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 - DavidImages - David and Ann
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 - DavidImages - David and Ann
