Where would film technology be now?

[138S]

How would you have scanned better?

Scan 6400, 16 bits/channel, take all histogram, save tiff, sharpen, edit curves, reduce to edition size with "Bicubic for reductions".

https://www.largeformatphotography....rum-Scanners&p=1479178&viewfull=1#post1479178 (See from post 90)

This test is fair, in my opinion: https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/16000-photo-scanner-vs-500-scanner/

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

You are free to solve with masking what share you want, and sparing the amount you want for genuine manual crafting. My personal approach is solving the curve tonal manipulation with masking and later elaborating the print manually in what is worth.




Not at all, it's a kids game, see this:



From an scan you use a grading map in Photoshop to assign a color to each gray level, you make the negative+diffuser+color mask and that's all, without needing a single brush stroke in Ps . With a bit of experience you nail the mask easily.

Make coarse contact copies of the negative + mask until you get the right balance, then you align well the mask and yo enlarge.

By manipulating the grading map manipulate effective sensitometric tonal curve of the paper, just like when you bend the curves in Ps in digital image edition, you give what extension you want to the toe/shoulder, beyond paper grade.

Me, I see it like a way to have the right paper for the scene or for the negative, I don't want that masking to be intrusive in my manual printing, just I solve the toe/shoulder extensions/gradient in that way.

Citing Alan Ross: "keep at it so long as it serves your purpose! Beyond that, everything is like cooking: personal preference! The options are endless and none are right or wrong! "

Way Beyong Monochrome also speaks a bit about that, and Ross pdfs give straight practial instructions. Just the grading map concept is a natural way to continously distribute grade across densities. This doesn't solve totally the print, but it easily solves toe/shoulder compressions, you simply get the paper you want for the job.

Imagine you project a 5x7" negative on the wall, you are projecting an insane amount of IQ, if you also nail the tonality... this rocks...

Hmmm...You sparked by curiosity. I'm guessing that diffusion between the mask and the negative. If the mask's is output is OHP inkjet film, you'd need some sort of diffusion because the dots of ink would be enlarged when it's projected on the paper.

 

[138S]

Hmmm...You sparked by curiosity. I'm guessing that diffusion between the mask and the negative. If the mask's is output is OHP inkjet film, you'd need some sort of diffusion because the dots of ink would be enlarged when it's projected on the paper.

Yes, of course, you place a diffuser mylar between the mask an the negative, like in other masking techniques, like USM, SCIM, CRM, HLM...

In that way ink dots are totally smoothed.

 

[Helge]

Scan 6400, 16 bits/channel, take all histogram, save tiff, sharpen, edit curves, reduce to edition size with "Bicubic for reductions".

https://www.largeformatphotography....rum-Scanners&p=1479178&viewfull=1#post1479178 (See from post 90)

This test is fair, in my opinion: https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/16000-photo-scanner-vs-500-scanner/

I only now saw your PM. I'd rather not discuss stuff like this on PM. A good percentage of the value of a conversation such as this, is in other people who might be interested, potentially finding it any time.
If we are just contributing to the redundancy and noise on here, and one the internet in general I don't know. I don't think so though, and I'm trying not to.

I don't think we are far off topic. On a tangent maybe, but in the context and considering how other contributions seem to have petered out, it's fine I think.
One of us will probably tire of answering at some point, but this is not a "last word is the winner" discussion. It's amicable from my point at least (and I'm sure yours) and I always welcome being educated and learning new detail and points of view (which I have here).

Increasing resolution of the sensor wouldn't help I think (and this is what we are talking about, not colour depth. Although I'm well aware that the two are not completely decoupled).
You'd essentially be pixel binning with the optics, just raising the pixel density. Noise within a well exposed line CCD is already quite low, so it wouldn't mean much anyhow.
Low resolution optics also have a way of enhancing low frequency detail, contributing to the lumpy look, no matter what resolution the sensor behind it might be.

We are at point where there is most likely a silent revolution underway for film photographers, in the form of new software techniques that does for us essentially what demosaicing have been doing for a long time for digital.

deep-learning film grain

Deep learning film grain removal will do kind of what Dolby noise reduction did for tape. It will remove the noise band "in the middle" of the spectrum, without touching the rest of the information appreciatively.
All denoising methods until now have had the problem of not really being able to discern between grain and image, and always affecting the real detail to some degree.
Not so with a deep learning neural network, which can do what we humans have done for almost two hundred years, and see through the grain.
Therefore it is important to scan your film at the highest possible resolution, so the denoising network will have something to work with.

