[filmscanners] Re: Oops?

["" <scott@adrenaline.com>]

Yes,  I actually have purchased a license for Vuescan and
haven't given it enough attention, still using NikonScan and
the Coolscan V for most of my work.

I develop my own B&W negs and then scan them (no darkroom).
I shoot mostly HP5+ and FP4+, with occasional TMZ. I dev almost
exclusively with HC110 (B) and recently (H). I try to develop for a
low contrast, thinner negative to please the scanner, and have achieved
pretty good results with HP5 in dilution (H) at both 320 and 800 ISO.


But I have some problems.

(1) I haven't been so lucky with FP4+, where the highlights are blown
routinely even with extrememly conservative development, as in
HC110 dilution H at only 8 minutes.  I did some film speed tests
per Les McLean's book.   Black cardboard, white cardboard, lots
of cloth, metal, glass stuff on top. Meter with an incident meter and
then shoot +2, +1, +0, -1, -2 stops for a whole 35mm roll. Cut into
three strips and develop different ways.

The coolscan barfed on the highlights (white cardboard) every time
except for the -2 stop exposures. But then the shadow detail was
unacceptible, as you can imagine.

I want to use slower films to support some larger enlargements. I'm
about to start experimenting with Delta 100 and Fuji Acros, but these
seem to have even less forgiving contrast curves than FP4+ from
what I read.

I've been trying to tweak analog gain, but this is limited, because big
tweaks increase grain appearance, which negates the whole point of
using slower film in the first place.

(2)  I often get what look like weird bright reflections off the grain. Not
in highlight areas. It's like bright specs, visible at 1:1 mag. This
stuff really
makes its appearance known during USM.  I wonder if this is due to the
Coolscan's LCD light source?  don't know.

(3) As I experiment and futz, I wonder exactly what Nikon's "auto-exposure"
is doing to the raw scan results. I can't find any documentation. In my
film
speed scans, I can see that AE is trying to control the highlights, but
I don't
know how AE is doing this. Is it *only* the equivalent of a curve adjustment
that I could make myself, or is it adjusting the analog gain or maybe doing
something else?   Any input here would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, howdy to the list from a new member.  I do need to experiment with
scanning B&W film as a positive and see what I get going that route.

Scott


lists@lazygranch.com wrote:

>Give Ed Hamrick's Vuescan a try. The demo mode (last time I checked
>which I will admit was 4 years ago) just puts a watermark on the
>image.There used to only be one version, but now there is a pro and
>regular (maybe called basic) version. If you like it, get the Pro
>version since it is updated frequently. Ed has many profiles for Kodak
>B&W film.
>
>I would think that Nikon's lack of a color mask would make for
>exceptional B&W scans. On more conventional scanners, people have tried
>to scan in color and then pick the best looking channel to convert to
>grayscale.
>
>It's really a shame they can't make an  B&W transparency film (other
>than Scala, which is really "fringe":). I find scanning positives to me
>much easier than negatives. Yes, the scanner has an easier time with
>negatives since the densities are not as extreme, but the inversion
>process is the gremlin.
>
>Any particular type of B&W film you find most difficult?
>
>Here is an idea. See if the Nikon software will let you scan the B&W
>film as color slide film. Then see if the histogram is reasonably centered.
>
>scott@adrenaline.com wrote:
>
>
>
>>I only get messages very, very sporadically. Is there traffic on
>>this list that I'm missing?
>>
>>I'm desparate for tips on getting better scans of  B&W film on
>>a Nikon Coolscan V, understanding Nikon's "autoexposure" vs.
>>what I might do myself and so forth.
>>
>>Scott
>>
>>
>>lists@lazygranch.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>I have a different problem. My last two posts never showed up.
>>>
>>>Berry Ives wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>When I checked my in box this morning, all of my filmscanner mail for the
>>>>last 3 months was gone.  Perhaps I did something...maybe just losing it, my
>>>>mind, that is.  Anyway, just in case someone expected a response from me to
>>>>something I haven't seen...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body