Vuescan, Lightroom and DNG Plus The Lomography DigitaLIZA

Fall Path

My blog on Plustek scanner mentioned my purchasing of the scanner software Vuescan to replace the software that came with the scanner. Up to now I have avoided using it for my epson v500 as I find the epson scanner software very easy to use. For a change I decided to try the Vuescan DNG output. DNG is equivalent to a RAW file only in a Adobe format. This turns out to have several advantages if you happen to own Lightroom or Photoshop.

• You don't have to fuss with scanner settings for each individual image (Just set gain and base colour on an unexposed part of the negative once per roll)
• You can extract and save all the information that the scanner can provide in a standardized archival form
• Fits into Lightroom's non destructive workflow so reprocessing does not degrade the scan.
• Merges your film and digital workflow
• You can make and apply your own colour profiles, curves, fx and other post processes as many times as you want
• You start out with a RAW file that has more information and less noise then a conventional tiff scan with some curves applied during the scanning phase

Warning the Vuescan DNG has a linear gamma of 1 the same as a scanner so opening up a file out side of a gamma aware program will result in an image seeming to have a very strange contrast curve.
New note on Vuescan/Epson V500 here.

For Pixel Peekers

Have a look at this example of 35mm Nikon FMn2 105mm hand held street portrait on HP5 film developed in Xtol + Rodinal and scanned on my Plustek 7400

Original scan from the Plustek B&W scanned as a 48 bit tiff

1:1 with some slight sharpening in post

Lomography DigitaLIZA

I have to give the Lomography DigitaLIZA  120 Format film holder a 4 out of five rating compared to the epson holder 2.4/5 rating. It's so much better for keeping curly film flat. It's also easy to load the film.


Tips:

• For the digitiliza make up a template that you can place on your scanner bed to make it easy to align the Digitaliza with the scanner bed (I made mine out of a stiff cardboard looks like a thick L) be careful not to cover the calibration area of the scanner
• I use a rocket blower rather then canned air to blow any dust off the negative. 
• A pair of silk inner liner gloves (from a sports or outdoor shop) are much better then cotton gloves for handling negatives

 

What Is And What Isn’t Street Photography?

 I have a personal definition of Street Photography. It is personal because I don’t believe a formal definition of what is and what isn’t Street Photography does anything except to fix firmly in the past our idea of what street photography should be.

Personal definition what is Street Photography:

• Urban environment
• Range of distances: from up close and personal to across the street. (Across the street being more urban life scene less traditional street.)
• The subject should scream life and humanity all those personal quirks and everyday little and big things that make us human
• The subject does not have to be a person or persons regardless it does have to evoke an image of humanity
• There has to be some transit nature to the subject. An example: A half eaten ice cream cone melting on a pavement evokes memories and tells a story
• Generally the single photograph should stand by it’s self even when it’s included in a larger photojournalist type story. Whether or not the single image shows truth in the photojournalist sense is not relevant.

My Personal Definition of What Definitely Isn’t Street Photography (doesn’t mean I won’t take the shot any way)

• Beach scenes; nature scenes, country roads; Architecture, statues and art as the primary subject.
• Static objects including empty streets (too obvious and trite) although fog street scenes are tempting
• Road traffic where the cars, trucks … are the subject even is it’s a long exposure and shows pretty light painting effects
• Too much staging although I hate getting into the street portrait debate

Maybe

• Sometimes a backside is just a backside and a snapshot is just a snapshot, trite is trite in whatever guise
• Geometric organizations and patterns, can be really interesting but if too clinical and clean without the grit it’s more of an abstract
• Sometimes a sign mixed with people work as street, it depends if the subject is the people rather then mostly the sign.

Most important: If you see a shot take the shot! If you take a shot then consider staying a minute or two and taking another the shot from several different positions and angles. Worry about any definitions of what is or is not street afterwards,

By my definition here are some borderline Street photographs. Except for the first one they all came from the same roll of film. Remember there is no right or wrong answer.
 

Robocall: “Democracy Can Kiss My Shiny Metal Ass"

Body Language

Freshly Squeezed

At The Bay

New Kodak Portra 400 Beautiful When Pushed One Stop - Review Update

In my first review of the new Kodak Portra 400 I had one negative about the film

Cons : Needs post processing to bring out contrast 

Turns out there is a splendid work around: Unlike most other colour negative films Kodak Portra 400 shooting at ISO 640 and developed pushed 1 stop in normal C41 chemistry really brings out the contrast  and colors. These days this is my preferred way of using the film.  The dynamic range (contrast ratio) is increased at the expense of a slightly decreased latitude. In addition an extra 2/3 to a stop of increased ISO really helps out in hand holding medium format cameras.

