Why Not DSLR Scan?

Thanks to the collapse of film photography as a mass-market phenomenon, development of new film scanner technology has essentially ceased (outside of the motion picture industry where development continues but the products are professional tools priced like cars and houses). Since many photographers own capable DSLRs with modern sensors it has become popular to use one’s existing digital camera in preference to a dedicated film scanner. Whilst this sounds sensible results are often disheartentingly disappointing. Why should this be and what can be done?

The Science and Pseudoscience of ICC Profiles and Scanning Colour Negative Film

Take 2 On Disentangling Colour Negative Film and ICC Profiles

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…

 

Scanning Colour Negative Film Using ICC Profiles

Consistent Colour For Negative Film Scans

Not happy with all-over-the-map colour from negative film scans? If you have not already familiarised yourself with my introduction to scanning colour negative film I am more than happy to wait until you have read Scanning Colour Negative Film 101, Scanning Colour Negative Film 102 and Scanning Colour Negative Film 103?

All done? Then read on…

Glass Scanning Without The Newton Rings

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.

Senior Convocation Night Qatar Foundation

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.

Plastic Fantastic V

What equipment do you need to take a great photograph?

This photograph was taken with a cheap plastic camera with a plastic lens bought at a drug store in South Africa. It was loaded with the cheap Fuji film that they give you for free in Qatar when you get your film processed and pay for prints. Whatever redeeming qualities this picture have did not come from the crappy camera or the crappy film.

So what equipment do you need?

I recommend the following equipment list:

1. One or two eyes. You should keep these open. Try to use them to really see the world around you. If it seems like everything is the same hour by hour and day by day then consult your user manual. You are not using them properly
2. One heart. Keep it soft. Allow things to move you. If you have set up a firewall and access control list to limit what has access to your heart consider drastically opening the ruleset. A lot of mundane things are often part of a default “ignore” list. Although this is considered an industry standard “best practice” I strongly advise you to consider removing most items from this list
3. One brain. Use this to store as much technique as you can. Try every new technique you hear about that interests you until you don’t have to think about it. Store macros for all your commonly used camera equipment. Consider not adding to your equipment until you have all commands for all your current equipment automated. One word of caution: use your brain to automate the process of capturing what your heart and eyes are captured by. Do not expect good results from simply firing off these automated processes at random objects that your eyes have not been captivated by or your heart has not been moved by

Well, that’s it. Take with you the above three items and use them as directed. Along with that you should have some sort of camera or camera phone (or even pen and paper). If you make proper use of your equipment you should have no trouble at all making stunning world class photographs!

Connor Being A Light Unto The World

Connor Being A Light Unto The World, a photo by Doha Sam on Flickr.

So, I built a beauty dish. On a stick.

I want my son, Connor to assist me with it on a shoot this weekend so I wanted both of us to get some practice with it. Whilst fooling around I got the idea of intentionally firing the flash straight into the lens for some very heavy veiling flare effect. I used a large bounce card to throw some light back on Connor’s face.

I quite like this one.