120 Film For Scanning

markmullen

markmullen

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I have just bought my first medium format camera (Mamiya 645AFD) and would like the resulting shots processed and scanned (until I push the boat out and buy a digital back).

What am I best off using for this purpose? I presume slide film?

I'll be using the camera for landscapes so ISO shouldn't be an issue, could anyone recommend a good film to use?
 
It really depends on what you want - pretty much any sort of film can be scanned easily these days. Most slide film holds more detail but has much less latitude than negative film.


Here's a list of most slide films with their characteristics:

  • Fujichrome Velvia 50 for the most intense saturation around, just don't take pictures of people as their skin will look like its badly sunbrunt as it portrays oranges as red. One of the most popular and famous slide films around for landscapes and very fine grained. Quite high contrast
  • Fuji Velvia 100 is similar but a stop faster and has slightly less saturation.
  • Fuji Velvia 100F is again similar but with less saturation again.
  • Personally Velvia 50 or 100 is my fave out of these.
  • Kodak E-100VS, very saturated like Velvia, but more subtle. Doesn't make skin tones go red.
  • Kodak E-100G is quite neutral and fine grained but I've not used it yet
  • The Fuji Provia 100F/400X films are very fine grained and neutral. 400X is also very pushable to about 3200

You may also be interested in Kodak Ektar colour negative film, its very saturated and fine grained making it perfect for landscapes.
 
As I said Kodak Ektar colour negative film is also very good for landscapes, here are some shots I took with it on 35mm. You might want to try some of it out initially as its a little more forgiving than slide film.

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3484228&postcount=4138

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3484231&postcount=4139

Do you know where your going to get your films processed? For slide film I would definitely recommend 'The Darkroom' as they have excellent quality and get it back to you within 3 or 4 days.

http://www.the-darkroom.com/fastcart/processing.html

Peak Imaging is also very good but a bit more expensive.

http://www.peak-imaging.com/htmls/film_processing.htm

For colour negative, I use 'Club 35'

http://www.club35.co.uk/
 
As Samuel said, the Velvia stock is brilliant imho for landscape work. Only thing is, I've found that in certain cases it's difficult to get the whole dynamic range that's captured on the slide into digital without recourse to expensive drum scanning solutions. I've found myself using ND grads to "hold back" skies just to keep the dynamic range within the capabilities of the scanner - the film itself seems to cope at least as well, if not better than my EOS 7D when I examine the slide on the lightbox with a loupe, or when projected.

When I scan slide film, I occasionally have problems that the darker sections of the slide are just not really touched by the scanner, probably the same principle as you get nasty noise on digital shots in the dark bits if you shoot RAW and use recovery to get detail in dark bits. Conversely, with Colour Negative, I seem to get fewer problems with dynamic range, if anything the noisier bits are the light areas - which are dark when scanned, then inverted in software of course. Shooting C41 would be fine, but then you have the problem of colour correction for the orange base of the film - each film being a little different. I've been known to shoot a frame with a colour checker card in frame before taking shots, purely to ease colour correction in lightroom/CS5 at a later date.




Still - Ektar 100 is a nice C41 negative film for landscapes, and worth a punt.

As far as processing goes, for mail-away processing the only lab I've used and been happy enough with the output to recommend is Peak Imaging. Not as cheap as some places, but I've always felt that the output was worth the money.
 
TheBigYin said:
As far as processing goes, for mail-away processing the only lab I've used and been happy enough with the output to recommend is Peak Imaging. Not as cheap as some places, but I've always felt that the output was worth the money.
Click to expand...

I thought the same until recently about Peak Imaging for my E-6. and then the price went up by about £3 as they increased their dev and mount price and then didn't make it eligible for the lower return postage rate despite it just being counted as process only. It doesn't actually say that on the website, but in their adverts in AP, it says that dev and mount is not eligible is you read it carefully.

All my E-6 is now going to 'The Darkroom' as they have equal quality and take the same /faster time to get it back to me. Plus their a bit cheaper.
 
In fairness, it's a while since I used Peak Imaging... I usually process my own film these days, but for occasional paying jobs, where I want to be sure, I take my film down to my local pro lab in person, drop them off in the morning and pick them up when they give me a call to say they're ready - usually round about lunchtime. They even do proper (man in the darkroom with an enlarger and trays!) Black and White printing.
 
Well - I keep my film in the Fridge or Freezer, but thats mainly because I tend to buy up short dated stock in boxes of 10-20 at a time. So, I'll keep a couple of rolls of each type in a sealed tupperware canister in the fridge, and the rest is sealed in bags and boxes in the freezer. As I use the stock in the fridge, I'll replenish from the freezer, allowing the film to thaw in the fridge for a couple of days wherever possible.

In fairness it depends on the film - most "consumer grade" film is usually fine at room temperature storage, however some of the "pro grade" film, such as velvia is recommended to be kept at under 15c/59f, which at current temperatures definitely means the 'fridge.
 
Ektar 100 for c41 process or Fuji fp100 for E6 process (slide).

Slides are better for correcting the color but worst in dynamic range. And one more thing the Efective ISO of ektar 100 is around 64 iso.
 
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