Does color negatve film have shortcomings?

[chip j]

Esp. when the end result may be a high-quality digital exhibition print? Thanks

 

[AgX]

The masking of CN film is done due to twice taking place place of malabsorbtion of the image forming dyes, that is at the film itself and at the printing paper/film.

In the hybrid workflow though the latter is omitted.

 

[Sirius Glass]

No

 

[markbau]

If the end result is a digital print why wouldn't you just shoot digital in the first place?

When I used to do colour printing I much preferred printing from colour negs.

 

[chip j]

I don't want to learn to shoot digital and buy new cameras & lenses.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Obviously there's a transformation both in the scanning and printing steps which can lead to loss or difference of quality. Unless you begin with digital, what other choice do you have?

 

[markbau]

Obviously there's a transformation both in the scanning and printing steps which can lead to loss or difference of quality. Unless you begin with digital, what other choice do you have?

I agree, every step of a photographic process degrades image quality. Going from digital camera to photoshop to print is a lot less steps that film camera-develop-scan-photoshop-print. As I said in another thread, it is now considered quite trendy to shoot film but then scan and print which is a workflow that makes no sense to me at all if your final is a digital print, but as the OP has said, they don't want to buy/learn digital so that's fair enough.

 

[MattKing]

Does color negatve film have shortcomings?

Well, it is missing an "i".
It lacks the clear visual reference that transparency films provide.
Technically, it offers the potential for high quality reproduction from a film original, whether proceeding via optical enlargement or a scan and digital printing process, however...
If proceeding via a scan and digital printing process, it requires a significant amount of skill and experience, as well as quality equipment and software, to optimize that quality.

 

[John51]

If proceeding via a scan and digital printing process, it requires a significant amount of skill and experience, as well as quality equipment and software, to optimize that quality.

Skills I haven't got and after a few weeks of hassle with my Epson, have decided not to learn. Costs me less than £10 to have C41 processed and scanned by the lab. I can then have the lab make C prints from any keepers. Maybe I'll get into RA4 printing someday, until then I'll let the lab do the work.

 

[bdial]

It does have some shortcomings compared to other possibilities, but strengths too, notably film choices and exposure latitude. Making high quality prints from color negs is certainly possible, and lots of people do it, either on their own or using labs.
Kodak Ektar especially, and Portra scan well, and good software will reverse the image and take care of the mask easily enough. The final print won't have the flat smoothness of a digital original, but that's not necessarily bad.

 

[jim10219]

The two main drawbacks, other than workflow, is when you scan film to digital, you don't get as long of a color gradient scale. This is due partly to the mask inherit in all C-41 film, and partly due to the limitations of the scanning equipment. Usually, in software, you can extend the dynamic range of the image to make it more visually appealing, but doing so, you'll lose a lot of the intermediate steps. Often times this isn't really much of a noticeable issue, if done right. But it does make the method inferior to an all digital image or an all analog one, when compared side by side. And it can be more noticeable if the subject has a very wide range of colors with soft and subtle transitions.

The other is resolution. You're limited not just by the resolution of the film, but also the resolution of the scanner. Once again, this can be somewhat mitigated with proper use of software, but you'll usually get sharper prints by sticking with either an all digital, or all analog workflow. Remember, when scanning film, you're essentially taking a picture of a picture, and since one uses randomly located and sized grains, and the other uses highly ordered and precisely sized pixels, you're not going to get a perfect representation, no matter what you do.

If your wanting to print large, say above 8x10, then I'd highly suggest going with medium or large format. While an all analog print of a 35mm negative can look decent at 8x10, a scanned negative digital print will usually show some shortcomings. Especially in a gallery next to other prints of higher quality, made through a purely digital or analog workflow. I've made quit a few digital prints from 35mm film of all kinds, and scanned them at resolutions high enough to expose the grain (which create files in excess of 1 GB), and when printed digitally, they often look okay by themselves, but held next to a full analog or digital print, they don't look so impressive. My prints made from digitally scanned 4x5 negatives, however, look pretty good (assuming the color range of the subject is somewhat limited).

