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. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
"Wayne" wrote in message news:qKXpg.19$283.15@trnddc08... In article %QWpg.104$0G2.47@trnddc07, says... Probably true just as you wrote it. But the point remains, if you take in a roll of film today and simply say "also put it on CD", then there is a really good chance that 1536x1024 pixel Kodak Picture CD is what you will get. This is the equipment that they likely have. Agreed. With the exception of a small percentage of labs that offer specialty services, one should expect no more than a consumer-oriented scanning service. And for good reason--most consumer labs have little call for anything other than the equivalent of Picture CD, because most consumers that want digital images probably already have digital cameras. Photographers that want more resolution from digitized film are probably already doing it themselves, rather than paying for film, processing and scanning per frame (plus the transportation costs of dropping off and picking up the film), just so a film processor can do it. |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
Dave (from the UK) wrote:
My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not tell her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they would use something half reasonable. The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5 Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with more than 1.5 Mpixel. Do you think this is acceptable? I am tempted to go back and ask them to scan them properly at a usable resolution or refund the money, as I feel its a bit of a mickey take to scan at only 1.5 million pixels. I'm interest in how common this practice is. I've mainly used the Frontier 340. The standard setting on these when doing customer prints and CD's is to do a simultaneous print & scan. In this mode, it will scan at 300dpi for prints 5x7 and smaller, or 280 dpi for larger prints. Basically, what it is doing, is burning to CD the information that it scanned in order to do the print. So if the lab prints 6x4's as their standard print size, 1800x1200 scans is what it will do. If 5x3.5 is their standard print size, then you will get 1500x1050 scans. 8x12's come out as 2240x3360, which is the highest res the 340 will do from 35mm. This is what happens if you do _simultaneous_ print and scan, which is what most labs will do to save time. You can however do a print at one print size, and a scan at another, but you have to feed the film twice. To simultaneously print 6x4's and scan at 1800x1200 res takes about 2 minutes for a 24 exposure roll. To print 6x4's, then re-feed the film to do a scan at 3360x2240 res takes about 30 minutes for a 24 exposure roll. While the machine is scanning something it can't do anything else, so this is the reason why you are unlikely to get anything better than 1800x1200 from one of these machines. Some photofinishers will offer the high-res scan, but charge accordingly. As you can imagine, getting a dozen rolls of film to scan at high res (6 hours) would really mess up the throughput for the day. Some other minilab machines may operate differently, and so have different effects on througput but my experience is with the Frontier 340. I believe the frontier 570 is capable of simultaneous digital prints and film scanning, so a photofinisher with a 570 would probably be a bit friendlier to the concept of high res scanning. Interestingly, the scan resolution of the Frontier 340 doesn't seem to be DPI based, but rather based on the output size. The machine allows you to zoom/crop prior to printing, so if you select 8x12 as the print size, crop in on about half the neg and print it, you will still get a 3360x2240 scan of that smaller area - which of course corresponds to scanning at a higher DPI compared to scanning the whole neg. |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
"Graham Fountain" wrote in message
news:44a84ee2$0$2014$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader- Some photofinishers will offer the high-res scan, but charge accordingly. As you can imagine, getting a dozen rolls of film to scan at high res (6 hours) would really mess up the throughput for the day. When Kodak offered the Photo CD their labs used a separate workstation for scanning the films and burning CDs. I recall that some photofinishers were charging $2.00 per frame, plus the customer had to purchase what was purported to be a special CD blank, at a cost of $10, to which additional frames could be added. The lab was not permitted to burn the files to just any CD blank--not even a Kodak-labeled one. So, using your example, it would have taken 2 CDs for 6 24-exposure rolls ($20.00 for the CDs), plus 24 exposures x 6 rolls = 144 prints ($288 for the prints) or a total of $308 plus tax, assuming that the photographer wanted all frames scanned--and that is before the cost of processing the film or of making even a single print! Unless one did only one or perhaps 2 rolls of film per year, the cost was prohibitive. Perhaps 10 years ago, when film scanners were expensive, it might have made sense, but it is easy to see why Kodak discontinued the Photo CD. Frankly, with the relatively high per-shot cost of film, it is easy to see why so many photographers have shifted to digital. 30 years ago, we tried to economize by shooting slides rather than pay for prints of entire rolls--when we knew that the majority of the images were not going to be keepers. Some of us experimented with inexpensive Eastmancolor movie stock that was respooled into 35mm cartridges. The film cost $1.00 per roll, versus Kodacolor II that was sold for $3.50 per roll. I was disappointed to see my images fade into virtually nothing as the years went by. That was certainly no bargain. Some guys did their own darkroom work, but the cost of chemicals and paper often was more expensive than letting one of the major photofinishers do the job. Some of us used discount mail order finishers, like Clark Photo, whose bright yellow mailers were stuffed into our Sunday papers just about every week. But their results were often washed-out, or had a gray cast. I read that they routinely used the chemicals beyond the recommended exhaustion time, as a means of saving money. So one gambled whenever he sent his film to places like that. Sometimes they were all right, other times they were awful. We also had those little drive-in booths in strip malls, "Fotomat." They were on a par with drug store processing. And the cost of paying the girl to sit there all day long probably ate into the revenues--how many rolls of film had to be processed just to pay the overhead on each of those thousands of little booths? They used to be located everywhere. Then one day they just seemed to disappear. If I were a high-volume shooter I'd have to abandon film. Judging from the way that prices have tumbled on decent digital cameras it appears that PRICE will be the factor that drives the nails into film's coffin. The amateur photographer today probably already owns a computer and has an Internet connection. All he needs is inexpensive editing software like Elements or Paint Shop Pro and a digital camera and he's in business. I still do not own an inkjet printer--I get better results by using online printers that print on silver halide paper. Somehow the thought of shooting on film, then having it digitized onto Photo CD, seems way out of date. |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
