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View Full Version : Best B&Wfilm for drum scanning ?



Gary Tarbert
20-Oct-2007, 05:13
Hi guys , I would appriciate some tips or advice on the best films to use for scanning
rather than traditional darkroom proccess (i just can't get a darkroom together at the moment)i also shoot 8x10 and don't have a 8x10 enlarger.
I have never tried to scan mono before but the general consensus is mono doesn't scan well,how true is this, and what is the best way to go.cheers Gary

Ed Richards
20-Oct-2007, 05:35
> the general consensus is mono doesn't scan well

First time I have heard this. B&W scans great, none of that nasty color stuff to worry about. Hard to beat Tmax, and for 8x10 Tmax 400 would be the way to go, since grain does not matter. It has remarkable range and scans very well. As others have said, you want a slightly thinner/flatter negative for best results with a consumer grade scanner.

Frank Petronio
20-Oct-2007, 05:50
is there a bad film?

Ron Marshall
20-Oct-2007, 09:27
TMX, Delta 100, TMY and Acros have some of the finest grain and all scan very well. But I just had some HP5 drum scanned and those scans looked great.

Bruce Watson
25-Oct-2007, 11:57
Hi guys, I would appreciate some tips or advice on the best films to use for scanning rather than traditional darkroom process (I just can't get a darkroom together at the moment) I also shoot 8x10 and don't have a 8x10 enlarger. I have never tried to scan mono before but the general consensus is mono doesn't scan well, how true is this, and what is the best way to go. Cheers Gary

I do my own drum scanning of 5x4 Tri-X souped in XTOL 1:3. Certainly from my viewpoint the "general consensus" is wrong. Scanning B&W film is different than scanning color materials, but not necessarily more difficult. You just have to know what you are doing, like everything else.

If you are ever going to print your film using conventional darkroom printing, then optimize the film for darkroom printing. It will scan just fine. If however you are sure you'll only scan the film and never print it in the darkroom, you can get slightly better results by pulling development a bit (about a stop). Just make sure you have enough exposure for the shadows! This will help in scanning by decreasing somewhat the Callier Effect -- less density means less light scatter. Same as with an enlarger really, and one of the reasons to develop only that density required to do what you want to do, and no more.

chilihead
25-Oct-2007, 18:09
Polaroid Type 55P/N.

Ted Harris
25-Oct-2007, 18:26
Whatever film you prefer. You don't need to do anything different. A well exposed negative scans just fine.

D. Bryant
25-Oct-2007, 18:33
Hi guys , I would appriciate some tips or advice on the best films to use for scanning
rather than traditional darkroom proccess (i just can't get a darkroom together at the moment)i also shoot 8x10 and don't have a 8x10 enlarger.
I have never tried to scan mono before but the general consensus is mono doesn't scan well,how true is this, and what is the best way to go.cheers Gary
Any B&W film that is developed for printing on grade 1 to grade 4 paper or there abouts. If you have your development dialed in for grade 2 silver gelatin you shouldn't have any problem.

Of course your scanner capabilities will have a determination about how well it can scan denser negatives.

In short what Ted said.

Don Bryant

Daniel_Buck
26-Oct-2007, 10:27
I had my tri-X 320 4x5 drum scanned once just for a test, and I must say it turned out quite nice. A slower film would have less grain I assume, but grain doesn't bother me. If you have it scanned at a nice high resolution (like 4000dpi) be prepaired to deal with a large file (and a large price tag), if you aren't already used to large files, even more so for an 8x10.

I don't want to bring the thread in a different direction, but how large are you looking to print? The price of a decent flatbed scanner ($500 or so) would give you very nice scans of the 8x10 film (at the price of drum scanning just 2 or 3 8x10s), I imagine on an 8x10 flat bed you could easily make a 30" print with no problems. Flat beds don't capture as much detail as a drum scan does, but an 8x10 has a nice big area to scan from, so the flat bed would to nice for medium sized prints. Just something else to consider if you don't want to pay for a drum scan each time :-)

Kirk Gittings
26-Oct-2007, 11:17
If you are ever going to print your film using conventional darkroom printing, then optimize the film for darkroom printing. It will scan just fine. If however you are sure you'll only scan the film and never print it in the darkroom, you can get slightly better results by pulling development a bit (about a stop). Just make sure you have enough exposure for the shadows! This will help in scanning by decreasing somewhat the Callier Effect -- less density means less light scatter. Same as with an enlarger really, and one of the reasons to develop only that density required to do what you want to do, and no more.

I concur.

Gary Tarbert
28-Oct-2007, 03:45
Daniel i work my scans to print at 30x40 so if i do a scan only i will generally scan 1 size bigger which gets a bit exy, have only been scanning colour at the moment.
Actually it was a pro lab that told me about the percieved problems of scanning b&w film(no longer in business btw)i do have a epson v700 i don't get the quality i am looking for from this scanner it might just be me i am not very techno , i may just need some training too get the best from this scanner.
I do realise that this scanner will not in any way match a drum scan but once i get accustomed to using it , it may be useful for proofing up to 16x20 on inkjet.cheers Gary

Lenny Eiger
27-Nov-2007, 20:56
is there a bad film?

