A Photography forum. PhotoBanter.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » PhotoBanter.com forum » General Photography » In The Darkroom
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

film scanners



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old October 8th 09, 03:06 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Lawrence Akutagawa
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 145
Default film scanners


"laran" wrote in message
...
Am looking to buy a film scanner to make contact prints mainly. Needs to
be inexpensive, run on linux and also do slides to a reasonable quality.
Ideas?????

Now why in the world would someone be using a film scanner in the darkroom?
hmmm...contact prints are created by keeping the negatives in contact, as it
were, with the photo sensitive paper. How does the film scanner come into
play during this process? Care to explain?


  #2  
Old October 8th 09, 07:05 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8
Default film scanners

On Thu, 8 Oct 2009 07:06:36 -0700, "Lawrence
Akutagawa" wrote:


"laran" wrote in message
...
Am looking to buy a film scanner to make contact prints mainly. Needs to
be inexpensive, run on linux and also do slides to a reasonable quality.
Ideas?????

Now why in the world would someone be using a film scanner in the darkroom?
hmmm...contact prints are created by keeping the negatives in contact, as it
were, with the photo sensitive paper. How does the film scanner come into
play during this process? Care to explain?



October 8, 2009, from Lloyd Erlick,

I think it's fair to say I've replaced my
contact sheets with scans of my negatives. I
call them contact sheets or contacts, but
they don't exist on paper.

I was always lazy about making contacts of my
processed films. Years would go by before I
got a look at lots of the things I did. The
dread of hours of darkroom labor to make the
piles of contacts I had yet to do kept me
from even starting.

A big part of it was that the size of the
contact prevented me from really seeing what
was there, even if I did make the damn
things.

So when I finally got a scanner with a light
in the lid, I could just slap my negs down on
the glass still in their expensive PrintFile
plastic sleeve. A whole roll of 35 mm or 120
format could be scanned at one go, and the
resulting file was big enough that each frame
could be enlarged on screen (sorry, wrong
lingo, they could be ZOOMED!). This way I
find it very easy to judge a portrait in
terms of facial expression and desired
cropping of the image. These are two very
important factors for me, neither of which
was ever properly satisfied by a paper
contact print.

So I find a scanner an essential darkroom
efficiency improvement tool. I can go into my
darkroom knowing exactly which frame I'm
going to work on (expression and overall look
are settled), and very close to knowing
exactly how to crop it. Much less time wasted
while darkroom is standing ready.

For someone like me who attempts to do
business by selling people pictures of
themselves (really dopey thing to do, eh??),
the scanner also lets me send them very good
"proofs" cost free (well, as cost free as
email...). This way, with a bit of luck, the
scanner again gets me a reason to go to the
darkroom.

I produce very few dud prints now. The
scanner improves my darkroom productivity.

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
website: www.heylloyd.com
telephone: 416-686-0326
email:
________________________________
--

  #3  
Old October 8th 09, 07:17 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Lawrence Akutagawa
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 145
Default film scanners


wrote in message
...
On Thu, 8 Oct 2009 07:06:36 -0700, "Lawrence
Akutagawa" wrote:


"laran" wrote in message
...
Am looking to buy a film scanner to make contact prints mainly. Needs
to
be inexpensive, run on linux and also do slides to a reasonable quality.
Ideas?????

Now why in the world would someone be using a film scanner in the
darkroom?
hmmm...contact prints are created by keeping the negatives in contact, as
it
were, with the photo sensitive paper. How does the film scanner come into
play during this process? Care to explain?

October 8, 2009, from Lloyd Erlick,

I think it's fair to say I've replaced my
contact sheets with scans of my negatives. I
call them contact sheets or contacts, but
they don't exist on paper.

I was always lazy about making contacts of my
processed films. Years would go by before I
got a look at lots of the things I did. The
dread of hours of darkroom labor to make the
piles of contacts I had yet to do kept me
from even starting.

A big part of it was that the size of the
contact prevented me from really seeing what
was there, even if I did make the damn
things.

