Velvia/Provia Soft compared to BW?

[l2oBiN]

Being new to LF, I have shot some 4x5 velvia and provia slides and had them professionally developed. I have rand a few through the scanner and I am quite disappointed at just how soft they seem to come out compared to BW film (eg acros or fomapan 100 developed in xtol 1:1). Is this common or am I doing something wrong? Is it potentially the development? I was expecting very sharp slides!?

[Ed Kelsey]

I think the potential for being very sharp is there but it could be your technique, maybe they just weren't well focused.

[Greg Blank]

Three color layers. Three different nodal points.


Being new to LF, I have shot some 4x5 velvia and provia slides and had them professionally developed. I have rand a few through the scanner and I am quite disappointed at just how soft they seem to come out compared to BW film (eg acros or fomapan 100 developed in xtol 1:1). Is this common or am I doing something wrong? Is it potentially the development? I was expecting very sharp slides!?

[Ed Kelsey]

Three color layers. Three different nodal points.

What the hell does that mean? Did you just make that up?

[Daniel Stone]

Softness shouldn't be affected by development(at least with E-6).

Being slightly OOF might cause this, I've never heard of what Greg said(nodal points). I've shot color shots(with E-6 and c-41) and then shot b/w(Tmax 100 in D-76 1:1) RIGHT AFTER(other side of holder). Both were super sharp to me after getting drum scans(even scans w/ my flatbed scanner, an old Epson 1680 were "sharp") done.

My money's on focus shift, or the film bowing in the film holder(ususally caused by a sudden change in humidity)

-Dan

[mrkauffman]

the nodal points does in theory work but in practice is hard to see. that it why APO lenses exist, they are corrected for all 3 colors so they are sharp at any aperture.

although, i dont think thats the case here, just some food for thought.

[Greg Blank]

sure I did.


Three color layers. Three different nodal points.

What the hell does that mean? Did you just make that up?

[Greg Blank]

How about difference in substrate thickness in relation to film makers? Probably never heard of that either, my guess.


Softness shouldn't be affected by development(at least with E-6).

Being slightly OOF might cause this, I've never heard of what Greg said(nodal points). I've shot color shots(with E-6 and c-41) and then shot b/w(Tmax 100 in D-76 1:1) RIGHT AFTER(other side of holder). Both were super sharp to me after getting drum scans(even scans w/ my flatbed scanner, an old Epson 1680 were "sharp") done.

My money's on focus shift, or the film bowing in the film holder(ususally caused by a sudden change in humidity)

-Dan

[Greg Blank]

Does he have one? I do, which is why; I will never get rid of it, I calibrated it in 1/3 stops....it's the one lens that has actually gone up in value in my LF len inventory. I bought it in 1996.

I am simply stating that:

A three color layer film can not currently be as sharp at the same thickness and all other same criteria, as a single emulsion mono chromatic image, simplistic physics dictate this.




the nodal points does in theory work but in practice is hard to see. that it why APO lenses exist, they are corrected for all 3 colors so they are sharp at any aperture.

although, i dont think thats the case here, just some food for thought.

[timparkin]

Being new to LF, I have shot some 4x5 velvia and provia slides and had them professionally developed. I have rand a few through the scanner and I am quite disappointed at just how soft they seem to come out compared to BW film (eg acros or fomapan 100 developed in xtol 1:1). Is this common or am I doing something wrong? Is it potentially the development? I was expecting very sharp slides!?

Hi - it would be really useful if you could post a 100% crop of your velvia provia scans (something with fine detail) and tell us the dpi. Then we can compare it with our own scans to tell you how you are doing.

If you could include which lens you used and at what aperture, that would help also.

Tim

[l2oBiN]

Hi - it would be really useful if you could post a 100% crop of your velvia provia scans (something with fine detail) and tell us the dpi. Then we can compare it with our own scans to tell you how you are doing.

If you could include which lens you used and at what aperture, that would help also.

Tim


Time to revive this thread =P Here are the scans

Taken some time apart, but i think the crops still show the difference between BW and transparency. BW is Fomapan 100 dev in 1:1 extol, and right velvia 100F processed by a professional lab in Germany. Both shot with fujinon cmw 125 at f22 + cokin circular polariser. Both scanned at 2400 using epsonscan 8bits per channel (BW scanned as negative, transparency as positive) on a betterscanning mounting station. All epsonscan optional settings off with manual selection of black and white point. The images were set at 100ppi (from 2400) without resampling, then 200x200px/100ppi crops from various areas were taken. This diffrence is consistent across a number of different shots with different lenses and times.

