Which BW film gives best results when scanned

[dcypher]

I was wondering if any of you notice differences in scan quality between different films types? I'm planning of scanning 4x5 negs in an Epson 4870. Do some films give better results than others, maybe due to neg mask colour or thickness of the sheets?
G.

[Bruce Watson]

Less graininess nearly always scans better. With sheet film though it's usually a moot point unless you are looking to make 8x enlargements or more.

But assuming you are, think about going for films that give less graininess. This can mean lower speed conventional films, or T-grained films. Then, think about using a solvent developer to decrease graininess a bit. Finally, if you are *never* going to print the film in the darkroom, you might want to optimize your processing a bit to create somewhat thinner negatives, because graininess varies directly with density -- the thinner negs will be somewhat less grainy.

I drum scan my 5x4 TMY-2. I process in XTOL 1:3, but I "pull" about a stop to make a thinner negative that's optimized for my particular scanner. My film scans just beautifully even at 12x enlargement. Clearly, YMMV.

[venchka]

Bruce is right about thin negatives scanning better. In fact, I have seen beautiful scans from what appeared to be unexposed film. It's hard to have a negative that is too thin for scanning. Put another way: scanners dig out more information than you can see with your eyes.

[dcypher]

Thx for the replies.
This is interesting and makes sence. The 35 mm films I developed for printing are to dense for proper scanning. Back then I used a diffuse enlarger but loved grain so I pushed the negs. When I try to scan those negs now, the grain is just to much...

If you pull the development don't you risk loosing information? Do you overexpose the film just a little? Or doesn't it effect the neg at all when you only scan? I'm not planning of printing (in the darkroom), just scan...

[venchka]

I ultra thin to the point of blank film negatives that I saw were the result of severe underdevelopment caused by depleted developer, Diafine in this case.

I would like to hear Bruce's methods as well.

[Bruce Watson]

If you pull the development don't you risk loosing information?

Not unless you carry it to extremes. When you pull the development time a bit, you are just decreasing the film's gamma (contrast index) and by extension it's Dmax. You don't loose any visual information, but you do compress it a bit if you want to think of it like that.

If it makes you feel any better I've got a couple of sheets of film where my one degree spot meter told me that the subject brightness range (SBR) was only about one stop. I'm talking *very* flat light. I'd link to an example but my website is down (sister website got slashdotted this morning and they are still rebuilding that server).

When I scanned that very thin film I let the scanner expand the tonality and ended up with a full range image. Found all kinds of things in that image that I hadn't seen at exposure time!


Do you overexpose the film just a little?

Not me. I expose it for the shadows just like always. I learned that much from the Zone System anyway ;)


Or doesn't it effect the neg at all when you only scan? I'm not planning of printing (in the darkroom), just scan...

I don't understand that question. The effect of decreasing development time is of course to make a thinner negative. In Zone System terms, I develop to what a darkroom printer would call N-1. I target a Zone VIII density of about 1.0. This would make a negative that's a PITA to print in the darkroom, but which scans nicely.

I find this optimum for my scanner. Every scanner is somewhat different; you'll probably want to experiment a little to find out what works best for your scanner and your workflow. That comes under the heading of "why guess when you can know?"

[Peter De Smidt]

I'm with Bruce on this one.

[Joanna Carter]

I use Acros 100 and get stunning results. I expose at ISO 100 but have found I can extend the Zone system for scannng purposes. I will happily place, what most people would reckon to be discernible shadow detail in zone 1 rather than zone 3. Highlights with detail can be placed as high as zone 10; anything above that is subject to N- development. For each stop over zone 10, I add 1/2 stop to the exposure and develop for N- the number of stops. See this image where the exposure range was around 12 stops between darkest shadow detail on the fire surround and highlights like the gas mantle in the desk lamp and the sky outside. There is more shadow and highlight detail on the print that didn't survive the compression necessary to create a small jpeg file.

http://grandes-images.com/en/Heritage_%26_Restoration_files/Media/OakworthStationMastersOffice/OakworthStationMastersOffice.jpg

[Bruce Watson]

I use Acros 100 and get stunning results. I expose at ISO 100 but have found I can extend the Zone system for scanning purposes. I will happily place, what most people would reckon to be discernible shadow detail in zone 1 rather than zone 3.

Exactly. I should have pointed that out. Scanning will let you get away with pushing detail into lower zones than you'd normally think would be possible. And as you say, you can normally exceed by a couple of zones normal Zone System highlight placement too.

Really, you can "expose for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they may." I do this routinely. This workflow would crush my soul if I were trying to print in the darkroom, but it works just fine when scanning. And it's one less thing to have to think about in the field, so it's one less distraction from the art.

BTW, nice image Ms. Carter. Good get.

