HI! San Francisco!

Beeropez · Mar 23, 2014

I am new here. About to turn 30, and just moved to san francisco from seattle. Film was my passion in college, and tried going to university for it, but funding was dropped for the program, and took out the darkrooms and only left a small class left for photoshop. lammeee. Life got completely changed, and photography was just a hobby after that. Anyways, i plan to be active here. Film photography is one of my main passions, and now i plan on putting most of my free time dedicated to the craft. I like creative/abstract and artsy photography. Anything creative and expressive.

I'll be browsing the forums, and catching up rather than asking redundant questions. although one thing i am curious about, any members here recommend a good 35 mm color slide scanner?

Nice to meet you all!

Brian

Black Dog · Mar 23, 2014

Hi Brian and welcome to APUGland.The Bay Area has inspired many fine photographers over the years!

Trail Images · Mar 23, 2014

Hello Brian, and welcome to APUG.
For scanners, if you plan to only shoot 35mm then there are some excellent 35mm dedicated units out there. If you're like many who have thoughts of doing more then one format then I'd look to buy a flatbed scanner that will support 35-120-4x5. Again, there are plenty of those units new and on the eBay too.

Look forward to seeing some of your work in the near future.

Sirius Glass · Mar 23, 2014

Welcome to APUG

Beeropez · Mar 23, 2014

thanks for the warm welcome. look forward to sharing some of my work as well as seeing all of your work too.

Beeropez · Mar 23, 2014

Trail Images said:
Hello Brian, and welcome to APUG.
For scanners, if you plan to only shoot 35mm then there are some excellent 35mm dedicated units out there. If you're like many who have thoughts of doing more then one format then I'd look to buy a flatbed scanner that will support 35-120-4x5. Again, there are plenty of those units new and on the eBay too.

Look forward to seeing some of your work in the near future.

I will probably stick to only 35 mm slide film for the time being, so a flat bed isn't really the best idea at the moment because i will be traveling abroad this summer. Hoping for something portable!

thegman · Mar 23, 2014

Beeropez said:
I will probably stick to only 35 mm slide film for the time being, so a flat bed isn't really the best idea at the moment because i will be traveling abroad this summer. Hoping for something portable!

I have never used one, but the 'Pakon' scanners look very interesting. They are made for minilabs, so very fast, and oddly, not that expensive. The maximum resolution on them is pretty low compared to say, a Nikon Coolscan or a Plustek, but if you want to scan a whole roll in a few minutes, and not that fussy about ultimate resolution, they look very tempting.

I do very little 35mm, so it's not for me, but if you're only using 35mm, then well worth a look.

fotch · Mar 23, 2014

Hello Brian and welcome to APUG.

Beeropez · Mar 23, 2014

thegman said:
I have never used one, but the 'Pakon' scanners look very interesting. They are made for minilabs, so very fast, and oddly, not that expensive. The maximum resolution on them is pretty low compared to say, a Nikon Coolscan or a Plustek, but if you want to scan a whole roll in a few minutes, and not that fussy about ultimate resolution, they look very tempting.

I do very little 35mm, so it's not for me, but if you're only using 35mm, then well worth a look.

Great, thanks for the heads up. Speed isn't a huge deal at the moment but the pakon is still an option. Although, I def have been eyeing the plustek options.

Chazzy · Mar 23, 2014

Welcome to APUG, Brian.

rorye · Mar 23, 2014

Welcome to SF and APUG, 2 great places!

Richard S. (rich815) · Mar 23, 2014

Welcome to APUG and to San Francisco, hope you're saving your money for your rent....

Jeff Kubach · Mar 23, 2014

Welcome Brian to APUG.