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/1700/comparexe.jpg

[timparkin]

Time to revive this thread =P Here are the scans

Taken some time apart, but i think the crops still show the difference between BW and transparency. BW is Fomapan 100 dev in 1:1 extol, and right velvia 100F processed by a professional lab in Germany. Both shot with fujinon cmw 125 at f22 + cokin circular polariser. Both scanned at 2400 using epsonscan 8bits per channel (BW scanned as negative, transparency as positive) on a betterscanning mounting station. All epsonscan optional settings off with manual selection of black and white point. The images were set at 100ppi (from 2400) without resampling, then 200x200px/100ppi crops from various areas were taken. This diffrence is consistent across a number of different shots with different lenses and times.

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/1700/comparexe.jpg

I think the fomapan you have just has a lot more acutance than the dye clouds in the colour film. The colour film doesn't look particularly sharp but if the comparison is consistent then I would say it is the inherent sharpness of the Fomapan that is helping with resolution. Different black and white films will show different resolving power but fomapan is particularly sharp.

I've been scanning some Delta 100 and Provia test shots on 4x5 and T-Max/Portra 400 on Mamiya 7 and the black and white is always sharper (scanning at 4000dpi on a howtek drum scanner).

Tim

Tim

[l2oBiN]

So you suggest that the actual film itself is the cause? Tim, do you think I should be able to pull more out of the velvia when you say that the color image does not look sharp? These images do not have any sharpening, they do improve once some capture sharpening is applied. Should I be able to get better out of the raw scan onthe v700?

[timparkin]

So you suggest that the actual film itself is the cause? Tim, do you think I should be able to pull more out of the velvia when you say that the color image does not look sharp? These images do not have any sharpening, they do improve once some capture sharpening is applied. Should I be able to get better out of the raw scan onthe v700?

There will be more detail on the Fomapan almost definitely It does surprise me that it's showing at a 2400dpi scan. It may be that the Epson doesn't scan colour film as well. The only reason I say this is that when I scan 4x5, I can get pixel level detail (obviously at the same aperture - I'm presuming you are using the same aperture?). However, if there is more detail at 4000dpi, this additional detail will show up even when scanned at 2400dpi (resolutions add up as 1/R1+1/R2 etc so a very sharp R1 will help the sharpness even if R2 (the scanner) isn't that great).

If you want to send the film to me I would be happy to drum scan them.

Tim

[l2oBiN]

Tim, you have a pm =).

[polyglot]

I think your scanner is poorly focused or merely not sharp. You should be able to clearly see the grain of the Fomapan at 2500dpi but it's completely smooth and there's no detail smaller than about 4 pixels.

[l2oBiN]

I think your scanner is poorly focused or merely not sharp. You should be able to clearly see the grain of the Fomapan at 2500dpi but it's completely smooth and there's no detail smaller than about 4 pixels.

Now you have me concerned whether I have the betterscan holder correctly calibrated. Here is a set of 100% crops (displayed@100ppi) from a 2400spi scan (epsonscan). The negative is Fomapan 100, dev'ed in xtol 1:1. Is this the sort of grain sharpness that is consistent with the maximum that can be obtained from the v700?

Sharpened in PS
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/8564/20110624r27002grain.jpg

Directly from the scan
http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/4761/20110624r27002unshrp.jpg

[l2oBiN]

Here are the original crops sharpened (a bit more than usual) in photoshop to accentuate the grain ... ..


http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4102/comparegrain.jpg

[polyglot]

I can't speak to the flatbeds as I use a Sprintscan 45U and Nikon 8000; they both produce per-pixel sharpness at their native (2500, 4000 dpi respectively) resolutions. I do hear (probably somewhere on this forum) though that you can get better results from the epsons by running them at a higher (e.g. 4000dpi) and then downsampling in post.

Looking at your sharpened samples, the Fomapan looks oversharpened while the Velvia seems to have come out OK (though still a bit overcooked). I just had a look at some of my older 2500dpi scans from Velvia and they look (unsharpened) pretty similar to your sharpened ones. I suspect that a bit of USM at radius 0.5 to 1.0 is necessary to bring the acutance up from flatbeds.

Besides, there are plenty of things more important than pixel-peeping ;)

[l2oBiN]

can anyone with a epson v700 concur my results?