Best cheap 35mm colour film stock? (scanning oriented)

[George Mann]

What is Color Plus?

The current version of KodaColor 200.

Are you near Blue Moon too?

No.

 

[CMoore]

I read it quite often.
What does it mean when people say that a certain film "Does Not Scan Well" .?
What happens...or does not happen.?
Thank You

 

[removed account4]

What happens...or does not happen.?

cmoore, i think it is like the first drummer from the grateful dead ... after you scan it
it comes back from the great beyond and steals your face ? or maybe it is like having
chinese food before going to sleep and it gives you weird dreams ... guessing ..
i've never had films that don't scan well, probably scanned 20-25 different types of color
and b/w films .. since 1996-7 but then again i was told recently that 35mm film sholdn't be scanned
and one is wasting their efforts for scanning any film at all .. so who knows what it means..

 

[Chuckwade87]

Is Svema labeled Lomography? Last prices I saw were pretty cheap, and the only color/colour film you vcan buy in 100ft bulk rolls, (at least that I've seen)

 

[RattyMouse]

I read it quite often.
What does it mean when people say that a certain film "Does Not Scan Well" .?
What happens...or does not happen.?
Thank You

Films that scan well tend to be much sharper than ones that do not.

 

[CMoore]

Films that scan well tend to be much sharper than ones that do not.

Film that does not scan well.......
So the negative is "sharp" when you look at it, and no longer Sharp/As Sharp after it is scanned.?

 

[removed account4]

Film that does not scan well.......
So the negative is "sharp" when you look at it, and no longer Sharp/As Sharp after it is scanned.?

just be careful of the pizza box !

 

[MattKing]

Films that "scan well" respond well to the (usually IR based) anti-dust functions built into a lot of scanners and software.
As scanning is so destructive to acutance, films that start out with higher acutance are more likely to fit within the "scans well" group.
Ironically, if you start out with a low grain high resolution film with moderate contrast and smooth tonal response, it is probably harder to get it to scan well than a film with more grain and contrast.

 

[1kgcoffee]

I have about 16 triple packs of the gold 200 in my freezer. It prints beautifully, has wonderful color, saturation, contrast and grain. Its like a color tri-x that flies under the radar and won't be truly appreciated until they jack up the price. You don't need to use a warming filter, since as the name suggests it tends to gold. Unfortunately it is not cut in 120, but I prefer it to ektar and portra for the way it prints. At 1/3 to 1/2 the price it's a bargain. Modern films are for medium format.

If you have kids this is nostalgia film to use.

 

[Les Sarile]

After buying the Coolscan 5000 when it was first released, I consider all films to be scanner friendly. Over 40,000 frames of various film scanned since, that is still the case. Coolscan 9000+Nikonscan ICE is nothing short of magical when it comes to particularly scratched dirty frame of film.

Consider the time and effort it would take to work on a frame when you don't have ICE, such as in a DSLR capture.

Along with ICE, the post processing effort to turn a color negative to a positive that Nikonscan delivers in about 50 seconds.

And yes Nikon ICE works just as perfectly with Kodachrome too.

Just how much real detail can a Coolscan's 4000dpi achieve? We all know it is near 4000dpi but here is a comparison with DSLRs - 14.6MP Pentax K20D and 36.3MP Nikon D800

Full res -> Kodak Techpan scan compare
Even though the D800 has more pixels then a 4000dpi scan, it is almost similar in achievable detail.
To the far right, you can clearly see just how much more real detail was captured on the frame of Techpan that still cannot be fully resolved using these methods.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I read it quite often.
What does it mean when people say that a certain film "Does Not Scan Well" .?
What happens...or does not happen.?
Thank You

The problem is what is technically called Operator Assisted Failure [OAF]. The usage is that the OAF did this or the OAF did that.

