shooting failure

Paul,
I am not missing the point. This is your statement:
"Even an inexperienced darkroom operator using a cheap enlarger with a cheap lens, will turn out a better print, then you can get out of even the best scanners."
This statement is absolutely not true. What are you basing this opinion on? Have you worked with current professional film scanners and printers? I'd be happy to take up the challenge you present here.

wogster said:

You keep missing my point. We are evaluating FILM here ...

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I think you are both missing the point. The purpose of this thread is to help the original poster to understand why the stuff they got back from the lab looks like crap. What you guys are discussing is a side issue and belongs in a separate thread.

Goldie,
You are right!

wogster said:

Well lets see, I've seen a lot of scans, some good, some not so good, seen a lot of silver prints, some good, some not so good, have yet to see a scan that could match a good print, even one made from a less then stellar enlarger.

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I'm sorry for my tone folks; I didn't mean to start a flamewar. However, this type of 'factoid' posted anywhere really annoys me.

I've made 8" prints using poor quality three-element lenses from 120 film that have been noticeably soft, whereas 120 scans from my Epson 4490 at 2400 d.p.i. have been printed on a Fuji Pictrographer at 12" square and have been razor-sharp. I've seen Andrew Nadolski's 'End of the Land' exhibition prints - huge digital prints (at least 2' square IIRC) from 120 and 5x4" film scans; again razor-sharp. And it goes on...

Poor equipment and materials usually produce poor results, whichever domain you work in. Skill, craftsmanship and understanding of the medium are required to produce consistent quality work, as well as good kit.

Okay, rant over.

To me, The OP's scan looks okay, though there's a slight cyan cast - maybe the detail *is* on the negative but have you checked them for it? It's always worth looking at the negs; there's usually more detail in a negative than a machine scan or print can reveal, simply because the scanner reads the image without discriminating the subject from the background. It's probably programmed to see an 'average' scene, whereas this image is far from 'average' as far as lighting goes - it's a 'low-key' image, which I assume is intentional. I think it works well with your subject.

kevs said:

To me, The OP's scan looks okay, though there's a slight cyan cast - maybe the detail *is* on the negative but have you checked them for it?

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Okay, thump me, I missed the OP's original scan; I just saw the one that Goldie posted. The scanner has assumed underexposure because of the dark background - it'll be set to see an 'average' scene and compensate for shadows. It's automatic and doesn't know that your dark background is intentional.

I'll fetch me coat...

garysamson said:

Paul,
I am not missing the point. This is your statement:
"Even an inexperienced darkroom operator using a cheap enlarger with a cheap lens, will turn out a better print, then you can get out of even the best scanners."
This statement is absolutely not true. What are you basing this opinion on? Have you worked with current professional film scanners and printers? I'd be happy to take up the challenge you present here.

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Okay, I am wrong, so shoot me (preferably with a film camera ).

I do find it funny how in an analog photography group, there seem to be a lot of people willing to rip someone a new one, for daring to have an opinion that isn't pro digital everything......

ok, here's what I found out. I took the negs back to the lab. The reprocessed and printed them on 4x6 matte paper. They came out much better than the scans they did on the disk. Hardly any grain with a few exceptions. I was stunned. They say they correct any defects before printing but do not do so on digital images. So there you have it.

digitallure said:

ok, here's what I found out. I took the negs back to the lab. The reprocessed and printed them on 4x6 matte paper. They came out much better than the scans they did on the disk. Hardly any grain with a few exceptions. I was stunned. They say they correct any defects before printing but do not do so on digital images. So there you have it.

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Which is what I was asking -

Are you judging the result based solely on a scan on a CD? With a black background, they could easily have made the same mistake most mini-labs do of making it too light to compensate for what the machine saw as "too dark." This doesn't mean the film is bad, but was scanned and/or printed badly.

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winger said:

Which is what I was asking -

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ahh I see now what you were meaning. before, I was thinking if i got prints, they would look like the scanned. but after looking at prints that they edited before printing, I guess I was.

I used to deal with this all the time at work (a laboratory, not a photo studio). Between the shots we took that the lab screwed up and people knowing I knew my way around a camera, I spent a bunch of time troubleshooting what was usually just bad scans. I don't look at whatever a lab gives me for prints or scans - I look at the neg or slide itself. With a decent loupe, you can usually tell if the print/scan is anywhere close. What they did for your scans is very common, too. Same as prints. The machines are adjusted to be "average" which usually means only good if the subject is grey.
Hope they do a better job next time!

CHECK YOUR SHUTTER FOR TRACES OF OIL ON ITS SURFACE. MY SISTER HAD THE SAME CAMERA AND THE OIL ON THE SHUTTER WAS SLOWING IT DOWN CAUSING SYNC PROBLEMS. HAD A CANON REP LOOK AT IT AND SAID THE SHUTTER IS STARTING TO FAIL. EXPENSIVE TO FIX. BETTER TO FIND A GOOD USED NEWER EOS BODY. I GUESS THE FIRST GENERATION REBELS WERE KNOWN FOR THIS SHUTTER PROBLEM. GOOD LUCK AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Please do not SHOUT.