Slide vs print

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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I know it's heresy here, but I have no real interest in doing my own developing (long story / childhood trauma) and am very happy with digital prints on nice paper....

So, if I'm shooting on 120 with the sole intention of having a lab dev and scan for me, is there any real difference between slide and print film?

I know there are no 2 equivalent slide and print films so I'd be choosing say Velvia vs Ektar but is there any real difference between slide and neg as a basis for scanning? Or can I just choose my favourite film regardless of tech and have the lab sort it out?
 
It's not really heresy - you can choose to incorporate yourself into as little or as much of the workflow as you want - I always regard the technical side with enlargers, Jobos and chemical mixtures as a very different hobby to the photographing side of film photography.

With that out of the way - it shouldn't make a difference, but depends on how well the lab handles scans. Velvia is notoriously bad for scanning, being tricky to nail down and with the added problem that scanners simply cannot capture everything Velvia has to offer on a slide.

Most colour negative film now was designed specifically with scanning and digital workflow in mind - especially the Kodak Portra line of film, so colour negative may be the way to go.

In truth, it's the ability of the lab to scan well more than anything. And also, considering how much detail there is on a 120 negative, a bad/poor scan is really a waste of the capability of medium format.
 
As always, shoot the same subject on both and you decide which one suits your requirements, print/web/book?

There really isn't a right answer, although print film is easier to use, with more latitude.
 
Thanks.

Yeah, I think I'll stick with print film for its latitude.

Nice to know I can swap to slide without any problems if something takes my fancy :)
 
I've decided to stick to Velvia now rather than Ektar, simply because the latitude of Ektar meant that all the wonderful light spots and cloud shadows and such like I chase in landscapes weren't actually being rendered with Ektar, it as all just coming back pretty uniform and flat unless the light was real harsh. Plus with a slide you have a base image to compare the scan to, with Negative you have your memory only!
 
JonathanRyan said:
Thanks.

Yeah, I think I'll stick with print film for its latitude.

Nice to know I can swap to slide without any problems if something takes my fancy :)
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I would advise to still try both - nothing replaces seeing the image on a large transparency rendered in that or the other slide film colours. On a slide film the colours will not necessarily remind you of the scene as it was - the colours will more likely deviate from that. But this is the whole reason for me shooting films - to get that elusive film character and colours that I find is missing on digital.

I would however strongly advise to get yourself a decent scanner and do the scanning yourself. Epson V500 could be had for a good price and is decent enough to start with. The scans that you will get even from the best of labs are rarely done individually and with each frame specific characteristics so what you will get is at best average quality scans which will hardly give you the quality that you can get from film.

To whet your "appetite" for slide film - the below was shot on Velvia 50 120, scanned on V500 at 4800 dpi, retoushed (to remove marks etc), sharpened and downsampled to 2400 dpi. The scans I got from the lab were nowhere near that clarity.



And this was in the same park shot on Kodak Ektar 120 - the rest of the processing is the same but initial colour tuning in is involved as it is always with negatives.

 
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Slide film can be much harder to scan as well with its high contrast, scanning a frame of Velvia 50 with any deep shadow detail visible when projected will guarantee that the detail will not be visible when scanned even if using multiexposure etc.

However the advantage of slide film when scanning is that you can profile the scanner with an IT-8 target so that the colours etc are always theoretically spot on. If you've got a lot of money you can even get IT-8 targets for every individual film type but as their quite expensive just one general Fuji or Kodak one is good enough.
 
s162216 said:
However the advantage of slide film when scanning is that you can profile the scanner with an IT-8 target so that the colours etc are always theoretically spot on. If you've got a lot of money you can even get IT-8 targets for every individual film type but as their quite expensive just one general Fuji or Kodak one is good enough.
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Theoretically, you can get a XRite passport or another larger target (СС SG or something like it) and shoot it on a slide film of your choice under stable and even light. Then nothing really will prevent to calibrate the scanner from that and there is no need to get IT8 targets. The problem however is as with digital in this case - you will need to shoot the target in variety of the lighting conditions (full sunlight, cloudy/overcast, etc) and build profiles for all of them to match the film colour response for each type of lighting you need. This in the end should be more flexible than what you can do with IT8.

I was thinking of doing this experiment with Velvia and see how it will come out (somewhere this summer).
 
Yeah, now my head's melting ;) Maybe I'll stick to digital..... :D

Thanks Alexey - fly agaric looks awfully pretty...

I have a 4490 scanner but don't have the right carriers to hold 6X7 and 6X8 rigid :(
 
They just need to be flattened out for a while - underneath some heavy unused books, atlas, that sort of thing, will do the trick. Almost all film will flatten out given time.
 
Hello Alexey D
That red Acer tree I had to reduce the saturation by 25 in Photoshop as it was hurting my eyes :)
 
dalex_257 said:
Theoretically, you can get a XRite passport or another larger target (СС SG or something like it) and shoot it on a slide film of your choice under stable and even light. Then nothing really will prevent to calibrate the scanner from that and there is no need to get IT8 targets. The problem however is as with digital in this case - you will need to shoot the target in variety of the lighting conditions (full sunlight, cloudy/overcast, etc) and build profiles for all of them to match the film colour response for each type of lighting you need. This in the end should be more flexible than what you can do with IT8.