[Cesar Barreto]

I've mixed feelings about that matter, because soft negatives may easily show a lot of graininess if the corrective curve imposed by scanner software is too harsh. Not so different from what happens when printing soft negatives with grade 4 or higher filters. Of course, Tmax and Acros 100 are less prone to such effects, but I can't say the same about other current and ancient films.
On the other hand, I also feel confortable when scanning long ranged negatives and I would even say that scanners actually prefer them that way. But not all scanners, of course, because I've already had great trouble with some really dense negatives, wich made me think that for some scanners density built on silver ins't the same as one built with dye clouds. But that's just a wild guess and I didn't had the means or the nerves to go into such a dark forest.

[Peter De Smidt]

Like others, I'd recommend really fine-grained film developed in non-acutance developers. For example, TMX or Acros are really good choices. Develop them in D76, Xtol, Microdol-X ... As other's have said, you can get more out of the toe of the film with scanning than with optical printing. Thus, you can really shoot these film at EI 100, whereas with optical printing I preferred an EI of 50. This speed boost, combined with their excellent reciprocity characteristics, means that they'll work for a large range of subjects. If you really need more speed, TMY-2 is a good choice.

[Bruce Watson]

... which made me think that for some scanners density built on silver isn't the same as one built with dye clouds.

Light through silver evinces Callier Effect, where light through dye clouds does not. That's true for all scanners and darkroom enlargers. It even shows up in contact printing.

When you build up density from silver, you also build up grain clump size. This is part of what causes the increase in graininess in the highlights of the print. Notice that there is less graininess in the shadow details, because there is much less density on the film where the shadow details are recorded, and therefore the grain clumps are smaller.

Aside from graininess, you also have increasing Callier Effect with increasing density. The light scatter from Callier Effect causes a decrease in local contrast. What this means in the final print is that the highlight values get compressed somewhat. You can always apply a curve in Photoshop to correct this, but I much prefer to not have to. And when I develop to a lower contrast index than I would for the darkroom, my scan files don't need such a corrective curve. Which is one of the reasons I advocate this method.

But there are many paths to the waterfall. None of them are really right or really wrong because they all get you where you are going eventually. So use the workflow with which you are most comfortable.

[Cesar Barreto]

Hi, Bruce.

I'm pretty aware of Callier effects, but what was meant when I mentioned problems with high densities on b&w films is that on some cases scanners couldn't read through them, delivering bad files, full of noise and so on. I had a chance to test Microtek, Epson, Nikon and my old Cèzanne with the same bunch of old negatives and the best results I had came from Nikon scanner and Nikon D200 camera. But as there were negatives of many different formats, I had a hard time struggling with the flatbed scanners.

[Joanna Carter]

I've mixed feelings about that matter, because soft negatives may easily show a lot of graininess if the corrective curve imposed by scanner software is too harsh. Not so different from what happens when printing soft negatives with grade 4 or higher filters.
I would agree totally that digital expansion of flat negs seems to cause "grain", or more correctly, noise. I have a good friend, who uses the BTZS software, who took almost the same shot at an exposure and a development determined by the BTZS system for wet printing. The result was a very flat negative that was a joy to print "wet" but which still lacked the detail in the shadows and highlights that my scanned version exhibits. If you hadn't seen the extra detail in my print, you would have said that his print was a superb B&W; but if you were to look at my digital print from his "flat" negative, you would have seen noise, especially in the highlights, like the gas mantle in the desklamp. So, using the "wet" BTZS numbers, his print was superb overall but lacking detail in extreme highlights and shadows, whereas my scan pulled out the detail in the shadows and highlights but, in so doing, introduced digital noise.

As Bruce notes, it is far better to underexpose a neg for scanning than to overexpose it. I have found that Zone 1 is about as far as I can go for shadow detail and anything above Zone 10 either needs compressing or will be more difficult to scan.

[Ken Lee]

"I use Acros 100 and get stunning results".

But do yourself a favor: Get a new telephone - and some modern office furniture !

What do you develop the Acros in ?

[dcypher]

Can't buy Acros in my country... What about Ilford HP5? This was the film I preferred in my 35mm and 120 days... I'm considering TMX and TMY in x-tol for 4x5"

[sanking]

"I use Acros 100 and get stunning results".


But do yourself a favor: Get a new telephone - and some modern office furniture !

What do you develop the Acros in ?


Acros is my favorite B&W film in medium format. The grain and sharpness is similar to Tmax-100 but it has less reciprocity failure, which makes it ideal for use in conditions of low light. In such conditions actual exposures are often less than would be the case with ASA 400 films where recirpocity has to be taken into account.

I develop it in either Pyrocat-HD, with minimal agitation, or in divided D23. It gives very sharp results with almost no grain in both.

Sandy King

[Joanna Carter]

"I use Acros 100 and get stunning results".
But do yourself a favor: Get a new telephone - and some modern office furniture !

Heheh, yeah and having the trains stop outside every 20 minutes is a bit distracting :D


What do you develop the Acros in ?
Ilford DD-X 1+6 in a Jobo ATL 1500 for 6'15" @ 24°, but I'm looking at moving to 1+9 for 7'30" according to Fred Newman's advice.

