I am having zero luck at trying to scan some B&W 35mm negatives with the V600. I first tried the software than came with the scanner and they all look two stops too dark. Then I tried VueScan and little luck there. At first it started looking good as I watched them develop during the scan process but after it made the two passes and went into Calibrate and the final scan, they all looked nearly black.
What am I missing here? I thought for sure VueScan would yield the best results but you get a false sense of security watching the scan and then the entire strip of negatives go nearly black with little detail. There is no choice for selecting Tri-X, just the closest which was TMAX so, that's what I selected and set the B/W Type to .40 as anything greater produced a darker look.
Unfortunately I lost them all a few years later in the NYC Subway!!!
As someone said above,Ialso came to the conclusionthat mixing analog and digital is a mess.If you go digital do it all the way or not at all.I went for a good digital camera (Nikon D800)and replaced the darkroom wth an Epson 3880 printer.Now I can make high-quality prints rivaling the once I made in the darkroom.scanning negatives just won't get me there;it really is dinosaur digital
They do but the darkroom was easier for me or maybe,the learning curve was just more logical than computersOh Ralph... Haha
It's sort of true, but it's just different, there's an art in both, digital is certainly easier for certain things.
Both have their places
No digital conversion to B&W will ever rival taking a negative, be it FP4 or Tri-X, developing in ID-11 or HC-110 and enlarging them on a goode ol' Besler 23CII. Develop that result using Kodak's PC paper or Oriental Seagull, maybe Agfa Brovira in the tray of Dektol and there's no comparison.
You buy a consumer-level scanner which is known to be blurry, you use 35mm film, which is not recommended for use on those scanners, and then you complain that its not sharp. In the last thread, you complained that the colors weren't right. Color shifts are easily handled in PhotoShop....
No consumer-level scanner produces a sharp image. All the people who get these to work, and there are many, have a good understanding of sharpening tools and sharpening techniques.
You appear to want what you want. Why would you use Tri-X as a film for scanning? It may be useful as a test, or to convert old film already shot to digital. However, the results you can achieve will be limited. You need more the densely packed grains, that a TMax or Delta can give you (among others).
If you want a good result, you need to use the tools that will get you there. I would start by shooting medium format, at least. You can buy a decent med format camera for very little... Get a used tripod... You will be amazed at what that change will get you....
Best of luck...
I finally sold the scanner until such time I can afford a Flextight.
Marton, welcome to the forum, or to your first post... Flextight's are pretty good, but if you can afford one of those, you might be able to afford a Howtek 4500 as well. They are going for about $1500 these days. You may or may not need extra for drums, mounting stations, etc. All things being equal (the price) I'd go for the drum... Best of luck....
Thanks for the welcome. I want to avoid complications as far as is possible where scanners are concerned, and having said that, drum scanners demand wet mounting. Or am I wrong about that?
There is no such thing as photography without complications. Developing film alone has tons of them... little things like most thermometers being totally inaccurate. If I was to use a consumer level scanner, or a film scanner, I would wet mount. There are numerous advantages. It can fill in scratches, it can make some dust transparent, and it enhances everything on the film. I can't imagine scanning without mounting fluid...
There are all sorts of people who will tell you how hard it is, but its a piece of cake. It's true that its faster to use an Imacon, if only because one doesn't wt mount... but it isn't better. It's still using a digital sensor vs a PMT and its still going thru another lens. There are plenty of drum scanners down under - go try one out... and see for yourself.
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