Rievaulx

[Ralph Turner]

Now for something that's hopefully a little less 'controversial'. A couple of pics taken on the Spotmatic at Rievaulx Terrace 16 years ago, the last time I put a film through it (I thinjk it was Agfa Vista 200

 

[Brian Moore]

Two wonderful photos, Ralph. I particularly like the first one; the way the abbey fades a little in the mist, framed by the gorgeous colors of the woods, is sublime.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

Ditto what Brian said Lovely sharpness for 35mm too - although I don't have a lot experience in that regard.
May I ask how they were scanned? If that was the GX1 in one pass I'm impressed....

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Love the abbey shot. Just perfect.

 

[Dave Farnes]

Agreed. Two fine pictures, the abbey in the mist is great.

 

[Ralph Turner]

Many thanks for your kind words, gents.

 

[Ralph Turner]

@Stevenson Gawen might it surprise you if I said they were scanned on my old Epson 4870 flatbed? I did these back in 2015, before I’d properly got back into film. Having been a little disparaging of the Epson recently, it was probably an unfair judgment. It has it’s foibles but, when it comes to colour negs it has the potential to hold its own, certainly in terms of colour rendering even if not necessarily in resolution. I only use the basic Epson scan software the came bundled with it and edit the ‘raw’ tiff elsewhere (the DPP software that comes bundled with Canon dslrs is a surprisingly flexible tool for balancing the colours).
Regarding the GX1, it unfortunately has a slight colour shift from one side of the sensor to the other. This is not noticeable with colour transparency scans but with negatives and their greater subsequent brightness/contrast adjustments, the shift becomes noticeable. It was the main reason I upgraded to the Fuji. To be fair it’s highly unlikely to be a regular issue with that particular model, probably more to di with what may gave been a hard life prior to my purchase of it from the ‘Bay. There are sizeable chunks of dead pixels on the rear screen , hence getting it cheap (if memory serves, around £50). At the time I had yet to try camera scanning and this offered a cheap way in to getting a potentially permanent rig set up without breaking the bank.
… and I apologise now for getting into super-waffle mode with this response

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

apologise now

Don't! I appreciate you telling me about it - I've never tried 'real' scanning... so there you go . Don't know whether I should be surprised...

 

[Ralph Turner]

The scanner I is actually the third one (sort of) of those that I‘ve had and all the swaps happened probably within a year of buying it in the early noughties. The first one started playing up, the lid lamp not always traversing the bed when scanning, leaving a very dark or light frame with little or no detail in it. I can’t remember now all the ins and outs with regard to correspondence with both the supplier and Epson themselves, but luckily the supplier did replace the unit on (I think) receipt of the old one…. and then a short while later a replacement unit from Epson themselves turned up out of the blue. Probably a little naughty of me, but I didn’t mention what had happened to either party afterward, instead waited for them to make further contact with me. It never came, so I ended up with two scanners. The one from Epson I think was a refurb as there’s a small split in the case, probably from where they accessed the innards. This is the one I’ve held on to, though, as it seems to give a sharper more natural rendering of fine detail. Those scanners had a bit of a reputation for slight variability in their optical path.

Well, look at that, another super-hyper-blather response lol

 

[Pete Askew]

A fine pair and I agree with Rob about the shot of the abbey. My those roots are creepy!