Digitising 35mm negative

Still undecided as usual... Thank you for all the additional information.o_O
 
auntiemaryscanary said:
I've paid the extra fiver for the V550 so it'll be here tomorrow. As a complete novice to scanning (beyond A4 letters at work) I'll let you know how I get on...
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This is my process for scanning B&W negatives using the V550 and the included Epson Scan software:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/scanning-film-negs-tips-tutorials.674850/post-8123591

The only change to the information in that post is that I tend to send colour photos away for dev and scan now.
 
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Pete B said:
A decent macro lens is far better than any scanner
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Everyone to their own choice.

Personally I would take some convincing that a decent macro lens would offer better results than a decent scanner.

Tbh, with some reasonable darkroom skills, a wet print would blow away either of the above methods imo.
 
Asha said:
Everyone to their own choice.

Personally I would take some convincing that a decent macro lens would offer better results than a decent scanner.

Tbh, with some reasonable darkroom skills, a wet print would blow away either of the above methods imo.
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Then you scan the paper image to get it into your computer ?

Most people that go that route including myself do it because we want a digital version of our photographs without the need for a wet print in between .
 
Yes, Either scan it or photograph it digitally IF I WISH TO SHARE !

Any film based photographs that I wish to print large and keep for myself will generally be of good IQ.
That is, I believe, an important aspect to most togs ( at least to those who print ).
That being the case, I wouldn’t consider obtaining the print via a macro lens or even scanning if I could obtain a more pleasing result in the darkroom.

I take photographs for myself, not for others.
Nonetheless I’m happy to share some work on here but pretty much to share the scenes.
Showing the UQ with small scans is inutile and although possible through other media sites like Flickr, I don’t need to have my photographs scrutinised at 100% zoom[emoji6]
 
I put my own experiences on digitising film here:

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/a-big-film-scanner-thread.709453/page-2#post-8688503

Pace, Asha, but I'll put my hand up here and say that I lack the necessary patience, dedication and skills to make a darkroom print that can equal what I can get printing on an Epson A2 printer with Ultrachrome inks. Consistently. And I'll also say that I had about 50 years of shoddy prints behind me before I saw the light. Pun intended.
 
ChrisH said:
Most people that go that route including myself do it because we want a digital version of our photographs without the need for a wet print in between .
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I don't post much as everyone must have noticed, so I don't need a digital version. I scan because I want a decent print rather than a digital version, and as I said in the post above, it's the best route for me to achieve that.

There are those who can wet print, and those that lack the patience. I'm in the latter category, and always take the easiest route to reach my destination.
 
Wet prints sometimes subjectively look better—whatever better means—but I'm not sure whether it's because it just looks different or really has higher resolution or smoother graduated tones etc. I can't speak about the smoothness of tones, but I did once compare the following:

1. A medium format (6x6 Rolleicord) colour negative scanned with an Epson V550 and printed using an Epson P400 on high quality Fotospeed paper. The same negative printed in the darkroom on Fuji Crystal Archive paper.

2. A 35mm (Olympus XA3) colour negative scanned with a Pakon F135+, and printed using the same printer and paper. The same negative printed in the darkroom as above.

I spent an hour with a loupe trying to find a difference in resolution (to justify my darkroom work!) but had to concede there really wasn't any. Having said that, the prints looked totally different in terms of character because I couldn't control the saturation or contrast of the wet print like I could with the scan.

So...which prints are hanging on my wall?...I hate to say it, but they're the scanned versions.

That's colour negative. Black and white negatives are a whole different ball-game in my opinion, because B&W wet printing is almost endlessly creative, and the results when you get them right, can be gorgeous.

How many of my printed B&W photos are scanned and digitally printed?............None.
 
Sorry ladies and gents me again.

Did not win the auction on eBay for the 4490 but have managed to pick up a used v500.

It does not have the film holders so will order some from ebay and seems the one from China may be the best option to keep the cost low[emoji3].

Looking online it is not compatible with OS X 10.15 unless I buy the other software like vuescan or SilverFast, anyone have a work around using the Epson software on OS X 10.15?

And is there any reason why I cannot a an the negatives without the film holders?

Thank you
 
FishyFish said:
If you place the negatives directly on the glass you’ll get Newton’s Rings on the scans. The holders raise the negs off the glass by about a millimetre, which prevents this. I think the scanner also focuses properly at this height.
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Thank you, will put in an order from ebay.
 
FishyFish said:
If you place the negatives directly on the glass you’ll get Newton’s Rings on the scans. The holders raise the negs off the glass by about a millimetre, which prevents this. I think the scanner also focuses properly at this height.
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If you place the negatives directly on the glass you MIGHT get NR [emoji6]
 
You can also avoid Newton Rings by putting the negatives emulsion side down, then flipping the image digitally.
 
Thank you all for the additional pointers. I have ordered a holder of eBay and should be here in a few weeks time. In the mean time might just try one or with them to see how it goes.
 
sep9001 said:
Looking online [the V500] is not compatible with OS X 10.15 unless I buy the other software like vuescan or SilverFast, anyone have a work around using the Epson software on OS X 10.15?

