I've embarked on an experiment to see whether I want to shoot B&W film
again. The "Nurse" picture I recently posted was the beginning of that
experiment.
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/13892553280/>
Here are a few things I've noticed while "recalibrating"
myself--otherwise known as "how the heck did I do this back in '06?"
Here's a side by side of the same Tri-X shot, scanned at 4000 dpi (left)
and 2000 dpi (right). The negative was developed in Xtol 1:2 by
Moonphoto, a good B&W lab a few miles from my home. The scanner is a
Canon FS-4000, running under VueScan. Click the double rectangle above
the picture to see it full size.
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/GrainAliasTriX4Kvs2Kdpi.JPG.html>
The 4000 dpi scan is shown at 50%, 2000 dpi picture at 100%, so the
image magnification is equal. Note that the 2000 dpi scan appears to
have a bit coarser grain due to aliasing. But remember, this is with
the negs magnified quite a bit. If I view the whole frame at a
reasonable screen size, the difference hardly matters. In fact, some
available light pictures might appear slightly sharper at 2000 dpi due
to slight added texture.
A few more things. My scanner has a "multiple exposure" feature, which
can get into dense areas of a picture. It was very helpful for
Kodachrome slides, even though it takes much longer. But it's pointless
for this type of picture. It can help with overexposed negatives, or
very high-contrast shots. Similarly, the multipass feature (take
several scans and average them) may be helpful for underexposed or very
low-contrast pictures, but again, it's not necessary on reasonably
normal negatives.
Why did I bother doing this? Time. Here are scan times for the various
options:
4000 dpi, single exposure 2:50
4000 dpi, multi exposure 7:15
2000 dpi, single exposure 0:55
The next thing I'll try is using the lab's own 2000 dpi scans. Another
lab near my ex-employer did 2000 dpi scans that I didn't like, too
contrasty and worse aliasing than shown in my examples above. If this
lab's 2000 dpi 16-bit TIFF scans are as good as mine, I might as well
use them for casual stuff, and save my own 4000 dpi scans for the really
good shots, especially those I want to print.
Another thing I'm going to try is to see how much worse my Epson V730
flatbed scanner is at this. The V730 is probably faster for the lower
resolution scans, but the question is whether I'd be happy with those
scans for casual screen-size posts, vs. my 2000 dpi scans or the lab's.
As an aside, both my horribly out-of date Leica M8 and my Olympus E-M5
are much better, technically, that Tri-X ISO for ISO. More detail,
sharper, blah blah blah. But that's not why I'm trying B&W film again.
This experiment is about look, feel, texture, and tonality. Time will
tell whether it's something I want to stay with, or just an exercise in
misplaced nostalgia.
Thanks to Ken Norton on the Olympus list for his recent post that got me
started:
<http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/msg19437.html>
--Peter
--
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