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Kirk Gittings
3-Dec-2005, 18:46
I have been doing some casual priliminary tests on the new Fuji Pro160S 120 vs. NPS 120 color negative films for scanning purposes. It is supposed to be designed for scanning. My initial tests are very promising and some what surprising. I just cross shot some on some halogen lit interiors for a quicky test. I do not have a proper profile for the new film yet so I just used the NPS profile for both.

The film has a much more nuetral and thinner orange mask.

Very similar contrast.

It has less reciprocity failure or higher effective asa. I'm not sure which at this point. Exposures were 8 sec.

The film is much finer grain, and displays much less shadow noise in the scan. Why a film would display less shadow noise confuses me a bit at this time.

Initially this appears to be a much better film for scanning. I'll let you know when I do more sophisticated tests.

Roger Richards
3-Dec-2005, 18:51
Hi Kirk, I am looking forward to hearing your results. I just got some Pro 160S in 8x10 that I have not shot yet and am hoping that it is indeed improved over NPS, which is a pretty decent film.

chris jordan
3-Dec-2005, 19:05
Hi Kirk, I'm interesting in this subject also. I have been shooting Astia 100F lately, which is incredibly fine-grained and fantastic for scanning, but it doesn't have the long tonal range of a negative film (although it comes dang close, especially in soft light). I have been wanting to try the new Fuji negative film for harsher light conditions that would blow out the trannies, so any results you come up with will be appreciated here.

Cheers,

~cj

robc
3-Dec-2005, 19:23
www.gnyman.com/FujiPro160.htm (http://www.gnyman.com/FujiPro160.htm)

Richard Martel
3-Dec-2005, 20:31
I found the site below to be of interest in scanning color negative film. I have had good luck scanning Kodak ultra color 100UC. Using a Mikrotek Artixscan 1800f, I had posterization in the brighter portion of the clouds using Silverfast but no posterization using the Microtek software. This was scanning in 16 bit (12 bit?) and scanning as a positive. After setting black and white point I used curves for contrast adjustment. Picked up some Fuji Pro160S this week and look forward to comparing to the Kodak stuff. Since I'm scanning color neg film as a positive ( 'chrome) I'm going to recalibrate the scanner with a 4x5 chrome calibration target to see if that eliminates the posterization. The colors with the Kodak film is not as saturated as Velvia or Provia but more like they are to MY naked eye. But a very broad contrast range.

http://www.c-f-systems.com/ColorNegs.html

Richard Martel

Eric Fredine
3-Dec-2005, 22:09
Chris,

I shoot Astia when the scene allows it and NPS - now Pro 160s - otherwise. It's a very effective combination. But getting the colour 'just right' with scanned colour negatives is more difficult - sometimes much more difficut. I've just been experimenting with the tool Richard references above and the preliminary results are very encouraging.

I've shot a few sheets of Pro 160s and Pro 160c - no formal tests but they don't seem to be dramatically different from NPS.

Cheers,
Eric

Kirk Gittings
4-Dec-2005, 13:50
Here is a detail from the text at the right 6x9 film. NPS profile adjusted for color and density only. At 100% from a 4800 ppi scan on a Epson 4990 Silverfast with no sharpening.

http://www.gittingsphoto.com/Articles/Fuji%20Test%2001.jpg

http://www.gittingsphoto.com/Articles/Fuji%20Test%2003.jpg

Ed Richards
4-Dec-2005, 14:19
Great looking show!

Kirk Gittings
4-Dec-2005, 17:24
Thanks Ed. It came down today!

julian_4860
5-Dec-2005, 01:29
>>http://www.c-f-systems.com/ColorNegs.html

I use NegPos and it is the biggest single improvement I've ever made in scanning colour neg. Takes a whil to get to grips with, but worth the effort. It is th eonly app that gives you total control of the neg to pos conversion process

Kirk Gittings
5-Dec-2005, 18:34
Julian,
What is the real advantage? I can (and do every week as an architectural photographer) shoot both Fuji negatives and chromes back to back of the same view. With Silverfast I can easily scan both to an almost exact match to either the chrome or the negative. What would I gain?

Eric Fredine
5-Dec-2005, 18:45
Kirk,

Do you mind sharing your workflow for scanning Fuji negatives using Silverfast?

Thanks,
Eric

Kirk Gittings
5-Dec-2005, 19:01
It would help me if I knew which version of SF you own and what format you use.