So when I finally got a scanner with a light
in the lid, I could just slap my negs down on
the glass still in their expensive PrintFile
plastic sleeve. A whole roll of 35 mm or 120
format could be scanned at one go, and the
resulting file was big enough that each frame
could be enlarged on screen (sorry, wrong
lingo, they could be ZOOMED!). This way I
find it very easy to judge a portrait in
terms of facial expression and desired
cropping of the image. These are two very
important factors for me, neither of which
was ever properly satisfied by a paper
contact print.

So I find a scanner an essential darkroom
efficiency improvement tool. I can go into my
darkroom knowing exactly which frame I'm
going to work on (expression and overall look
are settled), and very close to knowing
exactly how to crop it. Much less time wasted
while darkroom is standing ready.

For someone like me who attempts to do
business by selling people pictures of
themselves (really dopey thing to do, eh??),
the scanner also lets me send them very good
"proofs" cost free (well, as cost free as
email...). This way, with a bit of luck, the
scanner again gets me a reason to go to the
darkroom.

I produce very few dud prints now. The
scanner improves my darkroom productivity.

Interesting discussion, but no explanation of how the scanner is used in the
process of creating contact sheets in the darkroom...the darkroom, I do
believe, is the context of this newsgroup. Alternate processes such as that
forwarded by Lloyd's response here can well be discussed in other more
appropriate newsgroups, such as they are. So how exactly is the scanner
used in the darkroom to create those paper contact sheets? Just curious.


  #4  
Old October 8th 09, 08:19 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
David Nebenzahl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,353
Default film scanners

On 10/8/2009 11:17 AM Lawrence Akutagawa spake thus:

wrote in message
...

On Thu, 8 Oct 2009 07:06:36 -0700, "Lawrence
Akutagawa" wrote:

"laran" wrote in message
...

Am looking to buy a film scanner to make contact prints mainly.
Needs to be inexpensive, run on linux and also do slides to a
reasonable quality.
Ideas?????

Now why in the world would someone be using a film scanner in the
darkroom? hmmm...contact prints are created by keeping the
negatives in contact, as it were, with the photo sensitive paper.
How does the film scanner come into play during this process?
Care to explain?


I think it's fair to say I've replaced my contact sheets with scans
of my negatives. I call them contact sheets or contacts, but they
don't exist on paper.

I was always lazy about making contacts of my processed films.
Years would go by before I got a look at lots of the things I did.
The dread of hours of darkroom labor to make the piles of contacts
I had yet to do kept me from even starting.

So when I finally got a scanner with a light in the lid, I could
just slap my negs down on the glass still in their expensive
PrintFile plastic sleeve. A whole roll of 35 mm or 120 format could
be scanned at one go, and the resulting file was big enough that
each frame could be enlarged on screen (sorry, wrong lingo, they
could be ZOOMED!). This way I find it very easy to judge a portrait
in terms of facial expression and desired cropping of the image.
These are two very important factors for me, neither of which was
ever properly satisfied by a paper contact print.


Interesting discussion, but no explanation of how the scanner is used
in the process of creating contact sheets in the darkroom...the
darkroom, I do believe, is the context of this newsgroup. Alternate
processes such as that forwarded by Lloyd's response here can well be
discussed in other more appropriate newsgroups, such as they are. So
how exactly is the scanner used in the darkroom to create those
paper contact sheets? Just curious.


Methinks you're being a bit overly pendantic here. If the OP were to say
that they wanted to use a film scanner as part of their darkroom
*workflow*, that would be fine by me.

By the way, Lloyd: why do you write messages with such short lines?
Makes your posts unnecessarily long.


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
  #5  
Old October 8th 09, 10:39 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Lawrence Akutagawa
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 145
Default film scanners


"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
On 10/8/2009 11:17 AM Lawrence Akutagawa spake thus:

wrote in message
...

On Thu, 8 Oct 2009 07:06:36 -0700, "Lawrence
Akutagawa" wrote:

"laran" wrote in message
...

Am looking to buy a film scanner to make contact prints mainly.
Needs to be inexpensive, run on linux and also do slides to a
reasonable quality.
Ideas?????

Now why in the world would someone be using a film scanner in the
darkroom? hmmm...contact prints are created by keeping the negatives in
contact, as it were, with the photo sensitive paper.
How does the film scanner come into play during this process?
Care to explain?

