Are your backups EMP proof?
Fair enough. It should be noted, that this can be done (in my circumstances) only with 35mm B/W negatives. I get 100% of information out of them in terms of resolution and dynamic range, no need for a lecture here (trying to be preemptive), my B&W 35mm scanning is superb. Plus, I have the comfort of doing data management professionally (RAID, checksums, four backups in four separate locations).
I am nowhere close to achieving this with medium format or color, so perhaps I should have added some disclaimers.
Yes!I said four separate locations. So anything short of a nuclear war I'm fairly certain my digitized negatives will be the "last man standing".
You can now get punishment gluten free!You have to be a gluten for punishment.
Micro-contrast is the secret ingredient in photographic joy!How does micro-contrast work? This is probably unknown to me. I mean, isn't film "linear" in sense that the tones "map" no matter what kind of macro contrast you have?
Yes, I meant macro-contrast. How does micro-contrast work? This is probably unknown to me. I mean, isn't film "linear" in sense that the tones "map" no matter what kind of macro contrast you have?
It wasn't auto-corrected. I think I spelled it that way.You can now get punishment gluten free!
It is called scanning!
(Ain't auto-correct grand?)
Plus, I have the comfort of doing data management professionally (RAID, checksums, four append-only backups in four separate locations).
And more generally, expressed as "great midtones and highlights!".Micro-contrast was popularized by mass adoption of digital cameras around 2010. It never existed in engineering literature where these matters have always been expressed via MTF
I would never throw away negatives, but I respect your data storage. How often do you verify the checksums? Most people assume RAID is good enough, not realizing that RAID by itself has no bitrot detection mechanisms. I use a snapshot based RAID called 'snapraid' which includes a parity "scrub" (validates parity and data consistency), and that process makes it through my entire array about once a month.
Micro-contrast is the secret ingredient in photographic joy!
The detail, tones and rendition of the mid-tones - of utmost importance.
In the following image, controlling the mid-tone micro-contrast makes the birch bark what it is - the main strength of the image:
That's a very interesing point which deserves the necessary attention.I don’t see any discussion of grain here. In my limited experience in which black and white negative film was overdeveloped to a high contrast and density, the scan, which already overemphasizes apparent grain relative to optical printing, looked terribly grainy. On the other hand thin negatives sometimes scan surprisingly well. So although I tend to shoot and develop for box speed and normal recommended density, pulling a stop to reduce grain seems to work well for scanning. Even though it uses less than all the available scanner bits, I have never had any banding effects saving Epson flatbed scans to 16 bit files with subsequent moving tones around with curves.
Is my reasoning correct that this means that an image with a density range of 1.8 only has about 6 bits of tonality range for mapping these 10 stops of exposure?
Thanks, this makes a lot of sense!roughly, yes, however, it's the top 6 bits of the ADC where most of the discrete tone values are. Increasing your developing time will give you more discrete tone values, but it very quickly is diminishing returns, at the expense of more grain.
For a 14 bit ADC, the top 6 bits make up 16128 discrete tone values of the the 16384 total available for 14 bits. Increasing your development time so that your density range is 2.1 will only add 128 discrete tone values at the very top of your highlights. Adding another 0.3 of density will only add 64 discrete tone values, etc, very quickly turning into chunky looking highlights because you don't have enough discrete tone values per stop of exposure on the film to avoid posterization artifacts and other bad things.
For film - the lighting conditions, film, lens contrast, developer and how long you develop the film.But how one controls the micro-contrast in film & darkroom?
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