Jeff

Clovis Blevins · Mar 24, 2014

I've got the Plustek OpticFilm 8200i with Silverfast. The manual feed is a pain. This is a decent scanner, but two great downfalls of this scanner are:
*With underexposed transparencies, the backlight doesn't cut the mustard and the scans are extremely noisy.
*When using Silverfast and setting the curves via the histogram and RGB sample points, the darker the area, the more likely the final image will deviate from the scan. For example, you manipulate the curves until a dark area reads 15R,15G,15B and the output file will have this area exhibit 45R,7G,12B or something like that. It's like it's doing a VERY BAD conversion internally from AdobeRGB to sRGB. I emailed Plustek and Silverfast and got an email 2 weeks later that said something to the effect of "your monitor is not calibrated." Hogwash. I managed colors numerically - the monitor was irrelevant. Now if you do a HDR scan with ICE at 7200dpi, each frame will take in excess of 10 minutes to scan. On dense negatives, I've resorted to projecting them and photographing the projected image. The results were better.

The following bad image represents a slightly underexposed Kodachrome slide using HDR at 2400dpi for a 4 minute scan per frame which didn't match the numbers adjusted. The good image represents a 30 second scan at 2400dpi which matched the numbers perfectly. The slides are circa 1947. By the way, the colors for both slides when projected were SPOT ON perfect. One just happened to be slightly underexposed.

Beeropez · Mar 24, 2014

Richard Sintchak (rich815) said:
Welcome to APUG and to San Francisco, hope you're saving your money for your rent....

I kinda lucked out and managed "free" rent. I work part time at a hostel for my accommodations

Beeropez · Mar 24, 2014

Clovis Blevins said:
I've got the Plustek OpticFilm 8200i with Silverfast. The manual feed is a pain. This is a decent scanner, but two great downfalls of this scanner are:
*With underexposed transparencies, the backlight doesn't cut the mustard and the scans are extremely noisy.
*When using Silverfast and setting the curves via the histogram and RGB sample points, the darker the area, the more likely the final image will deviate from the scan. For example, you manipulate the curves until a dark area reads 15R,15G,15B and the output file will have this area exhibit 45R,7G,12B or something like that. It's like it's doing a VERY BAD conversion internally from AdobeRGB to sRGB. I emailed Plustek and Silverfast and got an email 2 weeks later that said something to the effect of "your monitor is not calibrated." Hogwash. I managed colors numerically - the monitor was irrelevant. Now if you do a HDR scan with ICE at 7200dpi, each frame will take in excess of 10 minutes to scan. On dense negatives, I've resorted to projecting them and photographing the projected image. The results were better.

The following bad image represents a slightly underexposed Kodachrome slide using HDR at 2400dpi for a 4 minute scan per frame which didn't match the numbers adjusted. The good image represents a 30 second scan at 2400dpi which matched the numbers perfectly. The slides are circa 1947. By the way, the colors for both slides when projected were SPOT ON perfect. One just happened to be slightly underexposed.
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Definitely good to know. I definitely need good resolution. I will be making online prints with mag cloud soon

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 24, 2014

I want to know if there are still hippies who lives in their small huts in a japanese style , bamboo at the ground , a coal burner , gas light may be. I read Kerauac and his friends having great fun. May be modern sf is huge different ?

Beeropez · Mar 24, 2014

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
I want to know if there are still hippies who lives in their small huts in a japanese style , bamboo at the ground , a coal burner , gas light may be. I read Kerauac and his friends having great fun. May be modern sf is huge different ?

I believe that is a thing of the past. We still pay a lot of tribute to the Beat writers here, but with the exception of the homeless, SF is for "rich' (median cost for a studio apt here is 2,600$ a month) people. It's not really suited for the transient artsy travelers like they portray in the books.

If you don't fall into that category, then you need to be extremely adaptable and resourceful to find an acceptable living situation

SuzanneR · Mar 24, 2014

Welcome to APUG. Scanning questions beyond getting work uploaded to our galleries are best addressed at our sister site, DPUG, but you'll find a trove of information here regarding film and analog printing. Rayko photo center in San Francisco is an excellent resource.. I'm pretty sure they have darkroom rentals there! Welcome !

Beeropez · Mar 25, 2014

great thank you! I had someone tell me about ryko this week. Really looking forward to checking it out

rorye · Mar 25, 2014

Also check out Glass Key on Haight St., Matt's a cool guy with lots of great analog stuff

Beeropez · Mar 26, 2014

Yeah, that's also on the list. I talked to a guy at a photoshop in the mission, and he told me about ryko, glass key and a couple others, as well as telling me about this forum!

HI! San Francisco!

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