Scanning 35mm Kodachrome

All images - 35mm film camera kodachrome Nikon LS9000 film scanner

In addition to the medium format film transparencies we have, there is also a huge collection of 35mm images, including many on Kodachrome. This can be difficult to scan, but fortunately the LS9000 has a Kodachrome setting. This produces a decent scanned image. Unfortunately since these were taken in the 1980's, they are very heavily filtered, and not in a good way!! However with work I've managed to get rid rid of the offending pink skies and strange colours. Nice to see these again in their new more "natural" form.

Process - Part 2

From time to time I try to make a dent in the tens of thousands of medium-format and 35mm transparencies that are stored here. Because of changes in fashions, cars etc. many have now become examples of recent history, but the images without people will probably be current for many years to come. The landscape images, barring an apocolypse, will probably be current for centuries.





Film had a quite different process. Picture libraries who accepted film always required transparencies, both for the quality of reproduction and for ease of use. Since I never processed my own films, the work involved was somewhat less than it is now. After getting the processed slides back from a lab, I would cut them from the strips, put them in a card mount and write a short caption on the mount. They were then sent off to the library, who then did all the sorting, filing and collating. 


These days very few libraries, or indeed clients, want transparencies. They require all film material, either transparency or negative, to be scanned. So from being a fairly painless way to take and distribute pictures, film is now much more difficult to deal with.





I approach scanning in much the same way as I approach raw files, keep it simple! I scan as closely to the original as possible. Fortunately these days film scanners come with software that "removes" dust spots and scratches. If they didn't, removing these manually would make the task so time consuming, that nobody would do it. 





Unlike digital, colour transparency film has great contrast and colour saturation. Often I have to tone this down as opposed to often increasing it with the somewhat "flatter" rendition of reality that digital cameras record.





Its still a slow time consuming process, but in many cases well worth it. While scans never look as "clean" as digital images on a computer screen, they do reproduce in print very well. 
I may never get everything that I want scanned, but I will continue to do this on an occasional basis and hopefully have the best in digital form at some point in the future.














Words - David
Images - David and Ann

The "Digital Revival of film"

See link:- http://leicashots.com/2009/11/01/digital-leica-cameo-in-chanel-ad/

In the latest edition of Digital Photographer Magazine there is a article entitled "The Digital revival of film" 


"A rise in vintage and retro trends across all industries, particularly within fashion, has seen a new emerging demand from photographic generations both young and old. What used to be avoided by camera designers is now being embraced, as 'old-fashioned' just got fashionable. The retro cameras and film style photos from the past are back, aesthetically at least." 


They cite as an example the Chanel No.5 ad at the top of the page with the cameo appearance of a Leica M8.


The article goes on to talk about, retro designs in cameras such as the Olympus Pens and Fuji X100, the resurgence of Leica and the increasingly popular editions of vintage/retro and nostalgic processing now available in cameras. 


Thus proving that those of us who go weak at the knees at the sight of some chrome and leather are not alone!!


None of this implies that those who use digital cameras are about to go back to using film, but there is some evidence that images that look like they might have shot on film are becoming more popular.


As an early adopter of digital, when I started putting those images onto picture library websites they were very much in the minority. They did look different, cleaner, less contrast etc. and proved very popular. After a few years virtually everything looked like that and I suddenly found that my film scans became my best sellers. By then I'd worked out how to make my digital shots look like they might have been taken on film. I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked "Do you still shoot film?" and I get comments all the time saying, "Thats a film look." 


So is there a difference between a "film look" and a "digital look" ?














Here are three versions of a recent picture I took.

Far left is the raw file "developed" in Rawker. This is the closest to what the original file would be with no processing whatsoever. The middle version is with auto processing in Photoshop ACR and with auto contrast applied in Photoshop. Its also very similar to the out of camera jpg. The version on the right is after I've done some work in Photoshop and is closest to what it looked like in reality.


I know which one I prefer.


Words - David
Images - David and Ann

The story of the picture 1 - Two Boats Windermere.

It had been a long day and the thought of a hot meal and a protracted spell on a sofa seemed very attractive. However sunny days in April in the English Lake District have to be taken full advantage of. As early evening approached the light was getting better and better and I decided to visit Gummers How, which is a viewpoint over Windermere, the districts longest lake. It involved a short walk from the car park, but after the exertions of the day it felt like the Eiger.


A few shots from the summit of Windermere and the fells with the sun getting lower in the sky was a good reward and I was on my way back to the car park. After a chance look back I realised that two boats that had been coming from opposite ends of the lake were going to pass very close to each other. I also realised that this was going to happen very soon!


