Film for scanning question transparency or negative?

Les Sarile · Jan 29, 2019

George Mann said:
Well, my experience with Portra and ColorPlus 200 shows some rather interesting results which may surprise some. Portra negatives scan and perform acceptably well in medium format and higher, but rather poorly in 35MM.

ColorPlus on the other hand performs noticeably better than Portra in 35MM except for one area with most scanners, which is apparent grain-like artifacts, which is something only a properly-calibrated Fuji Frontier can sufficiently overcome (and its scans from these machines are magnificent).

However, Portra shows an abundance of grain-like artifacts in less than brightly lit areas of the scene as well, and combined with its overly dull rendering, and lack of fine resolution, it is lackluster at best.

Some 100% crops showing these things would be very helpful.

George Mann · Jan 29, 2019

Les Sarile said:
Some 100% crops showing these things would be very helpful.

I am planning to shoot my last roll of Portra soon, and will be capturing several scenes with it that I already have on ColorPlus for comparison.

Give me a month or so to produce the results.

Les Sarile · Jan 29, 2019

George Mann said:
I am planning to shoot my last roll of Portra soon, and will be capturing several scenes with it that I already have on ColorPlus for comparison.

Give me a month or so to produce the results.

I'm in no hurry but I was referring to the shots you've made that you based your observations on already.

Of course we only know of the 2 films that OP has expressed interest on although I have quite a variety of examples to draw on - not Colorplus though.

Hopefully, we've armed the OP with more info to help clarify the end goal.

George Mann · Jan 30, 2019

For those looking for premium quality scans from 35MM color negatives, I can only recommend Ektar, as it is clearly superior to the rest.

John51 · Jan 30, 2019

mark said:
Favorite color films are Privia 100 and portra 160.

My goal is to have enlargements made if I get a shot I want to enlarge. I want to do as little manipulation as possible because I really don’t like working on a computer.

I'm the same. I've decided to throw a little bit of money at the problem and have an easier life. The lab I use, Ag Photographic UK, has an optional scan service with their film processing. An extra £6 per film for 18Mb and £12 for (up to) 80Mb. 18Mb seems enough for 35mm.

If ever I want prints, I will have a digital file better than anything I could manage.

jtk · Jan 30, 2019

George Mann said:
For those looking for premium quality scans from 35MM color negatives, I can only recommend Ektar, as it is clearly superior to the rest.

If we could travel back in time I'd recommend Fuji NPZ, which readily rivals TriX as B&W and is gorgeous in color. Fine grain is the least important of the photo virtues.

mark · Jan 31, 2019

John51 said:
I'm the same. I've decided to throw a little bit of money at the problem and have an easier life. The lab I use, Ag Photographic UK, has an optional scan service with their film processing. An extra £6 per film for 18Mb and £12 for (up to) 80Mb. 18Mb seems enough for 35mm.

If ever I want prints, I will have a digital file better than anything I could manage.

I've not thought about this option. I'm sure places here do the scans too. I wonder if anyone has good experiences with a business in the US?

Anybody?

Richard Man · Jan 31, 2019

It's really about the scanners and the software. C41 could be challenging for some scanners and software, but for example, the Pakon turns out the nicest colors for them (35mm only) because Kodak spent a lot of resource to get it right. The Pakon is a minilab scanner and they are built to make most consumers happy without work from the operators.

Vuescan is a great piece of software and works well, but generally speaking, Silverfast can clean things up better than Epson Scan, Nikon Scan, and Vuescan, most of the time.

Now I use a Flextight scanner, and most scanning problems are no longer problems ;-)

Most films scan well, at least on latest scanners (which are all at least 10 years old technology anyway) and good software, and good operators.

destroya · Feb 1, 2019

use photoshop to manage your colors, use the scanning software to get the film into a digital file. Scanning software cant do what photoshop can, and the results will show it. Lightroom is also an option. if you are forced to do color by the scanning software, I find viewscan to do the best job. if you can find an old copy of the vuescan bible, get it. it does a great job of helping not only understanding the software, but scanning as well

do a preview, lock the exposure, the re-preview just the film base and lock the film color base, the preview again. use auto levels and that should get you 80% of the way there.

I find slide film easier to scan and get truer results, but neg film gives much more shadow detail. each film has their own issues.

toadhall · Feb 1, 2019

alanrockwood said:
Kodak Ektar 100 negative film has a good reputation for a film that scans well. Several posts have mentioned Ektar 100 already. I believe Kodak Portra film is also supposed to be a good film for scanning. Some of the older negative color films have a less than stellar reputation for scanning, showing excessive apparent grain, i.e. noisy pixelization. I think some of the older 200 and 400 iso color negative films have had that reputation.

I believe Velvia slide film has a reputation of being somewhat difficult to scan partly because of the dense shadows but more generally because of the extreme density range of the slides. I think this can be largely overcome by combining two or more scans acquired at two or more scanner exposure settings.

High speed black and white films sometimes show excessive grain when scanned.

Warning. Take everything I say above with a "grain" of salt, and confirm it by advice from those who are more expert than I am.

I've scanned numerous Velvia 120 format transparencies using a Nikon 8000 and Vuescan and, given a good original, never had an issue. I tend to prefer 'thinner' b&w negs for scanning.

Film for scanning question transparency or negative?

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Privacy & Transparency