I think it's fair to say I've replaced my contact sheets with scans
of my negatives. I call them contact sheets or contacts, but they
don't exist on paper.

I was always lazy about making contacts of my processed films.
Years would go by before I got a look at lots of the things I did.
The dread of hours of darkroom labor to make the piles of contacts
I had yet to do kept me from even starting.

So when I finally got a scanner with a light in the lid, I could
just slap my negs down on the glass still in their expensive
PrintFile plastic sleeve. A whole roll of 35 mm or 120 format could
be scanned at one go, and the resulting file was big enough that
each frame could be enlarged on screen (sorry, wrong lingo, they
could be ZOOMED!). This way I find it very easy to judge a portrait
in terms of facial expression and desired cropping of the image.
These are two very important factors for me, neither of which was
ever properly satisfied by a paper contact print.


Interesting discussion, but no explanation of how the scanner is used
in the process of creating contact sheets in the darkroom...the darkroom,
I do believe, is the context of this newsgroup. Alternate processes such
as that forwarded by Lloyd's response here can well be
discussed in other more appropriate newsgroups, such as they are. So
how exactly is the scanner used in the darkroom to create those
paper contact sheets? Just curious.


Methinks you're being a bit overly pendantic here. If the OP were to say
that they wanted to use a film scanner as part of their darkroom
*workflow*, that would be fine by me.

By the way, Lloyd: why do you write messages with such short lines? Makes
your posts unnecessarily long.

OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact prints -
in or out of the darkroom. Not digital prints, mind you - contact prints.
You know, the kind of prints made with the negative flush against that
photosensitive paper. That, I do believe, is the definition of contact
prints, is it not? After all, OP did not say he wanted to use a film
scanner to create digital prints, did he? And OP did not say he wanted to
use a film scanner as part of his darkroom "workflow," did he? The use of a
film scanner as part of the darkroom "workflow" was - I thought - rather
well covered by Lloyd's explanation. But Lloyd's explanation did not
address at all the creation of these contact prints using a scanner.
Perhaps you can elucidate. I'm all ears.


  #6  
Old October 8th 09, 11:57 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
David Nebenzahl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,353
Default film scanners

On 10/8/2009 2:39 PM Lawrence Akutagawa spake thus:

OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact prints -
in or out of the darkroom. Not digital prints, mind you - contact prints.


Well, as someone else explained up yonder, it's a matter of terminology.
Would you settle for "contact sheet" instead? This is something that's
generally understood to mean "a sheet of thumbnail prints of a roll of
film". It's true that in the Old Days(tm), such sheets were always made
by putting film in contact with photo paper and exposing it.

Works for me, anyhow, and I'm usually a fairly crusty strict
constructionist, as others around here can attest.


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
  #7  
Old October 9th 09, 04:27 AM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Lawrence Akutagawa
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 145
Default film scanners


"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
On 10/8/2009 2:39 PM Lawrence Akutagawa spake thus:

OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact
prints - in or out of the darkroom. Not digital prints, mind you -
contact prints.


Well, as someone else explained up yonder, it's a matter of terminology.
Would you settle for "contact sheet" instead? This is something that's
generally understood to mean "a sheet of thumbnail prints of a roll of
film". It's true that in the Old Days(tm), such sheets were always made by
putting film in contact with photo paper and exposing it.

Works for me, anyhow, and I'm usually a fairly crusty strict
constructionist, as others around here can attest.

OP did not say "a sheet of thumbnail prints of a roll of film." OP said
"contact prints." Remember the old dictum - "Say what you mean and mean
what you say?"

Besides which, contact prints come in a multitude of different image sizes,
each defined by the size of the respective negative. Indeed, many of Edward
Weston's images were no greater than 4x5 contact prints. These are not
"thumbnail prints." Visit the exhibits of his original images and see for
yourself. Or read a description of his "darkroom" and see if you can find
any reference to an enlarger.
http://fototapeta.art.pl/2003/wste.php
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/29...footsteps.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitesp...to/2904265036/

And I daresay your description is of digital prints and of not contact
prints, as defined on the net this very day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_print
http://www.answers.com/topic/contact-print
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...ontact%20print
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/contact+print
http://www.webster-dictionary.org/de...ontact%20print
http://en.mimi.hu/photography/contact_printing.html

So allow me to again ask, insofar as you have not answered to the point:

"OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact prints -
in or out of the darkroom. Not digital prints, mind you - contact prints."