I ran back to the viewpoint fitting the longest lens that I had, a Zeiss 135mm f2.8 to my Contax 139. This was back in my film days and the camera was loaded with Fuji 50 Transparency film. I realised I had 3 shots left, with no time to change film. I duly took the 3 shots of which this was the middle one. I still remember the exposure. 1/125th. sec at f2.8. On the way back I realised that I had the camera set to +1 stop from a previous shot. I had been too concerned about getting the picture to notice. I wondered whether I had over exposed the shot. In those pre-computer days, the only way to rectify a poor exposure was to make a slide duplicate, with the resulting drop in quality. I also wondered whether 1/125th. sec. had been fast enough to "freeze" the boats and keep the image sharp. I always tried to use a minimum of 1/250th.sec with the 135mm lens and regretted my not noticing the + 1 stop as that would have given me a "safer" shutter speed.


Fuji 50 was a process paid film and had to be sent off in an envelope to their lab for processing. I duly did so and it arrived about a week later in a batch I had sent off. I opened all the packets looking for the boats shot, and eventually found it. To my delight it was pin sharp and perfectly exposed. 


Since then its been published extensively and is my personal favourite of all the pictures I have taken. 

DSLR Video

http://www.zacuto.com/shootout

A terrific short (35 mins) movie comparing the video capabilities of Digital SLR's. This test includes the Canon 5D Mk II, 7D, 1D Mk IV Nikon D3S and Panasonic GH1. The test also includes a comparison with movie film.

Fascinating stuff.

Salton Sea Beach from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

This is a Phillip Bloom video shot with the 550D.

His impressions of it here:-

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2010/03/20/saltonsea/

Film Pixels Sensors Cameras...........

Sometimes I long for the simplicity of film cameras. You'd make a choice of camera, buy the lenses that suited your way of working and pop a few rolls of your favourite film in the fridge. (For those of you too young to remember this - it kept it fresh. Film did deteriorate with age - unlike photographers who just get better and better!)

That would probably be it for a few years. The occasional new lens appeared that you might be interested in, and companies upgraded their cameras from time to time. You could choose to stick with what you had or get the new model. Ultimately your pictures probably wouldn't look any different. Every now and then a new film was released, and if it suited you then you might switch. The whole process was very slow paced. Consequently I used the same medium format camera (A Pentax 645) for 13 years. I've had some recent cameras for less than 13 weeks!

l always worked on this order of priority to determine the quality of my images. (For the vast majority - transparency film) Film > Lens> Camera. Since with digital the "film" is the camera sensor, the order of priority has changed. Its now Sensor > Camera > Lens. With film there was a fairly slow progression in terms of film improvement. This is not the case with sensor improvement. It moves at a much quicker pace and to take advantage of it you have to buy the whole camera, instead of just buying a new roll of film.

The first "serious" digital camera I bought was a Fuji S2 pro back in 2003. I've often wondered if I should have kept it longer. Would it really have made that much difference to my work? Well thinking back it was difficult to use, it had two sets of batteries, which would run out at different times, so you had to carry two sets of spares. It also pretended to be a 12MP camera, when it was in fact a 6MP camera with a bit of fancy footwork from Fuji. I've certainly bought and sold a lot of cameras since the Fuji. It all seems so complicated, has it all been worth it?

Well for me the answer is a resounding yes. Things move on, and the images I can now create are superior to those I took with those early digital cameras. They are also a good deal easier to use. I've been posting some images I shot on 35mm film recently and people have posted nice comments about them. Unfortunately its difficult to do them justice, since getting a scan that matches the quality of the most basic of my digital cameras has so far eluded me. They look great at small sizes on the web, but reproduction size is restricted to about the equivalent of a 6MP camera for many of them, due to the characteristics of the film I used.

All other things being equal, more pixels = better resolution. The images I'm currently creating are superior for sharpness, noise and colour than the images I was creating a few years ago. Ultimately thats what matters.

I just wish sometimes, that the pace of development would slow down a bit!

Words - D

Images - D & A

Why we do it

With all the talk and discussion of gear and issues that effect our photographic life, we should constantly remind ourselves of why we pick up our camera and head for the door.

Images - D & A

Priorities.

I have a member of my extended family, who whenever he visits, looks at my camera gear and says things like, "Bought another toy then?" "Nobody needs that many cameras"

He then proceeds to tell me how much he would like to do this and that but that he can't afford to do it.

Every Saturday night he goes off to one of those new chrome covered pub come nightclubs in the local city centre and spends around £100 on alcohol and taxi fares, and having a "good time"

When I mention to him that he's spending £5000 a year on these weekend jaunts and with that money he could start to finance some of his creative ambitions, he dismisses this with some monosyllabic grunt and the advice that I should "get out more" and stop sitting around buying cameras on the internet.

Priorities.

Words - D

Images - D & A