And is there any reason why I cannot [scan] the negatives without the film holders?
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You may be right about the V500 and 10.15, and I think that applies to Epson Scan too. Annoyingly, the updated software Epson Scan 2 does not work with the V500. IMHO an investment in Vuescan Pro is well worth while; it will support all your other scanners, now and in the future, you get updates indefinitely for free, and they have an inbuilt driver for the V500 (and many other unsupported scanners).

It's more than likely that you can scan your negatives straight on the glass without Newton's Rings (I've not noticed them the few times I've tried). I think the film needs to be very flat and very close to the glass for Newton's Rings to be a real problem (@Woodsy could probably do the maths better then me). However, many films do not lie flat, but have very annoying curls either longitudinally or laterally, so the holders are really helpful in keeping the film flat and level (and slightly above the glass).
 
Newton rings are an interference based effect, so typically to see them, two surfaces have to be very close together indeed - on the order of a few to a few hundred wavelengths of the light used. The effect is actually due to the fact that one surface is flat and the other is slightly curved. If both were 'perfectly' flat and parallel, and the light field uniform, etc etc, the effect would not be seen. After all, it's the contrast between constructuive and destructive fringes that we observe as the adverse effect, so as said, one surface has to be slightly curved (Actually, to be totally pedantic, it matters not if one is flat, what really matters is the relative curvature of the two surfaces with respect to one another). Interestingly, if the two surfaces were perfectly flat but at an angle to one other, the same effect would manifest as Newton "lines" - in that they would be straight lines, not rings.

From what I recall, scanning film directly mounted to the glass bed of the scanner is not advisable from a focusing point of view. Achieving a decent resolution when scanning requires, in general, very short focal length lenses - which speaks to resolving power, and matching this with the physical pixel pitch of the sensor. With this comes the cost of narrow depth of field in the scanner imaging optics, and hence the film really needs to be mounted in the correct position to achieve optimal sharpness in the resulting image. Now, this is not to say that it is not possible to scan with the film laying directly on the scanner glass, but tests I have seen performed (not exhaustive) yielded poor results when compared with even the basic film holders for flatbed scanners.

If one simply must scan with the film on the scanner bed, tape can be used to keep it flat, and index matching fluid (wet mounting fluid) can be used to supress Newton rings. One example I have seen is the youtube video by Nick Carver. He's a bit 'american', but does a good job of the comparison.
 
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Woodsy said:
Newton rings are an interference based effect, so typically to see them, two surfaces have to be very close together indeed - on the order of a few to a few hundred wavelengths of the light used. The effect is actually due to the fact that one surface is flat and the other is slightly curved. If both were 'perfectly' flat and parallel, and the light field uniform, etc etc, the effect would not be seen. After all, it's the contrast between constructuive and destructive fringes that we observe as the adverse effect, so as said, one surface has to be slightly curved (Actually, to be totally pedantic, it matters not if one is flat, what really matters is the relative curvature of the two surfaces with respect to one another). Interestingly, if the two surfaces were perfectly flat but at an angle to one other, the same effect would manifest as Newton "lines" - in that they would be straight lines, not rings.

From what I recall, scanning film directly mounted to the glass bed of the scanner is not advisable from a focusing point of view. Achieving a decent resolution when scanning requires, in general, very short focal length lenses - which speaks to resolving power, and matching this with the physical pixel pitch of the sensor. With this comes the cost of narrow depth of field in the scanner imaging optics, and hence the film really needs to be mounted in the correct position to achieve optimal sharpness in the resulting image. Now, this is not to say that it is not possible to scan with the film laying directly on the scanner glass, but tests I have seen performed (not exhaustive) yielded poor results when compared with even the basic film holders for flatbed scanners.

If one simply must scan with the film on the scanner be, tape can be used to keep it flat, and index matching fluid (wet mounting fluid) can be used to supress Newton rings. One example I have seen is the youtube video by Nick Carver. He's a bit 'american', but does a good job of the comparison.
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Thanks Jonathan, that's pretty clear. I had expected it would be much less than "a few hundred wavelengths" though. Let's see... if the longest wavelength is 700 nM, or 7*10^-7 M, I guess a hundred wavelengths takes us to 7*10^-5, call it 10^-4 M... is that 1/10 of a mm? Still pretty close!

I've never scanned 135 negatives on the scanner glass, but I have scanned 4x5 negatives on the glass without visible bad effects (in the scanning, not the images). In fact, ISTR pointing to some who'd made a 4x5 mask out of thin card, partly to assist in accurate movement of the neg when it has to be scanned in two parts... and folk mostly said, nah, just chuck it on the glass! (I did actually buy some card that was just over 1 mm thick, and tried cutting it, but it was too strong for a clean cut with the knives I've got... still planning to give this another go, though...)
 
Good Evening,

Thank you for all the help so far. I now have the negative holders and managed to get the scanner connected to a windows 10 machine.

What are the best settings to to try under the professional mode please?

Thank you
 
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