Scanned Negative - Flies on a Window

[Paul Lange]

Finally received my film scanner yesterday - a Plustek 7400. Pretty nifty little thing and comes with a nice bag for storage. Was a bit disappointed with the courier though. I say received it yesterday but I have no idea when it was actually delivered. Kerri found a very soggy and icy cardboard box covered in several inches of snow round the side of the house. We have no idea how long it was for as the courier left no note to say it had been delivered. Luckily it works and I was able to scan the first batch of negatives. They came out quite grainy and I'm not sure why, wondering it it is something to do with the hard water. I think the next batch I'll send to Ilford so I have a reference on what to expect for HP5.

This was taken at Ickworth House, I was hoping for it to come out a bit sharper as you can't really see that the black dots are flies very easily. It did however, satisfy my to photography windows - I find looking at photographs of scenes through windows fascinating for some reason. I suppose we all have out little vices.

 

[Brian Moore]

An almost religious composition, Paul, the way you have positioned the window frame. I can make out the flies pretty easy and the cobwebs too. And I like the grain. Nice shot.

 

[Paul Lange]

Cheers Brain, I did wonder if anyone would notice the crucifix like shape made by the panes.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

There's no flies on Brian!

 

[Brian Moore]

 

[Hamish Gill]

what or who deved it for you then Paul?
I quite like the grain Paul, but i suppose if it wasnt what you expected ... ...
I reminds me of a photo i took for work not so long ago ... ill show you when i can post it!

 

[Paul Lange]

I developed it myself using Ifosol, Ifostop and Rapid Fixer. When I used to develop film in college I'm sure the resulting prints were almost grain free. I'm not sure is I actually used slower film, different chemicals or softer water as I used to live in London. Possibly it was all of the above and it has just been so long I can't remember.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Ive found ilfosol 3 best for 100 and 125 ISO much higher than that and it does seem to make more grainy results ...
Try ddx, it's expensive but it doesn't bring out much grain from my experience of it!

 

[Paul Lange]

Cheers Hamish, I'll give that a go.

 

[Hamish Gill]

...I've never used a plustec, we used to sell them, and got very good reports back! My issue was always the lack of ability to scan mf film ...
But then I've been reading about large format cameras a little recently and my scanner doesn't do that size, so short of Epson v700 territory I guess you can't have it all!
Be interested to hear your on going thoughts on the thing ... Which version did you get, aren't there a bunch of different ones with different software packages or something?

No worries ... Ilfosol is lovely with fp4 btw, get some of that and use it with the ilfosol and I'm sure you will be very pleased!

 

[Paul Lange]

I bought a Plustek 7400 that shipped with Silver Fast 6.6. All in all I am quite happy with it. Max resolution is 7200dpi and because you only scan the negative scanning time at that resolution is not too bad but it still takes quite a while to scan a whole film. However if you scan it at 300dpi and then only scan the ones you want to do something with at 7200dpi it is still a workable prospect. Like all scanners though you have to tweak the settings until your generally happy with the results.

I have a funny feeling it was FP4 that the college gave us. They used to bulk load it onto rolls for us so we didn't see what we had but I vaguely remember the iso being just over 100. The prints used to be very sharp with bags of detail. I have another 3 rolls of HP5 to use up but I do quite like the grain, just wasn't expecting it. Hopefully next time I develop the films I can do it properly without dropping the wet negatives and scratching them with the squeegy.

I did workout a way to scan on a normal scanner but it is not ideal but might be easier with medium and large format films. You need an old 15" TFT monitor that you have to strip apart to turn it into a light box. Let me know if you have an old monitor and want to give it a go.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Just for your info, I find scanning at 3200dpi to be the sweet spot
With the Epson I scan to "original size" and the rez, I'm not realy sure what it means but the files are spot on...

Two clean fingers is what I use for a squeegee ...
I ****ed a couple of films before I realised that trick, less effective at getting the water of, somtimes you get the odd water mark, but no massive scratches!

Trust you Paul to come up with such an idea ...
Yeah, I can imagine how that would work! You would need third party scanner software to prevent the scanner from getting in a fix about not having its lid in position ... At least you would with mine I think!

 

[Paul Lange]

Yep I think clean fingers and de-ionised water (a tip from Pete) in future. I changed the rubber in the squeegee for some silicone tubing that I had laying around but not sure I want to risk it again. I guess as your scanner has a light in the lid it can tell if the lid is down or not. However I would of though this would be disabled if the scanner thinks that you are doing regular scanning. However it is not exactly easy to get the setup up and running. I can see why some people would be put off by it. I have a bit of a lust for tinkering however

 

[Hamish Gill]

A good point, yeah I can scan lidlessly if I'm in conventional scanning mode!
If I ever get a large format camera ... Which is pretty unlikely I'd guess, I'll give it a go!
Did you experiment then? How far did you get?
I've seen tutorials of people using paper boxes over the neg ... In fact it might have been uou who showed me it???

 

[Paul Lange]

I have sort of got it working on 35mm, the main issue is that you need the film strip pressed flat on to the glass bed otherwise the image is out of focus. Tricky with 35mm but would go as far to say that it would be easier with larger negatives as it would be less fiddly.

 

[Hamish Gill]

You could and make, or even buy a negative holder like what is used in a flatbed neg scanner ...
That would, I would think, mean you wouldn't need to take the monitor apart at all ...

 

[Pete Askew]

Yep, de-isonised water and fingers is what I use too for 35 mm and 120 film. I don't 'squeegee' LF film.