I think most b&w film is garbage. See, the real question that didn't get asked is - what is the intent of the print, or simpler, what kind of print do you want to make? You want full tonal range, mostly contrasty, very soft? Are you interested in critical sharpness or maybe depth of field?

I think the ultimate film is one where the grains are nice and tight and that has a very long tonal range. TMax and Acros are sharp, but they can't make the kind of print I like. I spent years printing in platinum and now I make prints on wide format printers that are kinda platinum like.... Very hard to find film that can do what I need...

Efke used to be great, I'm now back on Ilford, and back on the 8x10...

Kirk Gittings
27-Nov-2007, 21:50
I think most b&w film is garbage.

I find this kind of hyperbole pretty useless. Your second statement is much more accurate.


Very hard to find film that can do what I need..

Ted Harris
27-Nov-2007, 22:44
I have no trouble scanning any black&white film, as long as it was properly exposed. BTW, that includes stained negatives.

Lenny Eiger
28-Nov-2007, 00:47
I find this kind of hyperbole pretty useless. Your second statement is much more accurate.

First of all, I was responding to someone asking if there was any film that was bad, implying that perhaps all is wonderful. I think all of today's film is bad. The words "I think" means its an opinion, not a statement of fact. Of course, I have spent a couple of years testing things myself and have proved it to myself without any doubts.

I have said consistently that if someone wants to print very contrasty that it doesn't much matter which film one uses. The failings that I see in current films have to do specifically with generating a long, smooth tonal range. I am sure that some people love TMax. I say the Emperor has no clothes.

sanking
29-Nov-2007, 20:44
The failings that I see in current films have to do specifically with generating a long, smooth tonal range. I am sure that some people love TMax. I say the Emperor has no clothes.


I don't see the failing at all, and especially not in TMAX films. TMAX-400, which is my favorite film, is capable of producing a tonal range as long and smooth as that of any film I have every used. It has a long straight line curve with little or no toe, and with proper exposure and development can handle scenes with a range in SBR of up to 15 stops. I use it often in conditions of extreme brightness range and it handles these conditions superbly.

Because of the long straight line curve, and short toe and shoulder, there is not much latitude in exposure and development. But if one takes the time to learn, and take advantage of, its characteristics I think they will find it to be a superb film.

BTW, Kodak has just come out with an improvement of TMY, called TMY-2, which is already on the market in 35mm and 120 formats. The new film has much finer grain and greater apparent sharpness.

I don't know how TMY scans on a drum scanner, but it scans very well with an EverSmart flatbed. And it scans even better if developed in a staining developer.

Sandy King

Tyler Boley
30-Nov-2007, 00:10
Sandy, TMY scans beautifully on a drum as well. Great film, still hoping for that special run of 5x7.
In fill agreement with your assessment, beautiful long scale, demonstrated both technically and aesthetically. As you mention, you just have to have your exposure/processing in line, but I thought we were supposed to be doing that anyway, eh?
Tyler

IanMazursky
2-Dec-2007, 01:21
I own my own drum scanning company and we scan tons of b&w film on a Howtek 7500.
I find that Tri X scans wonderfully and so does TMX, TMY, HP5, FP4.....Pretty much all of them.
Type 55 is wonderful also.
BTW, If you scan it and retain the color (dont de-saturate), you can make really cool duo and tri toned images.

The real issues come from the scanner, software and the operator. There are allot of drum scanners that where not designed for neg film. They where made in the times of the all mighty chrome.
A good example is the Heidelberg Hell scanners. Only 2 where able to scan negs and only 1 did a nice job. The 3900.
I spoke with some of the engineers and they confirmed it.

The same goes for the software. Most where not designed to handle negs properly. Many operators where stuck and had to and still do scan the neg as a positive then invert in photoshop.

The third issue is the operator. Most are from the pre press camp. Your best operators are people who also shoot the same film.

-ian mazursky
www.prepressexpress.com
www.ianmazursky.com

paulr
2-Dec-2007, 11:12
TMax and Acros are sharp, but they can't make the kind of print I like.

What tonal characteristic do you feel you can't achieve?

One of the things I loved about tmax when I switched to it many years ago is its responsiveness to developers; it allows you to push the tonal scale around with subtle development changes, the way people used to describe old, thick emulsion films.

Curiously, this is also what a lot of people don't seem to like about it, whether or not they know it's what they're complaining about. Reports that it's "unforgiving" seem to mean "I do one little thing different and I get different results." This always sounded to me like responsiveness. Relatedly, I hear the complaint, "I process it just like my old film and I don't like the results." Well, it's not your old film, and if you want a specific kind of result you'll have to figure out how to get it. The developer that worked for me on agfapan (my previous fave) didn't work well for on tmax. So I started experimenting, and eventually evolved my own formula. The process was fascinating ... throughout it I realized the incredible flexibility of the film.

Back to the original question--now that I'm scanning this film instead of projecting onto silver paper, all the tonal scale distinctions seem relatively unimportant. The sharpness and fine grain are wonderful for scanning, but since any kind of tonal adjustment can be made digitally, I don't have to worry so much about the precise shape of the scale. If I were starting over today, I wouldn't have bothered experimenting so much with developers.

In general, I find a slightly thin, lower contrast negative is easiest to scan. But if you're working with a scanner that has no trouble with the dmax of chromes, you should have no trouble with any printable bw negative.