 

[138S]

I only now saw your PM. I'd rather not discuss stuff like this on PM. A good percentage of the value of a conversation such as this, is in other people who might be interested, potentially finding it any time.

Ok, but I felt that scanners are an Out of Topic not concening the thread's title, also I guess this should be discused in the Hybrid section, for this reason I answered you in a PM.

It's amicable from my point at least (and I'm sure yours) and I always welcome being educated and learning new detail and points of view (which I have here).

Of course, it's a privilege debating those concepts with polite people like you. Just I was a bit unconfortable because I felt it is a bit an OOT.

 

[Photo Engineer]

It is OFF TOPIC. Start a new thread.

PE

 

[Helge]

I think we are done here...
Alas no scanners in the fictional film future.

 

[Ian Grant]

It is OFF TOPIC. Start a new thread.

PE

Ron, I don't think the Chromogenic B&W route was ever fully exploited.

I remember the first - Agfa Vario XL - which was awful, then came XP1 which was excellent. The major issue with XP1 was it wasn't 100% C41 compatible as it needed a non standard dev time, fine for home processing but very few C41 labs would use a non standard time only a few high end pro labs pushed C41. It was a great film I used it a lot shooting live concerts pushed to 1600 EI.

However XP2 (and Plus) although now 41 compatible in terms of a standard process time dropped all push process data, that was to help market the film as being compatible rather than reality. I had a discussion with Ilford executives (sales & research) over a business lunch in the mid 1980's and they said they'd had to drop the push process recommendations to get labs to process XP2.

Kodak's Chromogenic B&W film was designed to print on RA-4 so was quite different, the Fuji Chromogenic B&W film was just a variant of XP2 made for them by Ilford using some Fuji components.

Perhaps the point I'm getting at is the quality achievable with C41 colour films in the 100/200 ISO range has been superb even from 35mm for over 20 years and I don't think taht was passed on to teh B&W chromegenic films.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

It's the scanner stuff Ian, but I agree that more could have been done on Chromogenic B&W.

PE

 

[Helge]

I’ve never found a good answer: Is XP/XP2 more pushable than regular B&W?
The way people talk about it, it sometimes sounds so.
What was the original reasoning behind chromogenetic film?
When it was put on the market B&W processing must have been very widespread.

BTW it was used for the production photos on Blue Velvet:

Must have had something to recommend it.
Maybe it could be developed in the same chemistry as the dailies?

 

[Agulliver]

I don't think you can beat traditional B&W for pushing and pulling.

Chromagenic B&W was presumably put on the market because of the ubiquitous nature of the C41 process at the time. It was literally available in every town, even most villages. Any sizable town or city had multiple outlets offering C41 processing in an hour, sometimes 30 minutes. Suited pros and amateurs alike, especially those who don't want to develop by hand.

 

[Helge]

Maybe something like Applied Science Fictions DigitalPIC fast development kiosk idea could have had success?
Sans the braindead self destructing non fixed negative thing of course.
Considering how popular printkiosks are at photodealers today, they could have been killer twenty years ago.
https://books.google.dk/books?id=Sh...q=applied science fiction Digital PIC&f=false

 

[Cholentpot]

I’ve never found a good answer: Is XP/XP2 more pushable than regular B&W?
The way people talk about it, it sometimes sounds so.
What was the original reasoning behind chromogenetic film?
When it was put on the market B&W processing must have been very widespread.

BTW it was used for the production photos on Blue Velvet: View attachment 236501
Must have had something to recommend it.
Maybe it could be developed in the same chemistry as the dailies?

Fast turn around. For people like my mother who wanted to shoot b&w but didn't know or care about Tri-x, Tmax, Plus-x, Hp5+ etc...It was confusing and just easier to pick up Kodak Black and White! and throw into the Minolta, snap a roll and drop off at Revco.

 

[Agulliver]

As @Cholentpot says another key user of chromogenic B&W film was the non-enthusiast...people who take "snapshots" and who don't want to get involved in learning about different films, chemicals, processes etc. They could get B&W photos by shooting chromogenic B&W film and dropping it off at which ever local mini-lab they preferred along with the Gold 200.

I know pros who used it for similar reasons, they could get it developed by which ever service also handled their C41 and E6.

True B&W processing labs have always been less common than those handling colour, at least since the C41 days and probably longer (think C22, E4). The colour processes are standardised across different brands and speeds of film. It matters not if you're processing Fuji 200CN or Kodak Portra 800...C41 is the same. B&W has so many different options depending on the film, developer, agitation style, temperature etc. You can't usually mix Ilford Delta 3200 with Fomapan 100 and Kodak Tri-X and expect it all to come out well with the same chemical, time and temperature.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There were virtually no color processing plants in the US except those run by Kodak or Agfa. The Consent Decree in the '50s gradually changed all of that. It took days to get your slides or prints back.

