MF Film For Scanning: C-41 or E-6?

Hi everyone! If my intent is to have my 120 film developed and then scan them and edit if needed and finally print them on my home printer, does it matter a lot if I use color print film or slide film? Will I be able to achieve what one type will look like using the other type? Just musing! Thanks!

slide film will not have as much dynamic range as negative film will, you'll get probalby a few extra stops by going to negative film, depending on which negative film and positive film you look at.

I believe Astia is a good positive film, having more range than most other positive films, but less saturation (but for scanning, less saturation is better, I think).

Also keep in mind that you can use UT8 calibration targets for positive film to calibrate the scanner, but this process is not possible for negative. Having said that, if you take a picture of the UT8 at the beginning of each roll you could then repeat the process for negatives also but it is very cumbersome.

You can scan positive film as positive. You can also scan it as negative but I would not know why you should do that. Some scanner software try to remove the non-existing emulsion mask from the positive if you scan it as negative so be careful.

You can also scan negatives as positive. In that case, you have to remove the orange tinted emulsion mask yourself and invert the image to make it positive. Believe me, unless you have specialist software you would not want to go there. Getting the right color hues and white balance is a PIA.

HTH

Cheers,

All those reasons and more are why I have my lab do the scans.

Pick the film you prefer. Scanning today can be achieved by running your scanner under the control of 3rd party software. The best two seem to be Lasersoft and the bargain of the Century, is the stalwart software by the one man company of Ed Hamrick. Gwt the trial Vuescan Download from Hamrick.com and read the Vuescan User's Guide!

Positive or negative, both software packages will do very well.

Asher

Thank you all for your replies! I really learn a lot from this forum everyday (although I will have to admit that there are times when the answers become too technical for me, but that's okay).

Asher Kelman said:

Pick the film you prefer. Scanning today can be achieved by running your scanner under the control of 3rd party software. The best two seem to be Lasersoft and the bargain of the Century, is the stalwart software by the one man company of Ed Hamrick. Gwt the trial Vuescan Download from Hamrick.com and read the Vuescan User's Guide!

Positive or negative, both software packages will do very well.

Asher

Click to expand...

Thanks Asher! I think I can save somehow with C-41 film, both in the cost of the film and the cost of developing, but it probably may not be very significant for a low volume user like me (for now, at least). More importantly, I think there's nothing like the joy of holding transparencies against a lightbox!

Ian L. Sitren said:

All those reasons and more are why I have my lab do the scans.

Click to expand...

Hi Ian! So in your case where you have your lab do the scans (which may be the case for me since I still haven't acquired a scanner that can do MF film), does the choice of film matter a lot?

Albert Ramos said:

Hi Ian! So in your case where you have your lab do the scans (which may be the case for me since I still haven't acquired a scanner that can do MF film), does the choice of film matter a lot?

Click to expand...

Actually I did have this conversation with them and they recommended negative film. And the results have been excellent.

Lately I have been shooting a lot of Tri-X and love the results. I do seem to run in phases where I might shoot Fuji or Kodak and did shoot a bunch of Ilford. They are all good and deliver slightly different results. I am somewhat in a Kodak 'mood' at the moment, very much enjoying Portra and Tri-X.

Albert Ramos said:

Hi everyone! If my intent is to have my 120 film developed and then scan them and edit if needed and finally print them on my home printer, does it matter a lot if I use color print film or slide film? Will I be able to achieve what one type will look like using the other type? Just musing! Thanks!

Click to expand...

I use a Nikon 9000 scanner, and Nikon software.

I always get better scans at the expense of much more grain when using negative film, The tight DR of positive film results in more problems, but the scans are free from grain.

Scans from the negative film is more appealing to me, with better tonal gradations, better correction possibilities etc. But when I have to print large photos (from scanned files), I think the grain shows too much, and slide film may be better for the purpose.

Seyhun

Seyhun Agar said:

I use a Nikon 9000 scanner, and Nikon software.

I always get better scans at the expense of much more grain when using negative film, The tight DR of positive film results in more problems, but the scans are free from grain.

Scans from the negative film is more appealing to me, with better tonal gradations, better correction possibilities etc. But when I have to print large photos (from scanned files), I think the grain shows too much, and slide film may be better for the purpose.

Seyhun

Click to expand...

Hi Seyhun,

Welcome to OPF, I hope you'll like it here . Please don't forget to visit the "introduce yourself" forum and do just that.

I agree with you, negative scanning delivers better tonality but it is more difficult to color correct and the grain can be an issue. I shoot predominantly slides nowadays, mostly Provia or Velvia.

BTW, I assume you are from Turkey, right? If so: hosgeldiniz.

Cheers,