Film photography and only have access to a flatbed scanner. Really?

Here is a dilemma. I am not sure if I am just pursuing this as a hobby and when and if it gets old I do something else.

Some people now only shoot b/w film. For me if it is b/w or color film, all I have is a flatbed scanner or else I pay my lab to get flatbed quality JPEGs. I don't have the ability to install a darkroom. I can't afford a $2,000US medium format Plustek or more $3,000-4,000 for a used Nikon Coolscan 9000 or that $15,000 Imacon. I did buy a used Coolscan 4000 for 35mm after 1yr with 10 rolls of film it broke, I bought it off a pro, probably been used lots. Have friends in Japan and I travel there. Contacted Nikon Japan to no avail ... no parts.

So where now. Shoot 35mm or 120 format and only ever have a flatbed scanner or pay a lab for the same quality mini-lab machine scans. Or pay a lot more and only get 1 or 2 or 3 scans per year ie - Imacon scans or Drum Scans. What you guys think.



Thanks.

Although I mostly use a wet darkroom, I get excellent scans of 120's and 4x5's from my ancient Epson 4870 flatbed with SilverFast Studio software. They print very sharp with my 3880 to 16x20 even with images that have been cropped.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Although I mostly use a wet darkroom, I get excellent scans of 120's and 4x5's from my ancient Epson 4870 flatbed with SilverFast Studio software. They print very sharp with my 3880 to 16x20 even with images that have been cropped.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

hi rayonlinenz
i also have a 4870 and it makes fantastic scans.
i've made and sold prints enlarged larger than 16x20 and never
had issues. if you could get the film processed at a lab and scan them
on your own i think you will not have any problems. the scanned film
can be used for a lot of different things, from final images to inverted-negatives printed
someplace else ( or by you ? ) on transparency film or paper and used for alternative process images.
ive been making cyanotypes this way with great success ( paper that is waxed and pritned ) and recently
sun prints ( transparency film on photopaper left in the sun to print out and then scan ) with great success too.

good luck !
john

The larger the film the less the resolution of the scanner matters for the same sized print. And with negative film pretty much any scanner has the dynamic range to produce good scans.

Figure you should be able to get a real 1800-2400ppi scan from the Epson 4870, V700 or V800 as long as the holders are good. Assuming 1800ppi and a 300ppi print you will get a 6x enlargement that looks pretty good. So for 35mm that's a 6"x9" print, 6x6 => 13.5"x13.5" and 4x5 => 22"x28". You can of course print larger, though if you stick to those print sizes you should be able to produce excellent quality prints. With after market film holders for the scanners you can get more resolution due to improved film flatness and placing film at the point of focus. With higher resolution you can make larger prints.

See http://www.kennethleegallery.com/html/scanning/index.php for some more detail on flatbed scanning, with a focus on large format negatives. Pay particular attention to the sharpening workflow sections as that is a major difference between consumer flatbeds and higher end scanners like drums.

Ray: A lot depends on what you want to do with the scans. Print or post on the internet or make slide shows to let's say a UHDTV or HDTV? If printing, what size? How many pictures will you be shooting? what's your budget for developing and printing and scanning per year? Also, what kind of photography? Street, landscape, nature, travel? Do you plan on using a tripod?

Alan Klein said:

Ray: A lot depends on what you want to do with the scans. Print or post on the internet or make slide shows to let's say a UHDTV or HDTV? If printing, what size? How many pictures will you be shooting? what's your budget for developing and printing and scanning per year? Also, what kind of photography? Street, landscape, nature, travel? Do you plan on using a tripod?

Click to expand...

With the inverted WLF with 120 format, I always use a tripod, even mostly with my 35mm gear. I do mainly cityscapes and landscapes with the occasional portrait. If I am printing I like to print at least an A3 or 16x12'ish. Usually go thru about 10 rolls a year, a roll a month'ish, I simply import the film from the USA b/c here is nearly 3x the cost, I then develop myself with a Paterson tank, cut and sleeve myself. I also shoot slides whereby I import the film again and shoot maybe 10x rolls maybe more with 120 format, let's see since there are less frames and I export to the USA for processing ie $10US per roll developed and $2.50-4.00US per roll delivered back dependent on how many rolls I ship. If I am going to outsource the scanning, I would only do a few scans per year. So the most are just scanned with the flatbed. I heard that Hasselblad scans cost around $15US per scan.

The Epson V700 doesn't impress me. I used to have a Coolscan 4000 before, before it broke. Bought it used off a pro. A night time cityscape shot. You look at the building logo names. The Epson was just not sharp. The Coolscan is so much sharper. If I sized them to 1024x768 I cannot tell them apart. If they are 1080 to match our TV or posted on Facebook at 1080 there are differences.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6011/5969023004_a0ffc7f768_b_d.jpg

While you could get a certain size job with a flatbed. Is there just something lacking after going thru expense and effort of shooting film.

Edit - I recalled one time when I had the 4MP Nikon D2h and the D70 on a separate occasion (6MP) against some slide film, all on a tripod etc. Scanning the film with the Epson even the 4MP camera had more detail at a 1080 size. A modest blow up print does the job but if there are these the tradeoffs why bother with film photography if one is limited to a flatbed.

I too use a 'wet' darkroom, but also scan negatives, both colour and B&W on an Epson V500. I have had it years and never lets me down. I originally bought it when I was using Windows XP and when I upgraded to Windows 7 and recently Windows 10 it still works. The V600, which superceded the V500 is used by my son and if it is as good as the V500 it will not let you down. Of all the digital equipment I have bought and owned over the years the V500 has been by far the most reliable.

It also depends on how large you want the final image to be. A4 is an absolute doddle for either model and even go up to A3 at a push - and not even a strong push one at that and that is using 35mm only 120 will go even larger.. Yes you can use a dedicated film scanner but really unless you demand the very last bit of quality then there is no need to go that far. In UK the V600 can be bought for really very little money for what it produces.

You can get a flat bed that's not too expensive like a v600 for web and UHDTV displays and smaller prints and send out the few you want to blow up for pro scanning and printing.

I think that maybe the film when on the Epson was not at optimal focus also the scans are quite different different white/black & midtone points way different so this is quite critical when wanting to compare apples with apples. I attach a small adjustment to your image as I think the Nikon image had some tweaking.
I posted the pic in my image gallery "Adj" as here it dosn't display.