RE: filmscanners: Neg film for scanning

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

>Sorry, drifting off topic.

Never a problem with me - especially if the information is informative or
interesting.
I hate to sound stupid; but I want to check and see if you mean what I think
you mean when you speak of CN in relation to film.  Are you speaking about a
chromogenic negative? All the movie films that I know of are tungston films
which always left me wondering why places like Seattle Filmworks and others
who sold the respooled tails of those films never made a point of saying
that they needed to be shot under tungsten lighting.

If the negatives produced off these films tend to be thicker than normal as
you said or implied, at least as I understood your to be saying or
impliying, would this not make it harder to scan and make scanning the
slides easier if not better?  Since you have already said that you have not
actually scanned the stuff, I am asking this sort of in terms of rhetorical
question or in search of a logical speculation rather than an empirical
answer.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Richard N. Moyer
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 4:00 PM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: RE: filmscanners: Neg film for scanning


>Richard,
>
>Thanks for the updating of my information on the subject and for filling in
>some of the holes while correcting the errors.  From what you have said I
>take it that the movie film is no longer used by these processors; does
this
>mean that they are now using standard still films which any regular C-41
lab
>can process?  How does the current film scan, resist scratching, etc. - if
>you know.

AFAIK the film industry continue to use this type of film, although
it now has advanced to (in 1994) a finer-grained EXR 500T stock,
5298/7298 and "ultra-latitude" EXR 200T film, 5287/7287. All are
tungsten balanced. As an incidental, since I was focused on skintone
fidelity and low contrast - - when Kodak invented the "T" type
crystal allowing them to go to finer grainsize, they correspondingly
increased the contrast. A law of physics. So, I preferred the
original non T type versions; .i.e. 5247 rather than the 5248 T type.
Sorry, drifting off topic.

So a great many labs (here in the US) continue to handle and process
5247/8 type film (CN). As I said, I love it - and managed to secure
quantities of the 5247 version as it was phased out. But you can call
Eastman and inquire about 400 foot reel purchases of current types.
Dale will custom spool, so will Seattle filmworks,

I am assuming that the same ruggedness is built into the current
versions, aka 5298 et al. All because of the need for high speed
processing, and the obvious huge economic penalty imposed if a
re-shoot of a scene had to be made because of a lab imposed scratch.
Can't speak for scan ability, but would assume the same.

This type of film must be handled by Dale, or Seattle. A few local
labs will handle it, but they don't like to because of set-up costs
and the protective backing. Dale prices development/processing, etc.
same as regular C-41, etc. types. So does Seattle.