Eric Fredine
5-Dec-2005, 19:15
Silverfast Ai, Epson 4870, 4x5, Fuji NPS. I also shoot Fuji Astia and get very good results (within the limitations of the 4870) scanning this combination (I use the Silverfast calibration option). With negatives, I can get useable results, but always have to do a healthy amount of colour correction. I'd love it if I could get my scans of negatives to match my scans of chromes (I often shoot both) in a consistent way. With the c-f systems plug-in I'm able to get much closer to this. But it sounds like I may be missing something in Silverfast.

Thanks,
Eric

Richard Martel
5-Dec-2005, 20:26
A little follow up to my previous post. Re-calibrating my MT 1800f in Silverfast and a transparency target solved the posterization problem in the broad higher values.

I have noticed, that when I try to capture too much shadow detail the blue channel gets overexposed easily and "piles" up to the extreme right side on the histogram making color corrections difficult to impossible in severe cases. Nothing knew there :-). Unlike Julian, I have not yet tried C-F Systems NegPos but I have followed their methodology, as posted, to good results.

Kirk...Cool show and I enjoyed your work on your website. I, too, would be interested in your scanning technique.

Good thread, hope it proves to be helpfull to all.

Regards, Richard

Kirk Gittings
5-Dec-2005, 21:02
Negs always require a touch more correcting than chromes because scanners are fundamentally designed for chromes. I wish we could do IT8 profiles for negs. But it is not all that much difference. Because I shoot architecture there is almost always something grey or silver to key off of with the mid point eye dropper which helps. I scan about 50 negs a week for commercial clients so what ever we do it has to be a relatively quick fix. For my personal work I prefer negs now too. You probably know this but I will say it anyway in case you don't.

The two things that alot of people miss is that NPS is really an asa 100 film, which is where I shoot it. If you shoot it at 160 you are starting out with an underexposed neg. to scan. But the profile is set for 160. So you have to adjust the exposure every time for about 2/3 stop, which for some reason works best in the negafix window than in the levels I think because it doesn't clip the end points.

The second common error is that the scan frame absolutely has to be within the image area unlike chromes. The slightest bit of clear film edge will skew all the settings so bad you can never get them back to normal.

The one color that I think scans off color consistently with negs (but I had this complaint about C prints too) is sky blue which is always too magenta. This is an easy fix in SF Studio with the selective color picker tool.

julian_4860
6-Dec-2005, 04:57
Kirk, negpos isn't a colour correction tool. All it does is give you infinite control over the conversion from positive to neg - you still need to colour correct afterwards. it allows you to calibrate the conversion so that the gammas of all 3 chnls are converted accurately. a visual check of this is if imn PS all 3 chnls are exactly under each other (assuming a neg without huge casts), endpoints and peaks etc. most people accept that the best way (fatter histos, better tonal range) to scan negs is a 'raw' scan (imacon 3f, veuscan 'image', silverfast HDR) then convert. This is for a whole number of reasons, but simply the scanner app doesn't map the data from 0-255 but just gives you everything on the neg before conversion. In silverfast, negfix is just a bunch of canned numbers to convert the neg type. BUT I've never had from silverfast after conversion all 3 chnls in step - all the peaks/troughs coinciding. This is what negpos does. It allows you to calibrate for each neg type/exposure and lab, for YOUR scanner. Having used this for a while I can now detect small differences between the 3 labs I use and I've a setting for each of them.
Another advantage is it allows you to compress those long hilight tails you sometimes get so fatten up the rest of the tonal range - if you choose, no more long thin tails and bunched/compressed midtones.
Reading you last posty, a lot of what you normal correct for is a result of bad conversion. Give it a try, it may not be for you, but it gives you total control.

Ed Richards
6-Dec-2005, 05:34
> I wish we could do IT8 profiles for negs.

If you need very accurate color, you can shoot a Gretag color checker chart on one of the negatives and use Picture Window Pro to color balance the negative or slide. It has an electronic overlay that you adjust to fit the chart, then it analyzes the scanned chart and applies whatever correction is necessary to make the chart exactly right. You then apply this to the rest of the shots. It is much more accurate than a grey card. Picture Window has terrific color balance tools, including giving you the ability to scan a negative as an image and control the color conversion in the software. I do not shoot much film color (just digital), but it has worked well with some difficult shots with mixed lighting.

Kirk Gittings
6-Dec-2005, 10:56
Julian, That is starting to make some sense, I will give it a try though much of it simply has to do with crossover in neg film which is why we had many of the same problems just doing C prints from color negs.

Ed, I won't go into why too much, but in a typical shooting day we would have to do that a dozen times which would slow us down way too much. If we were shooting in a studio or one time of day it might make some sense. But in a typical day we shoot exteriors from sunrise till after sunset with strobe fill interiors, halogen lit interiors, mixed light situations etc. etc. I really just need the ability to profile the film and the scanner, which would help immensely just as it does with chromes.