I was thinking of doing this experiment with Velvia and see how it will come out (somewhere this summer).
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Thats not the idea of IT-8 though, its to calibate the scanner output to give an accurate representation of the slide itself, not to correct the image colours to what their 'supposed' to like as if an xrite etc so the lighting conditions etc make no impact on the scanned image. If the slide shows a blue cast for example, then the scan will show a blue cast, you get what I mean? Of course that doesn't mean that you can't profile the scanner with an IT-8 target and then use that profile when ever your scanning slides but photograph an Xrite, grey card etc under the lighting conditions that your using for that particular day, time, place to correct the cast if you don't want to manually adjust the scan to remove the cast.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I have a 4490 scanner but don't have the right carriers to hold 6X7 and 6X8 rigid :(
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I use this - very cheap solution and fantastic for the job. My V500 scans have improved drastically with that. And of course you can try the wet kit - I wanted to go down that road with some homemade wet scan kit but in the end the ScanAssist was all I needed with a lot less mess.
 
Aha - I see. So in effect it is basically to calibrate the scanner's own sensor and light not that of the film's. Sounds simple but really quite right. Need to get myself IT8 now ;)



s162216 said:
Thats not the idea of IT-8 though, its to calibate the scanner output to give an accurate representation of the slide itself, not to correct the image colours to what their 'supposed' to like as if an xrite etc so the lighting conditions etc make no impact on the scanned image. If the slide shows a blue cast for example, then the scan will show a blue cast, you get what I mean? Of course that doesn't mean that you can't profile the scanner with an IT-8 target and then use that profile when ever your scanning slides but photograph an Xrite, grey card etc under the lighting conditions that your using for that particular day, time, place to correct the cast if you don't want to manually adjust the scan to remove the cast.
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s162216 said:
If the slide shows a blue cast for example, then the scan will show a blue cast, you get what
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In the respect of this and the prices of IT8.7 transparencies I wonder if this will make sense to get the IT8.7 reflective target and shoot it say on Velvia in daylight then use that and the known Velvia IT8.7 values - profile the scanner? I.e. do the IT8.7 on film yourself. Or will it not work?
 
You don't really need a specific IT-8 target for each film type (unless your a drum scanning lab or something), a generic Kodak or Fuji E-6 target is all that is necessary for most people, the only difference between the two manufacturers is the film their outputted on (which makes no difference as the laser used to output is also calibrated to the film curve). Kodak ones are generally cheaper as so many more are sold every year and are around £50. Once you've got one though, you can use it forever (well until it becomes so worn out its unusable obviously)

https://www.silverfast.com/order/en.html?productline=scanner&special=it8order_no_sf
 
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First of all - thanks for all the help here. World of difference from some other areas on this forum.... :)

Lots to think about. I especially like the idea of a €10 bit of glass to upgrade my scanner :)

When the postie gets here I'll have a box of Ektar and a box of Acros to play with. I often start with an Acros preset when I convert digital files to B&W so it seemed to make sense.

I was also in my local indie camera shop yesterday and bought his entire remaining stock of Reala (um, 2 rolls). He's not sure what he'll get to replace it since he said he'd heard Fuji aren't making it any more :(

But mainly, I need to get out and shoot more and see what I like. All I need now is a little luck with weather and light......
 
Reala was discontinued in 35mm but is still available in 120, the last I heard (very odd way round to discontinue 35mm but not medium format, but that's Fuji for you).
 
Reala is lovely actually, I'd like to shoot more of it. I also really liked Pro 160s, it's a mighty shame that got the axe. Still can't complain, there are still excellent print and slide films out there!
 
Thanks - their 6x7cm Kodak transparency one seems cheapest at 39 Euros (incl VAT) - cheaper than even 35mm. I'll give it a go.

s162216 said:
You don't really need a specific IT-8 target for each film type (unless your a drum scanning lab or something), a generic Kodak or Fuji E-6 target is all that is necessary for most people, the only difference between the two manufacturers is the film their outputted on (which makes no difference as the laser used to output is also calibrated to the film curve). Kodak ones are generally cheaper as so many more are sold every year and are around £50. Once you've got one though, you can use it forever (well until it becomes so worn out its unusable obviously)

https://www.silverfast.com/order/en.html?productline=scanner&special=it8order_no_sf
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If you plan on calibrating your scanning, make sure you lock down all the settings so that they are the same each time. Any changes of exposure, or even the addition/subtraction of ICE will make a difference. It's also worth noting that you cannot make a scanner profile with a linear scan as it introduces far too much noise, this is something I found out to my cost!
 
Mr_T said:
If you plan on calibrating your scanning, make sure you lock down all the settings so that they are the same each time. Any changes of exposure, or even the addition/subtraction of ICE will make a difference. It's also worth noting that you cannot make a scanner profile with a linear scan as it introduces far too much noise, this is something I found out to my cost!
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Hmm, that is a bit strange -especially bit about exposure as it usually differs from scan to scan. I guess I'll have to try it. What do you mean by linear scans?
 
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