First set of scans - new Epson V600

[David Mitchell]

Hi all,

Well...I now have a nice shiny Epson V600 I have just scanned in the MF negatives I have had for months (as I had no other way to get them into the PC lol). Im still learning about all the settings, when checking on 'theartofphotography' youtube channel he has an older Epson scanner but the software is basically the same, was interested to know about what resolution ie DPI I should scan at.

Here is what was suggested:

LF (4x5) - 800 dpi
MF - 1200 dpi
35mm - 2400 dpi

I initially ran the first set of scans for my Kodak Six-20 on 400dpi and will probably rescan them again at 1200 with all options off (ie an exact scan of the negative with no processing during scanning) I can then use LR to tweek them.

Anyway, here are a few shots from my cameras, my first go at the scanner and my first few tweeks in LR with proper negatives - I can't change the white balance on it like I could do with the digial images although then remembered that film sorts out the white balance...cause its film lol

Anyhow, here are some of the scans I like, the negatives aren't the best due to the time between getting them back and scanning them.

Kodak Six-20, only 400 dpi (1.1 Megapixel) and this is actually flipped horizontally from real life but I actually like it better this way lol

Bessa at 1200 dpi (10.9 Megapixel), corner of the garden

I was using the little tool that tweeks the tone map to move parts of the image up or down in value, need to play around with it a bit more but its all a learning curve. These are also my first ever shots on film so I didn't have the best exposed images to start with lol.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Very nice, David. Just looked up the V600 and it's cheaper than I thought it was going to be. Looking forward to seeing more of your images. Lots more!

 

[David Mitchell]

Now I have a scanner I have some way of getting film images into my PC lol I was looking at the V500, but then the V600 came down in price on Amazon and used Christmas cash towards it, there is a massive leap up to the V700 though, but looking at the images coming out of this scanner so far seems pretty good. Some of the earlier scans I tried I had left on the auto exposure and the dust remover - the dust remover caused no end of issues lol so I just decided to scan them 'as is' and then import them into LR.

I actually like the first image quite a bit which must be luck as thats with the Kodak Six-20 with no possible change of any settings with a waist level viewfinder made from some glass and mirror lol

 

[Ahmad Bhai]

The first is kinda eerie, im not sure why, i like it cause it is eerie.

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks its the one I have decided to do some scan tests on, it was only originally scaned at 400 dpi, i've now scanned it at 1200, 3200 and 12800 lol I think the 12,800 dpi scan worked out at 1200 megapixels lol but it seems that 1200 dpi is good for MF, you get a bit extra at 3200 though but the file sizes start to creep up. In fact I am unable to import the 230mb file into LR4 to process the 12,800dpi file lol also when previewing it, it is using about 70% of the RAM in my PC....I have 12GBs of gaming RAM lol it looks like 1200 is good for MF, 3200 is good for MF if you are enlarging further but considering the first image is at 400dpi is fine for posting up online.

What is interesting with the images as they have come out is you can see where the film has run along the inside of the camera down the edges, so much better than any image you can try and replicate in Instagram or something lol

Here is the image at 3200 dpi with some post production:

I have now tweeked the cropped it slightly to give me my final image:

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I like the 3200 version before you did some pp. The tree trunk has more definition and light. Something seems to have got lost in pp, at least on my ipad2. On the other hand, the top part of the picture looks better now....

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks Rob, I am still learning all the different settings in light room at the moment lol sooo many options lol im checking the histogram much more now to ensure that there aren't any parts of the image cut off either end, its balanced and broad through the range - hopefully thats what im ment to be doing!

I have just scanned in some 35mm, these are again shot at 3200 dpi which is 1 stage above then 2400 dpi basic scan so I can get as much detail without filling up the hard drive! These are around a 12 megapixel scan which seems to give good quality but not a massive file.

These are the same 35mm negatives that I had a scanned CD for which I am guessing were scanned in at around 800dpi, so I have rescanned the ones I liked and tweeked them a bit.

A few in Matlock in Derbyshire:

A few around town:

What is cool on the photo above is the fact I can read the writing in the hairdressers window when you zoom in

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I like these a lot, especially the shop ones.

Good to question whether one should have equal balance across the spectrum. I notice that sometimes I like to load it in favour of one end, or the other, or somewhere else. What's right is what you like. Depends if you are trying to render exactly what's in the negative, or whether you are trying to 'improve' on it. Anyway, I like the above as they are, so you did a good job

 

[David Mitchell]

Yeah im just having a go with the settings, will try some colour negatives at some point and see how it goes, I have found that the V600 is pretty good and with 35mm it automatically selects each frame (I have to manually select the MF images on the negative).

Here is a screen shot zoomed in (guessing at 100% scan) when zooming in within LR4, its the bottom right or the portrait image.

You can see the sort of detail that film allows and how the scanner is doing, thats at a 3200 dpi scan and its ISO 400 film so quite grainy vs other sorts. That image is probably from about 10mm worth of film in the corner of the frame, looking forward for the resolution of large format!