[filmscanners] RE: My best scanner/film combinations

["Austin Franklin" <austin@darkroom.com>]

Hi Julian,

Very good post!

> a) because the brightnesses have been compressed on to the neg film, when
> you scan and "reconstitute" the image to look like the original scene, you
> will have to "re-expand" the image.  Doing this will also expand the
> visibility of grain / dye clouds / noise / film imperfections / scratches
> etc so the result is a grainier, less smooth image.

This I disagree with, not the re-expand part, as that's correct, but the
downsides you mention being caused by this.  The downside you talk about are
optical resolution in nature, not tonal (resolution) in nature, so I don't
see the connection.  This could also be an issue with your scanner.

> b) same reason, you lose some of the subtlety and nice tonal
> graduation you
> can get with a slide.

I'm not sure I agree with that either...

> You will notice that my response unsurprisingly disagrees in some respects
> from Austin's!

Gee, we even disagree on that!  I found little disagreement...only on one
issue, the tonal capability of slide vs film.

> >...why? The tonality of color negative film is better than slide film,
>
> I don't know what "tonality" means here, but I disagree with the statement
> for any interpretation I can make.  Slides scan to have more tonal
> smoothness and better tonal graduation than negs.

If you take a picture of a stepped tone wedge with both slide film and
negative film, the negative film will discern more tones over a "fixed"
tonal range.

> >and negative film scans better.
>
> Only from the point of view of brightness range.  Scans worse from the
> point of view of noise/grain/whatever.

I, personally, have not found that.  Grain is a matter of resolution, not a
matter of tonality.

You wouldn't happen to have any examples you could post of what you are
talking about?  Have you actually shot a scene with both films and seen the
difference?  I personally have not.

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