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Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 07-09-2013, 12:56 PM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Actually the best advantage in using some kind of liquid is a reduction in the visibility of grain, dust and scratches.

I never bothered - too lazy - if not for the best large format shots when I was still using a scanner, but you can have great results using "odorless thinner for oil painting". I used the Maimeri brand one, but they should be pretty much all the same stuff. It should dry in a very short time after the shot, without leaving nasty residues on your films. When in doubt, try it before on a piece of scrap film.

If I remember right it should cost maybe 3-4 euro for a bottle of 75ml. Throw in a dropper to dose it, a painter sponge roller paintbrush to spread it evenly and you're set.

Basically you put a few drops - depending how large your film is - of the paint thinner on a piece of glass, then put a piece of film on - emulsion down, preferably -, trying not to trap air bubbles between the film and the glass. Then you use the roller to spread evenly the liquid between the film and the glass, and shot / scan the picture before the liquid evaporates.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 07-08-2013, 11:25 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
I use "painter" tape, the paper backed kind painters use to mask door frames etc.

It does not leave residues, costs practically nothing and works like a charm, keeping the negs perfectly flat (I tape them down on the visor surface or onto a piece of glass, emulsion side down to avoid Newton rings).
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 02-07-2013, 11:14 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Hi, it seems to me that you bumped against quite a few problems.

- first of all a bellows it is not the ideal solution because it is to "shaky", so you can't reliably put the camera+bellows+lens combo on top of the negative (and this is paramount to obtain perfect parallelism with the film)

- a normal 50mm, not "macro" and/or not an "enlarger" lens, it is almost always junk at real macro distances, i.e. 1:1 and the like. A Pentax M macro goes for 50-70 euro (it depends by how lucky you are) and it is an amazing lens by itself even for general use, so I strongly suggest you to get one (or an equivalent)

- I tried the iPad as a light source, but it is not good. Like you experienced if you put the film too close you'll get the pixel composing the screen in your pictures. You can always distance the film from the iPad surface, but then you will probably have a dim and shaky setup, so you will be back to square one. To build a basic but functional lightbox you need a wooden or plastic box, a couple of neon or energy saving lightbulbs and a bit of electric wire. If you are comfortable around electricity it will cost maybe 10-15 euro top, this assuming that you don't have anything of the materials ready in some closet.

Summing up for the best results you have to:

1) put the camera+lens+hood/spacer combo ON TOP of the film to obtain perfect parallelism; and with "on top" I mean literally, they have to rest on the lightbox surface "sandwiching" the film between the lens and the lightbox surface itself

2) all have to be solid, so don't use a bellows, but a macro lens; at the very least you may try extension tubes

3) you have to use a lens that is good in the macro range, so a true macro or some wide angle used reversed. If you choose the wide-angle road you'll have to experiment with what you have; some are great, some are terrible. I found excellent results with an old pre-Ai era Nikon Nikkor O 35mm f/2 that sells for peanuts

I hope you don't give up! :)

Regards,
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 12-12-2012, 05:17 PM  
Comparison of almost all raw converters
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 4
Views: 2,350
You're right, trying to "equalize" the contrast among so many different softwares proved to be tougher than I thought. In the end I noticed we both ended up with the same combo, Lightroom for the bulk of the work and RawTherapee for the tricky cases!

At this two I add Raw Photo Processor for the shots made with the Nex-3 at high iso (it does wonders) and Rawker for the Fuji X100 (it gives me pictures with the same beautiful colors of the Fuji jpgs, but much sharper).

And thanks for the compliment, I'm glad you liked the shot I used for the review; I hate it! :lol: It was the only half-baked picture that I was able to not trash after an entire day spent in a gloomy, grey light. Lucky for me I came back a week later and the light was much better.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 12-11-2012, 11:13 AM  
Comparison of almost all raw converters
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 4
Views: 2,350
I over-sharpened intentionally the files a bit in the 3rd and 4th part, to make the differences between raw converters more visible. But if you want to see the unsharpened crops you should look at the 1st part.

Criticism is welcome :) but keep in mind that you're looking at a really small portion of a large print!

Btw, more than committed that day I was bored to death because, after an hour and a half drive, the light was awful; so I decided to make this test just to not completely waste the day.
Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing 12-11-2012, 10:00 AM  
Comparison of almost all raw converters
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 4
Views: 2,350
I was talking with a guy on a forum about what raw converter one should use and why, so I thought that this my old (a few months) test was worth sharing.

It's a 5 parts post with 100% crops :cool: - may be useful to someone else in his situation. I compared against each other almost all the raw converters available then. They were: Apple Preview, Canon Digital Photo Professional, CaptureOne 6, Corel AfterShot, DCRaw, DXO Optics, Gimp, Lightroom 3, PerfectRaw, Photoshop 5, RawTherapee, Rawker, RawDeveloper, RawPhotoProcessor, UFRaw.

Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part I
Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part II
Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part III
Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part IV
Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part V

And then I found another interesting one, free for Apple users with the Developers pack:

Review: Core Image Fun House

Hope this helps. Happy pictures everyone
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-10-2012, 05:13 PM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Thanks for the reference!
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-10-2012, 02:59 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
I think so, but out of pure luck, or maybe because the distance of 50x the lens focal length is one of the "gold standard" of lens testing. It appears from your picture the size of each single "module" of the chart to be identical to the pictures I took (sorry, I don't have anymore a full shot, I kept only the crops).

But I printed the ISO chart on A4 paper (roughly 8x11), while for the border crops I used a Norman Koren test chart that has a maximum extinction frequency of 200 lp/mm. With this chart the lenses topped out around 100 lp/mm, the bests slightly more; but please keep in mind that I did not use this particular chart following its instructions, I used it only because it made really simple discerning even small differences in sharpness between the lenses tested.

And, even if I cared to make all the shots comparable keeping the size of the chart identical through the various lenses, I did not put much effort in matching a particular reproduction ratio to compare the results against others, like DPreview.

More, I think that the difference in resolution, microlenses placement, sensor size etc. between our cameras could make a difference, but you are the engineer, so tell me :)

So if I have to guess I'd say that the conclusions of our test are fully comparable, but the crops only barely.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-08-2012, 11:46 PM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
You're right. Even in landscape photography, when in theory it shouldn't, it often make a great difference, especially for shooting distant / small subjects. I recon that the Live View, more than the megapixels increase, it's the single thing that makes the most difference in favor of the digital medium compared to, often miscalibrated, film cameras, even medium format ones.
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 12-08-2012, 04:39 PM  
Review: Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Takumar 8-elements vs 7-elements vs Pentax Macro
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 12
Views: 3,537
I am curios about the Biotar too, at least judging by the pictures I've seen so far. But at the moment it is fetching prices out of the realm of reality, at least on the *bay.

Instead I managed to try an Helios 44 when I had a Nikon D300; even on a cropped sensor it was pretty bad in the corners, and it didn't impress me much at all. In all fairness I shot with it only to test it, and when performed so poorly I ended up "looting" its optical elements to assemble a DIY Zacuto-like magnifying finder… The problem with the soviet era lenses is that the quality control, I gather, was pretty lousy; so you may ended up with a great lens and I with an absolute lemon.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-08-2012, 04:26 PM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Ok, now I understand. I tend to be a bit thick after a full holiday meal :)

Well, at the link I gave before - that now is working - you can find 100% crops of all the lens tested at nearly all stops.

Regards,
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 12-08-2012, 11:08 AM  
Review: Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Takumar 8-elements vs 7-elements vs Pentax Macro
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 12
Views: 3,537
I bought this Takumar out of curiosity, now they will have to pry it from my dead hands…so no, it's not for sale on Amazon!

Thanks Steve for pointing this out. I guess that to mention the source is no longer in fashion.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-08-2012, 09:17 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Sorry, I'm not sure if this is what you mean for "corroborating the results", but:

- I shot with the camera:
> on tripod and with the mirror up
> with a remote - wireless - release
> the shutter set for a 10 seconds self-timer
- the lenses were tested at 50x their nominal focal length
- I focused each lens at full aperture with Live View zoomed @ 10x plus a 22x Peak loupe, then rechecked the results once I closed the aperture to see if there was a focus shift (there was none).

I'm quite confident to have exploited the full resolution of the Canon, because in the 100 lpm part of the chart I was able to see the gradual extinction of the details. I did not publish the 100 lpm part of the crops because due the jpg compression they all looked fairly similar, but in the original files the differences are quite obvious.
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 12-08-2012, 06:36 AM  
Review: Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Takumar 8-elements vs 7-elements vs Pentax Macro
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 12
Views: 3,537
You're welcome! :)
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 12-08-2012, 04:30 AM  
Review: Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Takumar 8-elements vs 7-elements vs Pentax Macro
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 12
Views: 3,537
I agree, in fact I did the test more to know the best field of use for each lens - some are best suited for landscape, others for portraits etc. - that for uncover a true "lemon".

More, each optical scheme has a peculiar signature that you may like or not, so it's best to know in advance than after having sprung for a new lens :)
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion 12-08-2012, 03:26 AM  
Review: Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Takumar 8-elements vs 7-elements vs Pentax Macro
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 12
Views: 3,537
Hi,
one of my favorite focal length is the 50mm. In the last years I've collected a few of them, so I decided it was time to put them one against each other to learn pros and cons of each lens.

