This is just a short post to tell you stuff that old skool film photographers know in their sleep but that new users of film might be genuinely perplexed by. 35mm film is pretty straightforward because it comes in a light-proof canister, that you rewind back into when you are done, and you simply take it back out again. Medium format is a little different.
Or, the longest titled blog post I have yet made.
In my previous post Scanning Colour Negative Film Using ICC Profiles I discussed my experiences in using ICC profiles in conjunction with negative film scanning. This lead to a lot of questions and much more research.
In this episode we will embark on a journey into the depths of colour management and go where no colour negative film-shooting photographer has gone before. Well, I bet they have but I can’t find anything else like it on the internet…
So you want a little more control? So you have been through Scanning Colour Negative Film 101 and Scanning Colour Negative Film 102? Read on.
In Scanning Colour Negative Film 101 we learned how to scan a piece of colour negative film in Nikon Scan using the standard negative mode as well as how to get a full range gamma 1.0 positive scan that we can use to do our own positive inversion with. Continue reading to start exploring how to do this in three progressively more complex but powerful ways. Because we are dealing only with processing the inversion of the positive scan the techniques discussed here are equally applicable for positive scans obtained via any scanner or software, even so-called “DSLR” scans. For DSLR scans, however, there are some special considerations that we will touch on in the third installment.
So you want to scan negative film? Well, it’s not too hard to be happy if you don’t look too far. I spent my first several years just using the “negative” mode on Nikon Scan with my Nikon Coolscan 9000ED and I was very happy. Nikon Scan does a very good and artistically satisfying job, in my opinion. It is all well and good until you want some control over the process. Let’s say, you don’t like the clipping point where your brights get cut off. Let’s say you end up with a colour cast in the shadows or across the whole image. Let’s say the shadows are crushed. What can you do? Well, nothing, my friend. Nothing unless you take over.
C-41 Press Kit
I know there are a few guides out there for home processing, some of which were instrumental in helping me get over my fears. All of these other guides seemed to be a little incomplete and that lack of detail made me wait longer than I should have before taking the plunge. In reality, it’s EASY to do your film at home. Let me show you!
The Nikon Coolscan 9000ED scanner is an excellent scanner. The included holders are of a very good standard and many extremely useful and high quality optional holders are available. None of them, however, are cheap.
I have been scanning happily for many years with my Coolscan 9000 ED and never seen the need for glass scanning. For the most part I use high quality film that is not difficult to make lie flat and my only medium format camera until recently was a 6×4.5 model that I never used anything but Fuji and Kodak film in. Nevertheless I had ordered some glass insets some time back from Focal Point — mostly out of curiosity. In my limited testing the gains were modest and the extra effort significant so they mostly stayed in the box.
In the past six months my camera stable grew to include two medium format folders: the new Lomography X 6-12 6×12 camera and a beautiful German Agfa Record III 6×9 folder with the high quality Solinar lens. All of a sudden I was having significant challenges with film flatness. Try as I might I could not get the flatness I needed out of Nikon’s “tension” holder.
The product offered by Focal Point for the 9000 is a pair of glass inserts that fit in the standard FH-869S film holder. The standard way of doing this is to make a sandwhich with the AN glass on top facing the “shiny” side of the film and the standard glass on the bottom in contact with the emulsion side of the film. Since the shiny side is usually the side that has bad Newton Ring problems this is meant to work well. However, in my experience with the films I shoot (and maybe the climate I’m in) I often find that the emulsion side is smooth enough to give rings and I invariably only find these later when I’m editing. These problems disuaded me until my new cameras prodded me to solve the problem.
Technical considerations are definitely important. Sweating the details is what will make the difference between OK and wow. But there is always a time to stop being squeamish and just shoot!
The above is an example.
I saw this scene and barely had time to run and set up the equipment against a not-entirely-clean window. Shooting through windows is not normally a great idea but just look! This was not a scene to miss by obsessing on perfection.
Can you live with it?
We live in a sea of photography. Every day a wave of tsunami proportions of new images washes over us. Every image creator competes fiercely for a few precious seconds of your eyeball time. Every new technique is done to death. To be heard you must shout!
I was reading a post by an Austin commercial photographer named Kirk Tuck. He has a good blog about photography in general and the post is here:
http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/03/does-photography-matter-anymore-or-has.html
Basically, I think he is right. I think we are all sorely tempted to jazz up the “KERPOW!!” factor on our images.
But could we live with them?
One thing I find I have always striven for is “livable” images. If I were suddenly wealthy one of the first things I would do is have the best of my work printed mural size and fastened to my walls. I strive to make images that I could live with.
The above image is one of my recent favourites from a trip to San Francisco. I thought it was very liveable but it seems I was distracted by the lovely colours and tones. They had blinded me to the flawed composition. A few minutes at full screen were enough to tell me that. I had to fix it before linking to it here.
It takes an awful lot to make a good photograph and very little to ruin it. Maybe it is time to look at your own photographs again. Are you making photographs you could live with?
It doesn’t have to make sense.
Trust your senses. If you seem to see something but you don’t know what it is take the shot. That is how this shot came about.
I can’t explain why this shot works. But it does.
Trust your eye.
smashandgrabphoto 