a jpeg. Scanned film does just fine.

[falconeye]

I'm talking about what a final PRINT looks like, not measurebating like falconeye.

I should take this as a personal offense. Please, be more careful with your wording. I probably am a photographer just as you are. It isn't measurebating to know whether, resolution-wise, film beats digital or vice verse. It is just good technical background knowledge.

As is to know that any final PRINT looks sharp from 6 MPixels up, when viewed from its intended viewing distance. Resolution matters when you start to crop in order to recompose your shot, though.

So, your blow away statement, while it may hold true, doesn't say anything about resolution. Your statement "Y'all need to learn scanning" is plain arrogant. I don't say you are, but this statement is.

[Vertex Ninja]

The smallest details I could find are about 2.5 pixels wide. Which would translate to 1600 dpi or the equivalent output of a 5 MPixel camera (you have to reduce the digital pixel count by about 30% to get comparable figures). Say 6 MPixels.

Which is GREAT for film. But 10 MPixel DSLRs are hard or impossible to match by film nowadays, resolution-wise.

Those details have also been sharpened with high pass of 3 or more pixels + a .85 pixels in Ligthroom. That creates halos(one pixel resolution + halos = x) that would be undetectable by 20/20 vision at nearly all prints 35mm would reasonably print at. My K10D shots get the same treatment and therefore look similar. This is a Nikon V ED(lowest end model) scan not a drum scan. While I agree that K10D is similar or slightly better, I would not say that 10mp kills 35mm film and don't even talk about 645 and up. That picture was also shot handheld at no more that 1/125th of a second(highest flash sync of ZX-L) 1:1 with a 105mm lens with provia(not the highest resolution Fuji film). I would not dare compare my K10D to 35mm techpan, both on a tripod.

None of that is here nor there though. The OP asked what films to shoot with his film cameras.

[falconeye]

None of that is here nor there though. The OP asked what films to shoot with his film cameras.

Yes, you're right. Its Kodachrome 25 (which I don't know where to get it anymore) and Velvia for me.

For the resolution, let's settle the issue that it is anywhere between 5 and 10 MPixels I don't think that absent sharpening halos or a drum scanner would have a significant impact here. Some black&white films can be another story, though

Addendum.
Ok, I couldn't give up on the topic and found this:

The often quoted resolving value, 80 lp/mm, is determined using high-resolution densitometer at very small contrast differences (10%), on film that was contact printed without the use of a lens. A 10% contrast difference is well below what a human could observe even if the film was enlarged substantially making the line-pairs human readable. As if to confirm this, Fuji doesn't report MTF values below 20-25% contrast difference in its more recent Film Data Sheets.

If the contrast difference between line-pairs is evaluated at a 30%contrast difference, something an average human could observe, the spatial resolution of slide film is about 35-60 lp/mm, using the MTF curves in (Kodak, 1986) & (FujiFilm, 2000-2003); excluding Velvia. Using the more realistic resolution of 50 lp/mm, and exposing the film through a very high resolution 200 lp/mm lens (most lenses actually have a 30-50 lp/mm resolution, lowering the final system resolution even more) the resolution of the system will be about 40 lp/mm (system resolving power equation, EQ1, from FujiFilm Professional Data Guide, AF3-141E, 2002, p 129).

[EQ1: 1/r=1/r (film) + 1/r (lens);
where r=resolving power and r=resolving power on each component]

Using the broadest range of 35-80 lp/mm resolutions, the MTF values are translated to about 1800-3000 ppi, an average of 2900 ppi resolution, before the effect of the lens resolution is applied. The same MTF range, excluding Fuji Velvia, would have an average resolution of 47.5 lp/mm or 2400 ppi (before the effect of the lens resolution is applied).

[Source: Projecting Digital 'Slide' Images]

Taking their 40 lp/mm number, this would be an 8 MPixel DSLR equivalent resolution.

But Kodachrome 25, Velvia and B&W film play in another league, easily outperforming current DSLRs, it seems.

So finally, the topic became film-related, after all

[cygnet]

I should take this as a personal offense.

Sorry, but I'm just a bit tired of digital devotees trying to discourage people from using film. I was just responding to the fact that you came on the FILM SLR forum and then tried to discourage the OP asking about film for scanning by basically saying it's not worth it compared to a K10D. I thought that was kind of arrogant, myself. Not pertinent to the question, or the forum.

Then the next poster said that they were glad that you brought that up, since their scans weren't up to par, but then said "Maybe it's me and my scanning methods, I'm not sure". Thus my statement "y'all need to learn scanning" because he said he "wasn't sure" why he was getting the results he did. He even said maybe it was the photographs themselves, which is, of course, where you start evaluating what to scan. And I followed my statement with "it takes a while to figure it out", specifically to avoid sounding arrogant, because it does take years of experimentation. I started scanning with a SCSI Minolta Scan Dual, and then got my Nikon V ED when I didn't have a computer with SCSi anymore. And I'd say it took at least 3 years of messing with all the settings and different softwares (Vuescan, Lasersoft, Nikon Scan) to get consistent results. Each negative or slide is different. Sometimes the processing has brought out more grain, the density between rolls changes, and you have to evaluate each to determine which software, which settings to use during scanning, and which to leave to Photoshop.

All that said, I think it was a great learning experience, and I don't want to discourage anyone else from venturing into it by saying digital is better. Digital or film, scanning or wet developing, it's all just different ways that one can choose to end up with a photograph.

[falconeye]

and then tried to discourage the OP asking about film for scanning by basically saying it's not worth it compared to a K10D. I thought that was kind of arrogant, myself. Not pertinent to the question, or the forum.

Well, so it is my turn now to apologize. Sorry if my post created the impression it did. Really not intended. I use both, film and digital, myself and would never try to discourage anybody from using film. It is a great way to photograph, forcing me to think much more about a shot -- which I do like, actually.

Nevertheless, I think the question which medium outperforms which, resolution-wise, colour-wise or dynamic-range wise, is a valid one. There is no easy winner as of today and my comment wanted to clarify this in sight of the sample shot and resolution comment provided earlier in the thread. As Provia doesn't resolve 20 MP, really.

different softwares (Vuescan, Lasersoft, Nikon Scan) to get consistent results.

BTW, I use Lasersoft's Silverfast and Nikon Scan and cannot finally decide
#1: if I better should skip Silverfast and do everything in Nikon Scan/Lightroom,
#2: if I should just use Multi Exposure in Silverfast, and do the rest in Lightroom, or
#3: if I should do all the corrections directly in Silverfast. I tend to prefer #2.

Scanning into 16 Bit TIFF using Multi Exposure should be the equivalent of shooting RAW -- leaving all the touch up work for a later stage, e.g., Lightroom.

What is your opinion about this?

by saying digital is better. Digital or film, scanning or wet developing, it's all just different ways that one can choose to end up with a photograph.

I didn't say so but I agree to your statement.

BTW, one shouldn't discourage anybody to use film by saying scanning film is wizardry At least film scanning resolution doesn't depend that much on experience.