A similar process held in the United Kingdom.

Color paper was a real pain when it first got into our hands. The Kodak and Agfa processes were lengthy, expensive and the paper required refrigeration until just before use. The processes for film were much the same. E1 and C22 were a real pain.

PE

 

[Cholentpot]

As @Cholentpot says another key user of chromogenic B&W film was the non-enthusiast...people who take "snapshots" and who don't want to get involved in learning about different films, chemicals, processes etc. They could get B&W photos by shooting chromogenic B&W film and dropping it off at which ever local mini-lab they preferred along with the Gold 200.

I know pros who used it for similar reasons, they could get it developed by which ever service also handled their C41 and E6.

True B&W processing labs have always been less common than those handling colour, at least since the C41 days and probably longer (think C22, E4). The colour processes are standardised across different brands and speeds of film. It matters not if you're processing Fuji 200CN or Kodak Portra 800...C41 is the same. B&W has so many different options depending on the film, developer, agitation style, temperature etc. You can't usually mix Ilford Delta 3200 with Fomapan 100 and Kodak Tri-X and expect it all to come out well with the same chemical, time and temperature.

And it saved money, instead of the shop charging you extra to print in b&w you can just run the roll. People in general who just took photos knew and cared very little. Mom would get whatever film was available, if there wasn't enough light you used the built in flash. My cousins claimed that Fuji was 'icky', this was around 1989 and they swore by Kodak for their point and shoots. The rest of us shot disposables. My mother and aunts were 'photographers' because they had Minolta SLRs and Olympus bridge cameras. The kit lens never came off, although they did get nice speedlights. My father-in-law had a Canonette, he knew what he was doing.

For the average consumer I think the tech would have moved to something easier to load. APS would have caught on bigger and that would have had better and better emulsions. Maybe some sort of cart for 120 or an APS for medium format. 645 in a cassette.

 

[Prest_400]

For the average consumer I think the tech would have moved to something easier to load. APS would have caught on bigger and that would have had better and better emulsions. Maybe some sort of cart for 120 or an APS for medium format. 645 in a cassette.

About that, it reminded me of Mike Johnston's write up about a pro APS back in the late 90s. Few google clicks and I got it:

https://theonlinephotographer.typep...-fujifilm-produce-a-medium-format-camera.html
(The paragraphs under "Attack")

 

[Cholentpot]

About that, it reminded me of Mike Johnston's write up about a pro APS back in the late 90s. Few google clicks and I got it:

https://theonlinephotographer.typep...-fujifilm-produce-a-medium-format-camera.html
(The paragraphs under "Attack")

Cool stuff, but even if implemented you think it would have killed 35mm? A Nikon F was as good in 1996 as it was the day it was introduced. As far as photographers cared it would have been good for another 50 years.

 

[Helge]

About that, it reminded me of Mike Johnston's write up about a pro APS back in the late 90s. Few google clicks and I got it:

https://theonlinephotographer.typep...-fujifilm-produce-a-medium-format-camera.html
(The paragraphs under "Attack")

What a stupid suggestion. What he suggests is just another format, plain and simple. Not something that would in any way have helped APS get to the consumer.
Loading trouble nightmares, is most probably what's killed medium format 120 as a consumer format. Anything else was a distant second or third.
Otherwise it would probably have continued as the format of choice, since the image quality is just plain much better with 50s and 60s film (and still is, to a lesser degree of course), AND it is easier to get a good enlargement of.
A 50s folder just weights nothing compared to almost any SLR with a lens, and often takes up less space too.

"Mom had used her 12 shots that the photo store had loaded for her for the vacation, and had found the roll she bought in her handbag. She had been ensured that it wasn't that hard to load, as she had been given thorough instructions by the shop. She ended up going to a store in Rome and have them load it, missing days of holiday shots only to get home and find out that the first part of the roll had been fogged".
I can empathise with that collective mom, having tried to load a 50s folder on a bench in DC a month ago.

Easy load was heaven sent on 135 for most casuals, and could also easily have been implemented on 120. The easy load of 120 had been the Hasselblad magazines, but that was well out of the casually interested money and weight league.
All of the data malarky could have been done inter frame just as well or better than the magnetic strip thing, or just with an in camera memory as with the last of the Nikon Fs.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

Chromagenic B&W was presumably put on the market because of the ubiquitous nature of the C41 process at the time. It was literally available in every town, even most villages. Any sizable town or city had multiple outlets offering C41 processing in an hour, sometimes 30 minutes. Suited pros and amateurs alike, especially those who don't want to develop by hand.

