My first attempt at scanning negative film

My first attempt at scanning negative film . . . was disappointing beyond belief. I don't know what went wrong, but the scans were so grainy that anything resembling detail was lost. So, I shot a test roll using objects of different colours and took notes of exposure times and aperture.
Film: Fujicolor Pro 160 C
Camera: Zenza Bronica ETRSi
Scanner: Epson V750 and Silverfast software

I used my Nikon DSLR as an exposure meter and exposed the chosen frame at 1/4 sec. f11. The frame was scanned as a negative @ 2400 dpi, and color channels were adjusted using Silverfast's histogram tool.
Until now I've only been shooting Velvia slide film and getting sharp images out of the box has always been a struggle. I must confess I've been tempted to go back to digital, but I've stayed true to analog and have been relying on excessive use of unsharp mask in Photoshop in an attempt to produce reasonably sharp images. Then I read Pellicle's tutorials and the claim that negativ film has greater sharpness than slide film, and this has proven to be very true. The sharpness of good negative film is better than slide film, and when viewing the scans of the test roll I was genuinly surprised at how sharp the images were straight out from the Epson V750.
I did add USM in Photoshop, but the amount needed is far less than what I'm used to when shooting slide film.
Here's a comparision between a frame with no sharpening and the same frame sharpened with USM.

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And thanks to Pellicle for pointing me in the right direction.

emtor said:

And thanks to Pellicle for pointing me in the right direction.

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you're very welcome. I'm glad to see another photographer able to capture what they want to under adverse lighting and environmental conditions.

I'm glad you are having great results, and granted I am using a different scanner, but I have NEVER had a problem with Velvia and sharpness. I shoot a lot of negative and get some great results but I would never categorise the negative film as sharper than the slide film. What are you referring to?

I predominately use B&W (Delta 400) but on occasion use color - all 6x6 and when scanning (I mostly print analog) I am still using my Epson 4870 with SilverFast Studio software. You might try using the USM in SilverFast it is adjustable and shows current and sharpened as a preview. I too have not noticed a difference in film sharpness. Perhaps if the transparency is removed from the slide mount and put in the same holder as the negative the results may be different.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

glhs116 said:

I'm glad you are having great results, and granted I am using a different scanner, but I have NEVER had a problem with Velvia and sharpness. I shoot a lot of negative and get some great results but I would never categorise the negative film as sharper than the slide film. What are you referring to?

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I'm referring to: http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF1A.html where according to data sheets negative film actually is sharper. The author of the article however advices to take the data with a grain of salt.
But the most important thing is that I was never really satisfied with the sharpness of Velvia when making scans, but I believed this to be a scanner related problem and not a problem with Velvia. When shooting Velvia before the digital age I remember Velvia to be a very sharp film indeed, so perhaps it really is a scanner related problem after all.
So,-when shooting a roll of Fujicolor Pro 160C this weekend and scanning it I instantly noticed that the scans appeared sharper straight from the scanner compared to when scanning Velvia. Also I noticed that I needed a lower degree of sharpening in Photoshop compared with what I'm used to when shooting Velvia. As a sidenote Fujicolor Pro 160C/Epson v750 produces a sharper result than the raw files from the Nikon D-50 DSLR I used to own which adds to the (subjective) impression that negative film is indeed sharp.
But the point is not which is the sharper film; Velvia or Pro 160C, but more my own impression of what appears sharper.

I'm reticent to enter this discussion (due to historical experience on this can go) but since my name and findings were mentioned: I suspect that emtor is refering to this blog post.

I took a few film holders (4x5) out loaded one side with 160 neg and the other side with Provia and took some shots. My intention for the experiment was to see what I thought about the images obtained from each stock when shooting outdoor landscape in Australia.

I used my Toho camera and changed nothing between exposures except the shutter time to account for the small difference between 160 and 100 ... essentially I gave it another stop for the 100.

I scanned both and found to my surprise that my Pro160 was giving me sharper results (as well as better shadows and colours I prefered).

These are reductions of 1200 dpi scans with my Epson 4870

Provia


160


If you're interested in my findings then please read the blog post. If you have different findings please replicate my work and post your results, I'm sure we'll all be interested to see what others find.

PS - overall image showing the segment which the above crops come from

sampleSection by aquinas_56, on Flickr

Maybe it is my monitor but both the scans are not sharp. As i mentioned above I also use an Epson 4870 and usually scan 4x5s and 6x6s at 1200. I use the film holders that came with the scanner and have not had any loss of sharpness unless it was in the negative to begin with. They print crisp even when cropped and enlarged. I can print up to 13x19 on my printer an Epson 2200. The type of film has not made any difference.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

jeffreyg said:

Maybe it is my monitor but both the scans are not sharp. As i mentioned above I also use an Epson 4870 and usually scan 4x5s and 6x6s at 1200.

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perhaps ... neither has been sharpened and I turn sharpening off in the scanner driver. Sharpness was not my only criteria here, but that not withstanding there is a "haze" that the E-6 has which the Neg doesnot. Again this is discussed in my blog post. Also the Fujinon 90mm f8 SW lens may contribute to this ... I know my 180 makes sharper looking images.

... The type of film has not made any difference.

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so you're saying you've shot the same thing at the same time in the same lighting using the same lens with both Neg and E-6; and compared scans of Neg and E-6 to find you can not find any difference?

or are you saying you've shot different things at different times and been happy with the results of either?

I don't mind, I'm just interested to see the results obtained by others in doing this.

A quick experiment to find out what can be expected from a hybrid workflow:
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