I thought that may be of interest for other people too, so I just posted a comprehensive comparison - with 100% center and border crops at almost each stop - of the following 50-ish lenses:

- Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Takumar 8-elements design
- Pentax 50mm f/1,4 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 7-elements design
- Pentax 50mm f/4 M Macro
- Contax 60mm f/2,8 Zeiss Makro S-Planar
- Minolta 50mm f/1,7 Rokkor MD
- Olympus 50mm f/1,8 OM Zuiko

Happy pixel peeping everyone :lol:

Battle of the 50s: Contax 60 vs Minolta vs Olympus vs Pentax Takumars | | Addicted2light Addicted2light
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-08-2012, 03:11 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Now it should.

Sorry, there was a slight glitch with my wordpress installation :(
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 12-07-2012, 05:16 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
I absolutely agree, the Pentax macro is a terrific lens.

I too test all the used lenses I buy, to be sure to not have stumbled on a "lemon". Now I have a few 50mm-ish lenses and I decided to compare one against each others; not to hijack my own thread ;) but I'll put the test online tomorrow (I'm finishing formatting the page) on my blog, if you're interested:

http://www.addicted2light.com/2012/12/08/battle-of-the-50s-contax-60-vs-mino...ntax-takumars/

Bottom line: the 50s I tried (Pentax macro, Takumar 8 elements and 7 elements, Minolta Md, Contax Makro Planar, Olympus Zuiko) are all excellent lenses, but each with quite a bit of personality and "best" kind of use.

Regards,
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-30-2012, 08:15 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Hi timmijo,
actually the problems involved in photographing a print are the same of the negatives: proper alignment between the camera and the print and a good, even light source. So, if you go to all this trouble, you probably should use the negatives to have a better quality, and to not have to re-do the job at a later date.

But, if you want to use the prints, it's way easier to use a scanner; given the problems involved in getting the correct alignment you'll get a better quality, too. If you decide for this route you will not need nothing fancy: all the scanner built in the last, say, 5 / 6 years will do, with tons of resolution to spare. Just to be sure to make the scans at 300 or 600 dpi max; over this value you will not be extracting more information from a print, just "file size". The exception being optical black and white (or possibly color, if you used to print by yourself) prints: in this case there is actually quite a bit more detail to resolve. In this case you should, by try and error, find the "sweet spot", but I'm guessing it will be around 1200 / 1600 dpi anyway.

The advantage in photographing (or scanning) the prints instead of the negatives should be mostly less grain; not because the real film grain is so large. But due of a phenomenon known as "grain aliasing": the pixels of the sensor of the scanner interact with the actual grain of the film and, being unable to resolve detail as fine as the grain, interpolate them generating the big grain clumps we are used to see in all but the drum scansions - and the ones made with the multishot :)
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-30-2012, 04:30 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Thanks for the advice artobest, but the film holder was calibrated. And I used an anti newton glass on top of the film, cut to the size of the Epson holder, to ensure film flatness.

However the results are not really poor per se, I was pretty content with the v700. They are fairly small crops of big files that looks just fine in normal use, but horrible in comparison with the results of a better scanning technique.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-29-2012, 05:44 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
BTW, I just posted a comprehensive guide to scan films with a digital camera:

How to scan films using a digital camera | | Addicted2light Addicted2light

It's a summing up of what has been discussed here, with some extra tips.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-29-2012, 05:39 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Thanks!
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-28-2012, 04:53 AM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Unfortunately the Dmax specs for scanner are just a claim, not an actual fact; more or less like the sported max resolution. And yes, the noise is the most annoying thing. Especially if you ever make adjustment to the curves to bring back some of the detail in the shadows present on film, but lost in the scanning, you will rewarded with a fair amount of psychedelic electronic snow, even if it's not Christmas yet :D
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-27-2012, 05:55 PM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
I don't know if it depends from the sensor size or from the technology used. Sure when I used a Nikon D70 those reds I could only dream about… I remember trying to shoot an ultra-red fire and coming back with a bunch of mild-orange/magenta pictures.

You've got me thinking; when I'll have a bit of time I'll try and scan the same pictures with a Sony Nex 3 - and post the results -, just to see if the full format is responsible for this good behavior or not.
Forum: Film Processing, Scanning, and Darkroom 11-27-2012, 05:33 PM  
Forget scanners…use a multirow shooting technique
Posted By fotoreporter1975
Replies: 76
Views: 12,278
Actually b/w negatives capture a lot of dynamic range FROM the scene, when taking a shot. But then they are intrinsically of low contrast, having to be printed on papers that doesn't have a lot of exposure latitude. So they are pretty easy to scan. Actually I have often to stretch the levels left and right to fill the histogram and so exploit the full latitude the camera is capable of.
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