[kaiyen]

Just to throw in another vote for Pyrocat HD with Acros...I am throwing in another vote. I have been playing with Pyrocat HD in general and am really liking what I'm getting with Acros.

[Allen in Montreal]

......

I drum scan my 5x4 TMY-2. I process in XTOL 1:3, but I "pull" about a stop to make a thinner negative that's optimized for my particular scanner. My film scans just beautifully even at 12x enlargement. Clearly, YMMV.

Bruce, do you wet print anymore? And if so, so you expose two negs, one for scanning one for printing?

[Bruce Watson]

Bruce, do you wet print anymore?

Haven't printed in the darkroom in years now. I like inkjet much better. But that's just me. Clearly there's a lot to be said for a traditional silver gelatin print.

[Lenny Eiger]

I have had the best results lately with Efke 25, Delta, TMax and TMY2 in Xtol 1:1 in a Jobo. I just did a whole series of tests with an associate. We found a very short amount of time from N-3 to N+2, basically from 6 to 8 mins development at 72F.

We found that the best neg was one where the top end density topped out at about 1.8-1.9. I don't have an issue with the highlights, or a Callier effect. We did find that when our development time exceeded 8:45, the grain shredded (got big) and it looked like HP 5, or Bergger. Grain that large exceeds the granularity of the dithering pattering and it doesn't work for me...

Settled on Delta, as its cheaper than TMax, just as good if not better, and TMY2 when a little extra speed was needed. Our times for Delta and TMY also matched, which is handy. My system includes a drum scanner, as most of you know. These scan sharp vs a consumer flatbed which scans blurry and needs to be sharpened. This might be a factor when scanning things that are grainy, the blurrier scan may be more amenable to dealing with larger grain. When sharpened, it likely would not add back grain.

I also print with a 6 channel b&w inkset I mix up from a 4-dilution Cone Piezotone base, which extends highlight definition all the way to the edge. As I told Bruce earlier, I think his experience of the Callier effect may have more to do with the transitions in the print environment than the scanner. The earlier numbers that Ergosoft (Studioprint RIP) gave out for dealing with light ink dilutions are incorrect, as they starve the crossover transitions, probably right where he was looking at the effect.

I hope this helps in some way...

Lenny

[Bruce Watson]

We found that the best neg was one where the top end density topped out at about 1.8-1.9. I don't have an issue with the highlights, or a Callier effect. We did find that when our development time exceeded 8:45, the grain shredded (got big) and it looked like HP 5, or Bergger. Grain that large exceeds the granularity of the dithering pattering and it doesn't work for me...

Settled on Delta, as its cheaper than TMax, just as good if not better, and TMY2 when a little extra speed was needed. Our times for Delta and TMY also matched, which is handy. My system includes a drum scanner, as most of you know. These scan sharp vs a consumer flatbed which scans blurry and needs to be sharpened. This might be a factor when scanning things that are grainy, the blurrier scan may be more amenable to dealing with larger grain. When sharpened, it likely would not add back grain.

I also print with a 6 channel b&w inkset I mix up from a 4-dilution Cone Piezotone base, which extends highlight definition all the way to the edge. As I told Bruce earlier, I think his experience of the Callier effect may have more to do with the transitions in the print environment than the scanner. The earlier numbers that Ergosoft (Studioprint RIP) gave out for dealing with light ink dilutions are incorrect, as they starve the crossover transitions, probably right where he was looking at the effect.

It was in interesting conversation. I'm still scratching my head about how we get such different results. Vive la différence! At least we're both trying!

There's no doubt that Callier Effect is real, and that the more silver density you have the more it scatters light, this just due to the fact that the silver isn't transparent. The light has to go somewhere when it's not allowed to continue in a straight line. The question isn't whether Callier Effect is there, the question is whether it matters to a scan. I'm pretty sure that it matters, but I'm willing to consider that it might be less of a factor for some scanners and workflows. And for that matter, some films may be better about it than others with a given scanner and workflow. I did my testing with 5x4 Tri-X and assumed it applied to all films. And you know what they say about assumptions... So, TMY-2 may show different results. Oh good, something else to test for, sigh...

OTOH, I'm fully concede that more inks are better than fewer inks in inkjet printing. Moving to the Cone K7s is still my plan, but in this economy it'll be awhile before plan becomes reality I'm afraid.

[Lenny Eiger]

It was in interesting conversation. I'm still scratching my head about how we get such different results. Vive la différence! At least we're both trying!


I think you are doing a lot better than just trying. It is weird that we get different results, but there are often so many factors that it is very easy to come to a conclusion based on partial testing. In fact, its necessary, as it is too time consuming to test everything.

This year, I have come to realize that the TGrained films do just fine with the right development technique where earlier I thought they were not good at all.

I appreciate the talent, stick-to-it-iveness and skill of some on the list (including you, Bruce) who are continuously helpful... and often ask questions - or answer some in a way - that makes me question my own assumptions and re-test until I get it right.

Lenny