Beware that unfortunately not all labs will correctly push c41 films.

Kodak Portra 400 Shot at ISO 640 and pushed one stop in C41chemistry

Slide show of some more pushed Kodak Portra 400

Faux Cross-Processing

Cross processing is simply developing film in a different process then it was intended to be processed. The most common type of cross processing is developing slide film as colour negative film. Normal slide film is processing is called E6 and normal colour negative film processing is called c41,

If you are interested here is a slide show of some of my slide film cross-processed in c41.

Also here is my blog posting exposing some of the myths of cross-processing:


Now days there are plenty of actions that try to duplicate the "Cross-processed" look. But it turns out much of what we consider the cross processing look and feel is as a result of a lab scan as opposed to a printed photograph. Mini lab scanners when scanning cross processed film as a normal c41 assumes a nonexistent orange base plus a normal colour channel gamma.

I am interested in duplicating the look of cross processing by back engineering a normal image back to a faux cross processed negative. Just for fun after scanning I converted a Portra 400 negative film to a cross processed slide by reversing the result and then reversed the negative back to a positive assuming a none existing orange base that a regular negative film would have.

This is my first attempt in using a model rather then a canned action:

Original Photo

Faux Cross Processed

My First Look At the Plustek 7400 Film Scanner

The Good:

Well priced alternative to a flatbed scanner.7200 dpi scanner (when measured with a target it turns out to be 3800 dpi in both directions which is right in Nikon cool scan territory)

Actual Dmax > 3.6 and can be increased through multiple exposure mode.

The Negative:

Scanning is done through the included Silverfast Se plus software.

Manual feeder so after you load the carrier you have to push it through by hand one frame at a time. This is not really a problem as I hand correct every negative

No digital ICE (not really a problem for me as I don't use it anyway and it doesn't work on B&W)

My Findings:

If you have any form of workflow the Silverfast software is a piece of junk you would have to spend at least the cost of a scanner to upgrade to a usable version. Besides a rather useless raw mode it doesn't have 48 bit per colour save function. The raw mode would be good if it integrated with lets say Lightroom but it doesn't. It's designed to work with another pricey piece of software you have to buy from them. I don't know about you but I only like to scan once and use the file as a master.

To top it off they keep on telling you to read a 500 page manual and strongly implying that if you want to be a pro you are using the wrong scanner software.

The solution is easy buy reasonably priced Vuescan software. The pro has lifetime support, useful raw workflow and can support multiple scanner types.

Scanning B&W I used some nice grainy HP5+ and found out this:

Multi-exposure is effectively a two pass scan with each scan taken at a different exposure, the 2 passes are then blended together. This actually works and extends the dmax and dynamic range for difficult frames. There is a slight but noticeable lose of resolution. most of which can be recovered with some of the hated USM filtering. Not much need for this function with HP5 I will have to wait until I test it on some high dynamic range shot using TMAX film.

The raw scans pre-adjusted with a film profile seem to contain all the tone information with no banding or noise. Thus they can act as masters.

For 3600dpi scans there was marginally better detail and micro-contrast when scanning at 7200dpi at letting Vuescan reduce the output to 3600dpi (down sampling). This seems to be real not some USM shapening slight of hand (USM was off). Makes sense as the measured on a target dpi is 3800dpi and downsizing by 2 is equivalent to multiple sampling without the alignment problems.

As scan time is almost 4 times as long at 7200dpi I will use 3600dpi scans on images that I don't care so much about and 7200dpi down sampled to 3600dpi on images that look interesting.

Also of slight interest was that letting the software convert from the colour scan to BW gave slightly better micro-contrast then converting the 48bit colour to 16 bit B&W after the fact or scanning in 16bit B&W.

I tested the same negative on my Epson V500. The Epson had less then half the actual resolution and more compression in the grey scale. The hp5 film grains were blobs instead of salt and pepper with the Plustek.

Four out of Five approval rating.

P.S. After using the scanner for a few months the quality of the scans has motivated me to shoot more 35mm film.

For Pixel Peekers

Have a look at this example of 35mm HP5 developed in Xtol + Rodinal scanned on my Plustek