Garth,
I looked at your photo at
http://www.enable.org/~gallery/subpages/wood/abbey.html
and although it is an excellent composition, I think you might better
understand my comments if the picture was inverted. Think of the
exterior being in the direct light and the interior or garden being in
the shadows. Suppose you wanted much color detail of the shadowed areas
with out blowing out the exterior frame. Most likely this would not be
too difficult to do by shooting somewhere in the middle (by averaging or
bracketing or whatever technique one would like to use to get the best
overall exposure). However some areas of the photo may be at least a
half stop under or more. Provia would not have a problem resolving the
detail in these shadows, however extracting the detail would definitely
pose a problem to a desktop 35mm ccd scanner. Provia emulsions just do
not yield the ideal density range for these scanners that fall way below
a 4.0 or 5.0 Dmax. I think that the current Provia emulsions were
designed for other things like very long exposures and for capturing
larger variances in mixed lighting. I think Provia has an amazing
latitude but is just too unique of an emulsion to be read by the ccd
scanners.
Back 1994 I participated in some field tests with Fuji (Previously
having worked in desktop color software development for Xerox Desktop
Software, a Fuji partner). I shot about a 24 rolls of 220 in a Fuji
690SW (a wonderful medium format rangefinder) and about 24 rolls of 36
exp on the OM4 & OM3 (mostly with the 24mm 2.8). All of the 35mm was
scanned on a drum along with most of the medium format. However I was
somewhat successful at scanning the medium format on a UMAX flatbed
although the results were not as good as the Ektachromes. Since that
introduction emulsion Provia has gotten even more difficult to scan for
sharp shadow details on a desktop scanner even though the desktop
scanners have greatly improved.
Obviously I am somewhat familiar with this particular film an would not
choose to use it with a desktop scanner. I'm sure there are many other
emulsions which would throw off these ccd scanners. My point is simply
that these ccd scanners will not scan all film emulsions equally nor
produce ideal results on some emulsions. In order to get the most out
of these inexpensive scanners, I simply recommend some distinctions
based upon the film and desired end use. Some folks may save some hard
earned money and get more enjoyment out of using these tools at their
optimum.
Phillip Franklin
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