What do you shoot and how do you process it?

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What do you shoot and how do you process it?

Postby Max » Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:55 am

So i went to Ushuaia, south end of Argentinian Patagonia, and carried the 690, 100 and 50 through mountains, glaciers and sea trips too. I'm done trying big format cameras, this one is the best there is. It's really natural, and the feared lens changing and film loading while trekking on snow or something like that comes very easy if you have a good bag.
I shot Velvia, and while I don't consider myself an artist, may be the pictures are quite touristic, but the breathtaking landscapes combined with (finally) a good DOF management produce 3D images that are like windows. I can't stop looking at the slides, even the ones that are really uninteresting.
Now I'm starting with a couple of drum scans, the files should be 15000x10000 pixels, something like 4200dpi, or 500MB (not cheap!). I think that should yield amazing prints, but I'm curious about how others process their results.
Any comments?
Max
 
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Postby Abbazz » Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:10 am

Max,

Please post some shots from your trip to Ushuaia. Patagonia Lanscapes shot with the Fujinon 50 on 6x9 Velvia should be pretty impressive :blob10: :blob3: :blob8:

For the time being, I shoot color negative and B&W film only. No slide film, just because I am presently working in Brunei and it doesn't seem to be possible to get 120 slides processed here. For negatives, I use Kodak Portra 160NC and Fuji Pro 800z. Portra 160NC has a very nice tonality with soft colors and is well suited for portraits or outdoor shots in bright sun. Fuji Pro 800z is the new label for the Fuji NPZ800, a great film, very versatile, with very fine grain and vibrant colors, ideal for interiors and low light shots. A few weeks ago, I bought a bunch of the last NPZ800 films at $3.99 per 220 roll from B&H. Unfortunately, it seems that B&H is now out of stock. The new Pro 800z is priced at $7.34 per roll, ouch! :crybaby2:

In B&W, I use mainly Efke/Adox 25 or Arista Edu Ultra 100/400 , which I process myself with Diafine, or Ilford XP2 Super, which I give to the local minilab (C41 process). I also use Kodak TXP 320 -- although I prefer the good old Tri-X 400 -- but this is one of the only B&W films available in 220 rolls, and I find 220 rolls very useful when shooting on location with a 6x9 camera!

For all the films processed at the local minilab (color negatives + Ilford XP2 Super), I ask the lab to burn the Fuji Frontier scans to a CD. Other B&W negatives are scanned at home with a flatbed scanner. The quality is OK for the web or for 4x6 prints. When I want better scans, I order drum scans from professional outlets (but not here in Brunei!).

Cheers,

Sebastien
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Postby Max » Sat Apr 14, 2007 7:26 pm

Sebastien, I will try to post something, but I guess it must be in some other site, there's no way to do so here in the forum, is there?
The problem is I don't have a cheap alternative to the drum scan. I do have a good 35mm scanner and some horizon pictures shot with the 50mm seem extremely well suited for scanning a central strip, great panoramic compositions. I'm thinking of cutting these to fit the 35mm scanner, and they would produce great results. Since these lack impact when seen as a 6x9 picture I'm very tempted, cause I'm not loosing a lot in image content, and being able to fine-tweak the scanning at home improves the results a lot.
Anyway, it's always hard to cut one of those chromes.
On using slide film, I believe developing it is quite simple if you buy the chemistry, although i never tried that (i was never too much into the wet lab thing).
Max
 
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Postby Abbazz » Sat Apr 14, 2007 11:39 pm

Max wrote:Sebastien, I will try to post something, but I guess it must be in some other site, there's no way to do so here in the forum, is there?


Easy: first you have to post your pictures anywhere on the web (Flickr, PBase, etc.), then you click on "Reply" and type your message. When you want to include a picture, you click on the "Img" button on top of the reply typing box, then you paste the address of your uploaded image, then you click on "Img" again to close the IMG tag.