  #8  
Old October 10th 09, 05:32 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Richard Fateman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default film scanners

Lawrence Akutagawa wrote:


OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact prints -
in or out of the darkroom.


I haven't done it this way, but here's a suggestion.
Take a piece of photo-sensitive paper and make a sandwich with your
negative or sheet of negatives, and the glass platen of a flatbed
scanner. Set on "reflective", if you have a choice.
Run the scanner, which will shine light through the negative onto the paper.

Now remove and process the paper as usual.

If the paper is underexposed, do the same thing but scan twice before
removing the paper. or more.

Overexposed? uh, do something to reduce the sensitivity of the paper?

Anyway, you can use the scanner to simulate a contact-printing box.

Next question?

RJF
  #9  
Old October 10th 09, 06:43 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
David Nebenzahl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,353
Default film scanners

On 10/10/2009 10:29 AM Rebecca Ore spake thus:

In article ,
Richard Fateman wrote:

Lawrence Akutagawa wrote:

OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact prints -
in or out of the darkroom.


I haven't done it this way, but here's a suggestion.
Take a piece of photo-sensitive paper and make a sandwich with your
negative or sheet of negatives, and the glass platen of a flatbed
scanner. Set on "reflective", if you have a choice.
Run the scanner, which will shine light through the negative onto the paper.

Now remove and process the paper as usual.

If the paper is underexposed, do the same thing but scan twice before
removing the paper. or more.

Overexposed? uh, do something to reduce the sensitivity of the paper?

Anyway, you can use the scanner to simulate a contact-printing box.

Next question?


I hate to say this but if it works, this would be incredibly cool for
4x5 or 8x10 negatives. Of course, one would have to have the scanner in
a darkroom under safe lights suitable for the paper, but it beats having
to buy a separate bit of equipment if you already have an enlarger.

Could someone try this?


While I appreciate the innate snarkiness of the suggestion (as a way of
settling this stupid semantic argument), this would only work if the
light output of the scanner is somewhere in the right range to expose
the paper. It might be, but if not, remember that one has no control
over the brightness (at least not without modifying the scanner's
electronics somehow). Unless, of course, the brightness is, say, exactly
half what it should be, in which case one can simply make two passes
over the paper.

If it did work, it would make a very evenly exposed print.


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
  #10  
Old October 10th 09, 07:01 PM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Lawrence Akutagawa
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 145
Default film scanners


"Richard Fateman" wrote in message
...
Lawrence Akutagawa wrote:


OK...maybe you can explain how one uses a scanner to make contact
prints - in or out of the darkroom.


I haven't done it this way, but here's a suggestion.
Take a piece of photo-sensitive paper and make a sandwich with your
negative or sheet of negatives, and the glass platen of a flatbed scanner.
Set on "reflective", if you have a choice.
Run the scanner, which will shine light through the negative onto the
paper.

Now remove and process the paper as usual.

If the paper is underexposed, do the same thing but scan twice before
removing the paper. or more.

Overexposed? uh, do something to reduce the sensitivity of the paper?

Anyway, you can use the scanner to simulate a contact-printing box.

Next question?

Interesting! Exactly what E. Weston did, except he used a dangling light
bulb. And that light bulb, I daresay, is a heck of a lot more inexpensive
than a scanner. But the scanner should work. In the overexposure case, the
simple solution is to place sheets of plain, non-watermarked paper directly
on the scanner glass. The number of sheets of paper needed can be
determined by trial and error.


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
film scanners James[_3_] In The Darkroom 0 October 8th 09 08:37 AM
Film Scanners Stephen[_2_] Digital Photography 1 July 10th 09 07:56 PM
scanners for film wendyl Digital Photography 2 February 13th 08 04:33 PM
Film scanners anyone? Ted Gibson Digital Photography 15 January 8th 08 04:31 AM
Film Scanners Gel Digital Photography 20 February 21st 05 01:25 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 02:11 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 PhotoBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.