"jeremy" wrote in message news:SI0qg.3641$5i3.3546@trnddc01... Somehow the thought of shooting on film, then having it digitized onto Photo CD, seems way out of date. This is true if you are starting from scratch. But if you are 70 years old, and have boxes and boxes (several thousand) slides, already taken and processed, and you want to scan them into your computer so you can clean them up, crop out significant images, send them to your children and grandchildren, and archive them, then you would be well advised to buy a good film scanner. And, having done that, you might as well continue to take slides and digitize them with your scanner, rather than purchase another camera. Or, at least, put off purchasing a digital camera until it is terribly evident that they can produce much finer images at a much lower price, and your film camera is completely obsolete. |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
"William Graham" wrote in message ... "jeremy" wrote in message news:SI0qg.3641$5i3.3546@trnddc01... Somehow the thought of shooting on film, then having it digitized onto Photo CD, seems way out of date. This is true if you are starting from scratch. But if you are 70 years old, and have boxes and boxes (several thousand) slides, already taken and processed, and you want to scan them into your computer so you can clean them up, crop out significant images, send them to your children and grandchildren, and archive them, then you would be well advised to buy a good film scanner. And, having done that, you might as well continue to take slides and digitize them with your scanner, rather than purchase another camera. Or, at least, put off purchasing a digital camera until it is terribly evident that they can produce much finer images at a much lower price, and your film camera is completely obsolete. I was referring to having Kodak digitize them, at $2.00 per image. Much of my type of work can be done with a simple point & shoot digital anyway. And I always have all my film stuff for more demanding situations. I don't think I'll ever get a DSLR. I realize now that I am a minimalist at heart, and that I usually don't want to carry 25 pounds of gear around. I've been looking at the Casio Exislim, in fact. Rockwell gave it a good review in comparison to his Nikon DSLR--and the Casio fits into a shirt pocket! http://www.kenrockwell.com/casio/exz750p4lens.htm#perf To me, small digital cameras are analogous to when photographers put down their speed graphics for the Nikon-F. |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
Mark Roberts wrote:
Wayne wrote: In article , says... The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5 Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with more than 1.5 Mpixel. Kodak Picture CD images (JPG) are 1536x1024 pixels from 35 mm film (1536x864 pixels if from APS film). These will print 6x4 inches at 250 dpi. I dont know about the UK, but these Kodak Picture CD scans are commonly and inexpensively available at processing labs in the USA when (and only when) you have the negatives developed. This is their option. Some labs can offer larger scans, independent of developing, but you surely must specify what you want, or at least ask what they can do. At the last lab where I worked they used a Fuji Frontier which delivered 1200 x 1800 scans. That works out to a bit over 1100 dpi. I expect that higher resolution scans require dedicated scanning equipment, are more time consuming and, of course, greater expense. Nikon Coolscan IV ED does 4000 ppi & it only cost about $600 when I bought it new. They really should be able to get better than 1200 x 1800 from 35mm negative. |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
What resolution would a high street lab scan?
no_name wrote:
Mark Roberts wrote: Wayne wrote: In article , says... The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5 Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with more than 1.5 Mpixel. Kodak Picture CD images (JPG) are 1536x1024 pixels from 35 mm film (1536x864 pixels if from APS film). These will print 6x4 inches at 250 dpi. I dont know about the UK, but these Kodak Picture CD scans are commonly and inexpensively available at processing labs in the USA when (and only when) you have the negatives developed. This is their option. Some labs can offer larger scans, independent of developing, but you surely must specify what you want, or at least ask what they can do. At the last lab where I worked they used a Fuji Frontier which delivered 1200 x 1800 scans. That works out to a bit over 1100 dpi. I expect that higher resolution scans require dedicated scanning equipment, are more time consuming and, of course, greater expense. Nikon Coolscan IV ED does 4000 ppi & it only cost about $600 when I bought it new. They really should be able to get better than 1200 x 1800 from 35mm negative. Correction: The IV-ED does 2900 ppi, the Coolscan 4000 does 4000 ppi. For some reason the IV-ED will let you enter 4000 ppi in the the menu, but it only scans up to 2900. |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
High Resolution from 35mm Film | [email protected] | Digital Photography | 80 | November 19th 05 08:16 PM |
advantage of high $ 35mm optics vs. MF now lost? | Bob Monaghan | Medium Format Photography Equipment | 30 | September 12th 04 04:46 AM |
High Street Digital Reprints (in the UK) | Matthew McGrattan | 35mm Photo Equipment | 8 | August 23rd 04 11:16 AM |
Super high resolution prints on transparency in L.A.? | molecool | Film & Labs | 1 | April 26th 04 09:23 PM |