Max wrote:The problem is I don't have a cheap alternative to the drum scan. I do have a good 35mm scanner and some horizon pictures shot with the 50mm seem extremely well suited for scanning a central strip, great panoramic compositions. I'm thinking of cutting these to fit the 35mm scanner, and they would produce great results. Since these lack impact when seen as a 6x9 picture I'm very tempted, cause I'm not loosing a lot in image content, and being able to fine-tweak the scanning at home improves the results a lot.
Anyway, it's always hard to cut one of those chromes.


A flatbed scanner capable of scanning MF negatives can be bought for cheap. A refurbished Epson 4490 will cost you $173 if you buy direct from the constructor. It's a flatbed, so you won't get the same dynamic range as a dedicated neg scanner and the resolution will never reach the full 4800 dpi advertised, but rather something around 2000 dpi. Anyway 1600 dpi is more than enough when you work with 6x9 negatives.

Max wrote:On using slide film, I believe developing it is quite simple if you buy the chemistry, although i never tried that (i was never too much into the wet lab thing).


Chemistry for developing slides at home exists but the whole process comprises 6 different baths and requires very precise adjustment of time and temperature. It is almost mandatory to have some kind of temperature controlled film processor to use one of the E6 kits, especially in an equatorial climate as here in Brunei. Anyway, I feel a little to clumsy to be able to develop my own slides at home. I use Diafine in B&W because it allows me to develop anything at any temperature without adjusting the development time. This way, I can use my chemicals at room temperature. I probably would get better results with D76, but then I would have to chill the developer, and probably all the other chemicals used in the process, because film doesn't like temperature variations.

Cheers,

Sebastien
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Postby Max » Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:38 am

Ok, I'll try that. I scanned a butchered slide in the 35mm scanner. The results are great. Definition is as good as it can be. It's easy to see that when you zoom enough to see the film grain and more detail keeps showing.
In the original of this picture the grass texture is amazing.
Image
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Postby Abbazz » Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:42 am

What a nice pano! I can imagine the result when viewed at full size :blob6: :blob7:

But it's too bad you have to cut your original slides to scan them, even though 24x85mm is a great size for super-wide panoramic pictures! I guess you can get superb 20x70cm (8x28in.) prints from those scans.

Cheers,

Sebastien
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Postby Max » Mon Apr 16, 2007 2:32 am

Sebastien, this picture in it's original format wasn't especially tempting, and it would have never got a drum scan. This crop scan is pretty good.
There goes a piece near the center of the previous image:

Image

At that size, the whole panorama would be 470x125cm*, and since such a thing should be looked at from at least 4 or 5 meters, at which distance it would look sharp enough, I think basically at this amount of resolution you can print any size you want at viewing distances proportional to the print size.
The main thing I love about this large negs/slides is that you can effectively crop and use whatever you want and still print superb images.
*that's at 72 dpi, while a more conservative printing at 300 dpi would yield something like 110x30cm, an extremely good print, as you said.
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Postby Max » Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:32 am

Sebastien, I just got a couple of the drum scans and those are far better than this one. I don't know if you find these images and crops interesting, but if you do, let me know, I'll post some more.
No one else seems to be interested, but I would have appreciated such info when deciding on buying these cameras. One thing that really can kill your interest in it is bad DOF management. I had mine for a long while before i got what I wanted from it. Mainly, knowing that when you shoot at f/11 or wider the really sharp plane is very shallow with the 100mm in huge enlargements, even seeming nothing is in proper focus when the shot is tricky. And when you shoot landscape for deep DOF with slow film, it's almost impossible to get the good results unless you put a lot of gray matter to it. The scales on the lens aren't enough, especially because the sharper focus range using these never falls on your main subject unless you're plain lucky.
Max
 
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Location: Argentina

Postby Abbazz » Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:11 pm

Please Max, do post some of your drum scans here. I would be delighted to see them and I guess a few other people on this forum will appreciate too :hello2:

The DOF is indeed very shallow on 6x9. I use the Fujinon lenses at f/8 or wider only for available light portraits. Even for street shooting, I try to stay at f/11-f/16 by using Fuji 800z, Kodak Tri-X or Ilford XP2.

Cheers,

Sebastien
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