Films that "scan well" respond well to the (usually IR based) anti-dust functions built into a lot of scanners and software.
As scanning is so destructive to acutance, films that start out with higher acutance are more likely to fit within the "scans well" group.
Ironically, if you start out with a low grain high resolution film with moderate contrast and smooth tonal response, it is probably harder to get it to scan well than a film with more grain and contrast.

Matt points out one example of what OAFs do. Another is that they scan without reading the manual. RTFM!!!

 

[David Luttmann]

After buying the Coolscan 5000 when it was first released, I consider all films to be scanner friendly. Over 40,000 frames of various film scanned since, that is still the case. Coolscan 9000+Nikonscan ICE is nothing short of magical when it comes to particularly scratched dirty frame of film.

Consider the time and effort it would take to work on a frame when you don't have ICE, such as in a DSLR capture.

Along with ICE, the post processing effort to turn a color negative to a positive that Nikonscan delivers in about 50 seconds.

And yes Nikon ICE works just as perfectly with Kodachrome too.

Just how much real detail can a Coolscan's 4000dpi achieve? We all know it is near 4000dpi but here is a comparison with DSLRs - 14.6MP Pentax K20D and 36.3MP Nikon D800

Full res -> Kodak Techpan scan compare
Even though the D800 has more pixels then a 4000dpi scan, it is almost similar in achievable detail.
To the far right, you can clearly see just how much more real detail was captured on the frame of Techpan that still cannot be fully resolved using these methods.

Good post Les. I agree. All modern films are very good scanned.

 

[David Luttmann]

I like the results I get from Fuji Superia 400. When I do street photography projects in Tokyo, I normally grab a couple dozen rolls to use when I am there. Also, look up Fuji Industrial 400. Can be bought in boxes of 100. Works great, scans well.

 

[Les Sarile]

I like the results I get from Fuji Superia 400. When I do street photography projects in Tokyo, I normally grab a couple dozen rolls to use when I am there. Also, look up Fuji Industrial 400. Can be bought in boxes of 100. Works great, scans well.

I agree that Fuji Superia 400 works very well. You just need to move the subjects where you want them for the proper angle . . .

 

[George Mann]

Most scans from ColorPlus produce excessive grain-like artifacts, as well as a marked reduction of acuity, and spacial resolve.

 

[P.johnson14]

Ektar and Portra are my go to's for color. I have been experimenting with Lomography CN 400 and 800. The 400 I like, it really makes bright greens pop. The 800 just doesn't do it for me, Portra 800 comes out nicer. At 100, I just prefer Ektar, nothing else comes close unless we are talking about FP100c (my all time favorite... I love instant)

I used to really like the Walgreens house brand 200 or 400, so much so that I shot a friends wedding with it. But then it was discontinued.

I shot some Kodak Gold last year and didn't like the results when compared to Ektar or Portra.

 

[Huss]

I have found that my out of focus and incorrectly exposed film shots scan poorly.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

This thread seems mainly to be about the scannability of current color films, so it’s been moved from the 35mm forum in the Analogue area to the scanning forum in the Hybrid area.

 

[jlbruyelle]

After buying the Coolscan 5000 when it was first released, I consider all films to be scanner friendly. Over 40,000 frames of various film scanned since, that is still the case. Coolscan 9000+Nikonscan ICE is nothing short of magical when it comes to particularly scratched dirty frame of film.

And yes Nikon ICE works just as perfectly with Kodachrome too.

Hi, I had not noticed it before, but on these pictures the ICE'd scan, particularly with fine setting, seems to have a distinctly reduced sharpness - see the fine details on the stitches, the collar and around the eyes, for instance. Unless something else in your process is causing this? One could also argue that this is an extreme case of a particularly dusty slide: any serious operator would make a far better job of cleaning the picture before digitizing it, rather than blindly relying on automatic corrections Granted, you made it as an extreme case to show the effectiveness of the Coolscan 9000's ICE, but a decent dusting of the original slide is effective and takes less time than the fine ICE processing. One problem of the most scanners is that they use a condenser lighting system which emphasizes the dust, unlike the diffuse lighting used in other digitizing systems, as one can easily see in the two images of the upper row.

