Thanks Mark,
Your answer is appreciated.
In the past, producing "color separations" was the
reason given by editors/publishers for preferring
slide film. I gather that is no longer true.
In my case, print film "work flow" is preferred due
it's exposure latitude as well as the local
availability of C-41 over E-6 processors.
I am, however, among those who salivate in
anticipation of reviewing slides on a light box with a
quality loupe.
Jack
--- Mark Cassino <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >I had a lab owner emphatically contend
> that.."positive
> > film of the same ISO has finer grain than negative
> > film". Didn't address b&w.
>
> It's been a couple of years since I've made much use
> of 35mm films, so take
> this with a grain of salt....
>
> In general, slow transparency film is less grainy
> than negative film. A good
> ISO 100 or 50 slide film will usually beat even the
> best ISO 100 negative
> film. At ISO 200, some transparency films hold their
> own, but most are as
> grainy or worse than print film. At ISO 400 print
> films generally beat
> slide, with the exception of Fuji's Provia 400 which
> seems to match or beat
> most ISO 400 negative films.
>
> You have to consider several factors when deciding
> slide vs print film.
>
> In the past, work flow issues drove a lot of people
> to slide film, just as
> work flow issues drive a lot of people to digital.
> For printers and
> publishers slide film was a "what you see if what
> you get" set up, so it was
> easier to work with and therefore more in demand for
> publication
> photography. Digital is even better in the workflow
> department, and a lot of
> the reasons for shooting digital are workflow,
> rather than image quality,
> related.
>
> Print film also has much greater exposure latitude
> than slide film. This was
> more or less a mute point with legacy processing,
> where the color photo
> paper had latitude more or less on par with slide
> film. But with scanning,
> that increase in latitude can be a real boon.
>
> > We happened to be reviewing a b&w print at the
> time
> > and their existed a situation wherein the subject
> > couldn't be pursued (customers waiting).
> > I've since emailed him for a follow-up on his
> > recommendation that "b&w film be scanned as
> positive
> > film".
>
> I scan all my B&W film as positive and then reverse
> it in Photoshop. For me,
> that is simply a way of circumventing some of the
> brain dead adjustments
> that the scanning software makes to the image. I
> also push the histogram
> end points out so nothing is clipped and all detail
> is captured. It would
> seem that a properly configured scanning program
> would be able to handle B&W
> film as B&W. Vuescan does a pretty good job in that
> regard. But both the
> software with my Canon scanner and Epson flat bed
> really clip the histogram
> and screw up contrast when scanning B&W negs when
> set for B&W negs. When
> scanning as slide film both softwares seem to make
> minimal - or no -
> adjustments - leaving the screwing up part to me.
> :-0
>
> FWIW - traditional B&W is a whole nother mindset
> than either slide film or
> color neg (or digital). With all of the latter
> there is pretty tight range
> of exposure at which the film will work. Yes, you
> can push or pull slide
> film or color negs, and you can adjust the exposure
> of a digital RAW file
> considerably, but with traditional B&W you have
> really broad latitude to
> push or pull the film via development, and can then
> tweak it a lot in
> scanning and printing. I use some old, toy, and/or
> junk cameras with fixed
> shutter speeds and F-stops, and control exposure
> entirely through
> development of the neg. It's amazing how far you can
> take things when you
> get creative with B&W chemistry - time, temperature,
> and agitation are all
> things that you can modify to control development.
>
> MCC
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Mark Cassino Photography
> Kalamazoo, MI
> www.markcassino.com
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>
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