 

[Chan Tran]

It depends. For me when I moved to digital the only think I bought was a camera. I bought no lenses. All the lenses work the same way. If your end result is a scan from negative then simply using a digital camera is much better.

 

[Ste_S]

Esp. when the end result may be a high-quality digital exhibition print? Thanks

No. Plenty of people have exhibited digital prints from C41 negs.

From my own very humble experience, I prepped a display for a Royal Photography Society distinction panel at A4 using a mixture of photos from a digital cam and scans from colour negs. Printed on a home ink jet printer. I didn't get through (but that wasn't anything to do with the quality of my C41 neg scan prints )

 

[Ste_S]

If your end result is a scan from negative then simply using a digital camera is much better.

'Better' is very subjective. Enough of the character of the film stock gets through on a scan to make it worthwhile for me and I can't get a shot from a digital cam to match a C41 neg scan in post.

 

[Chan Tran]

'Better' is very subjective. Enough of the character of the film stock gets through on a scan to make it worthwhile for me and I can't get a shot from a digital cam to match a C41 neg scan in post.

The film look is what not good about film (so does the digital look). If a medium has its own look that is because it doesn't capture things exactly as it is.

 

[removed account4]

HI chip j

IDK the way I see it is everything has shortcomings and good stuff. Shortcomings might be - might be tricky getting it processed, might get used to a sweet emulsion and find it discontinued, or backing paper issues or .. ?, might be tricky to scan film ( or prints ) if you aren't used to it ( and you want to avoid a high end lab for fullservice custom scanning and printing services ).. goodstuff might be - it will allow you to concentrate on something you have experience using ( film ) and you won't have to deal with figuring out how to manage &c digital imagery if you don't want to, you will get a tangible negative without having to make one via other methods ... and its a wheelbarrow of fun.
On a side note, not sure what kind of film based 35mm gear you use, but you can easily pick up a nikon d100 for IDK 100 greenbacks off of the big yardsale in the sky, and fiddle around with it for not much of an investment. I used a D100 for years until it died and am now using a 13year old D200, yes I can make big prints that look swell from them. As Flav'a-Flave used to sing "don't believe the hype" when it comes to older film cameras they are like "sleepers" people listen to the upgrade mantra and sell off their 1year or 10 year old stuff thinking the new stuff is that much better. Its the same thing with the Dthang, like with film, it is better, but better at helping people spend more money

Good luck with your photo'ing
John

 

[Ste_S]

The film look is what not good about film (so does the digital look). If a medium has its own look that is because it doesn't capture things exactly as it is.

Each to their own, but I'd have to disagree with that take as it rules out B&W for a start.

 

[warden]

The film look is what not good about film (so does the digital look). If a medium has its own look that is because it doesn't capture things exactly as it is.

If there ever comes a tool that captures a scene with perfect accuracy I'll stay far away.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I bracket my shots. Slide film like Velvia 50 tell me immediately which of the bracketed shots was exposed the best. That's harder to do with negative film.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I will on rare occasion bracket exposures. Very rare occasion.

 

[Richard Man]

C41 is one of those proofs that if you throw enough money at the problem, it will be solved. By no right it should be this good. One can look at a good B&W neg or positives and know their goodness. Color negs? Looks like an orange mess until you scan or print. However, since Kodak/Fuji/Agfa etc. were making billions dollars from it, they threw in tons of research and the good color films is still way damn good.

As for digital vs. scanned film. Yawn. I shot boatloads of 4x5 and 120 and scan and print up to 44". People that don't want to do it, don't have to do it. "I don't understand why..." yes, of course you don't, that's why you don't do it.

"I don't understand why anyone would speak Chinese, it's such a difficult language to learn." Yet billions of people do speak Chinese, and some even learn it even though they are not native speaker.

Different strokes for different folks.