Also, I think one word of caution is necessary for those who do not know yet: these images were made with the only scanner ever made whose ICE is compatible with films containing silver, namely non-chromogenic B&W and Kodachrome. The results would not be nearly as good with any other scanner, including other Coolscans. Unfortunately the 9000 is very rare and expensive. With Kodachrome and B&W, you usually have to rely on software ICE which is both more destructive and less effective than infrared, so this example should not to be taken as representative of what can be achieved with any other scanner. In other words, Kodachrome is not one of the easiest films to scan, unfortunately.

 

[RattyMouse]

I have found that my out of focus and incorrectly exposed film shots scan poorly.

 

[Les Sarile]

Granted, you made it as an extreme case to show the effectiveness of the Coolscan 9000's ICE . . .

Just fully automatics scans with all other options off except for ICE settings. There is definitely detail lost but given the options of you post processing or about 50 second scans with ICE, which would you choose. BTW, these are not just dust sitting on the film as I carefully washed these frames. The deep scratches on Kodak 160VC was compliments of Fuji "Professional" handling when I had 20" X 30" optical enlargements made. Of course apparent softness can be easily handled with post sharpening which I would only do as the final step.

How Coolscan ICE affects Fuji RVP

Full res -> Coolscan ICE on Fuji RVP compare

Compared to how Epson V700 ICE affects Fuji RVP

Full res -> Epson V700 ICE on Fuji RVP compare

 

[philipus]

Hi Matt, could you expand on the highlighted part? I'm trying to understand what you mean by destructive. Apologies if this is a basic question.
br
Philip

Films that "scan well" respond well to the (usually IR based) anti-dust functions built into a lot of scanners and software.
As scanning is so destructive to acutance, films that start out with higher acutance are more likely to fit within the "scans well" group.
Ironically, if you start out with a low grain high resolution film with moderate contrast and smooth tonal response, it is probably harder to get it to scan well than a film with more grain and contrast.

 

[MattKing]

It would probably be more accurate to say that "digitization is destructive to acutance".
Think about a piece of film - negative or transparency - which has an image on it. When we view that image, we are attuned to the details in the image, and particularly attuned to the edges of those details. Acutance is a description or measurement of how well rendered those edges are.
Edges form continuous lines. In real life, until you get to the sub-atomic realm, there are no visible breaks to those lines. But when you try to reduce them to a photographic image, the photographic process itself by necessity must break that continuity.
Film does the breaking of continuity by recording the edge with numerous clumps of silver or dyes that are at least slightly three dimensional and partially randomized. The clumps themselves are made up of many more, many smaller individual silver grains or dye droplets. All of which together gives a great potential for rendering fine detail and the edges thereof.
Digitization breaks up the continuity in a much simpler way. On a pixel by pixel level, they are either on or off. And if the edge in the image does not fall between the pixels, the edge will be made non-continuous in the rendering.
The more pixels you have in the area concerned, the closer you can get to an accurate rendering of the edges, but you are still forced to break up the line.
FWIW, I think it is fair to describe most of the digital "sharpness" adjustments as consisting of tools that make the pixels at the edge of details line up and look more obvious.

 

[Les Sarile]

It would probably be more accurate to say that "digitization is destructive to acutance".

Every form of reproduction - such as scanning by scanners, dslrs or internet or contact print, will leave some detail unresolved. Then there is that matter of color and contrast which I believe is just as important.
I believe all these transfer/reproduction methods are lossy as opposed to destructive per se.

 

[MattKing]

Every form of reproduction - such as scanning by scanners, dslrs or internet or contact print, will leave some detail unresolved. Then there is that matter of color and contrast which I believe is just as important.
I believe all these transfer/reproduction methods are lossy as opposed to destructive per se.

It isn't really a question of loss.
The edges are broken by digitization. And then people use sharpening to build new ones, which may or may not faithfully mirror the original subject.