I still have some rolls of Kodak BW400CN film left, remaining from the 10 or 15 rolls I bought when it was discontinued. Sadly, the fellow who ran a camera store in my town passed away, so now I have to send it off for processing. I usually use Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas. I like the fact that the iSRD helps eliminate scratches when I scan it. It is a bit grainy (which is fine), and it often makes green grass glow - I like the effect. This photo is from Brandon, Mississippi, Leica M2, 50mm f/2.0 Summicron-DR lens.

 

[Agulliver]

Surely price is what made most consumers rush to 135...once the film was "good enough" for palm sized prints? Film, processing, printing and hardware are always going to be cheaper than 120 - at least until recent times. Who, other than mad folk such as ourselves, really wants to lug a large, heavy camera around on holiday?

As for loading 120 film, I see others struggle with it and I've taught a handful of people to load 120 cameras. But I honestly do wonder just how difficult it is because I've been doing it since i was four or five. I don't understand the need for "easy load" film cameras, movie projectors, tape recorders and the like.....but then I remind myself that I can barely tie my own shoes due to an inability to figure out knots....and I am also reminded that we're all different. I am the outlier in both cases, one task comes so easily to me and the other is nigh on impossible. "Easy loading" is certainly a selling point and the 135 cassette offers much less chance of fogging. But I still reckon it's the size, weight and price that won people over. And the fact that you get more....24 or 36 exposures rather than 8 or 12....never mind the quality, feel the width...

 

[Helge]

A number of factors no doubt contributed to the switch.
Size and weight was probably not one of them.

My Minolta Hi-Matic 7s weights significantly more than my Ikonta. And the Minolta takes up a little more space.
Somewhat the same with my Retina and Retinette, that was the line that introduced daylight loading cassettes. Although they are perhaps bit smaller overall.

More frames might have been alluring to some, but the price per print was actually lower or the same, whether you went for contact or enlargements. And prints have always been the main expenditure in the whole chain, from film to finished image.

If you have a steady non abrasive surface and two full hands dedicated to the job then sure, loading 120 is a breeze with a bit of training.
Most people do not have one or the other or both.

 

[macfred]

I still have some rolls of Kodak BW400CN film left, remaining from the 10 or 15 rolls I bought when it was discontinued. Sadly, the fellow who ran a camera store in my town passed away, so now I have to send it off for processing. I usually use Dwayne's in Parsons, Kansas. I like the fact that the iSRD helps eliminate scratches when I scan it. It is a bit grainy (which is fine), and it often makes green grass glow - I like the effect. This photo is from Brandon, Mississippi, Leica M2, 50mm f/2.0 Summicron-DR lens.

View attachment 236663

This is a beautiful photograph with a wide tonal range ! I reallly like those chromogeniv films - there are about 60 rolls of Neopan 400CN in my freezer.

 

[Helge]

This is a beautiful photograph with a wide tonal range ! I reallly like those chromogenig films - there are about 60 rolls of Neopan 400CN in my freezer.

What is it you like particularly about:
A. Chromogenetic film?
B. The tonal range? The glowing effect of leaves could be easily achieved with a green or Y/G filter.
C. The photo? To me it looks like a pretty standard trial shot, with some random subject and little attention to composition. Am I missing something?

 

[138S]

What is it you like particularly about:
A. Chromogenetic film?
B. The tonal range? The glowing effect of leaves could be easily achieved with a green or Y/G filter.
C. The photo? To me it looks like a pretty standard trial shot, with some random subject and little attention to composition. Am I missing something?

Technically, it was ideal BW to develop, scan and print in the digital minilabs of the era, lack of silver grain made it easy to scan and its sensitometry made it easy to print in RA-4 paper alongside color prints of the next roll, and of course then cheap C-41 chem was in the minilab tanks. So that stuff comes from there.

For a creative photographer BW400CN had a beatiful spectral signature (spectral sensitivity) that delivered a nice tonal separation for skin, and it also had an insane latitude in the highlights that made easy to print glares in the faces, if photographer wanted to exploit that to depict face volumes.

...but BW400 was not much suitable for hard core BW photographers wanting a high degree of control from selecting specific developers or working with grain structure and all that...

BW400 was a very beautiful film, with strong and weak points, some of my most loved shots (loved by me, saying... of course ) were made with it.