Today, I took delivery of some slides I had printed by Gamma
Tech.

Pre-process ==
I started with several images exposed on film in my TL120-1.
A couple were on Provia 100F, another was on Kodak E100G. I
scanned them using my Epson 4990 scanner, using a
betterscanning.com variable-height, glass-insert scanning
frame. I'm new to this scanning game, so I'm sure I didn't
achieve the ultimate quality, but I was impressed with what I
achieved at 4800dpi.

Stereophoto Maker crashed when fed my 700MB image-pair, so I
did two things:
A) Used SPM on downsampled pairs and cropped them to 3:2 for
printing on 35mm film.
B) Aligned and cropped them in Photoshop (thanks for your
help, Bob!) for printing as 54x54mm square images.

These were sent off as jpg files to gammatech.com on Sunday
afternoon, and the film was back in my hands Saturday
morning. For $32.50 (including postage), I received eight
35mm frames (four stereo images) and two 60mm frames (one
stereo image).

While Gamma Tech charges $10/medium-format-image, I was able
to get my stereo image printed for $10 by noticing that they
charged the same for a 6x6 as they did for a 6x12. The image
area available for the "6x12" is actually 54.4x108.8mm which
is sufficient for two 54x54mm images crammed side-by-side. It
worked out to $5 for a 35mm pair and $10 for a MF3D pair.

Post-process ==
The sleeved film arrived and I mounted it up. It's been a
while since I've mounted 35mm and I'd forgotten how darned
easy it is! But how do they look?

On my initial viewing, I felt the 35mm images were lacking
contrast and sharpness. It was kind of neat to see, but they
were of lesser quality than I was expecting.

The MF3D image was... well, it was big, but it was
disappointing. I felt it was lacking dynamic range, color
range, contrast and sharpness. ie It lacked all the qualities
we value in MF3D.

To confirm my suspicions, I mounted the original image (I
hadn't yet viewed it, other than through the scanner) and put
it in another viewer. That was the image I was looking for.
It was crisp, high contrast and with nice colors.

Speculation ==
I strongly suspect that the source of my dissatisfaction is
my poor scanning technique. Working with a flat-bed scanner
and having no experience, I'm sure I didn't capture and
retain all of the dynamic range and color information
available in the original.

I'd really like to see if the film-recorder method will
produce an acceptable dupe and I think my scanning is the
weak link. Does anyone have a good image scan they are
willing to offer up as a sample? If you can produce a 7,744 x
15,488 stereo pair, I'll be happy to drop another $12.50 to
get it printed. If you don't want to manipulate the files,
I'm happy to do that part, too.
________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us

> Speculation ==
> I strongly suspect that the source of my dissatisfaction is
> my poor scanning technique. Working with a flat-bed scanner
> and having no experience, I'm sure I didn't capture and
> retain all of the dynamic range and color information
> available in the original.

film - digital - film

is a tricky process.... its NOT just the weakest link in the chain, instead, its the
additive IQ loss in all the steps that dictates the final IQ. But, you are on the right
track, your first weak link is surely the scanner. A scanners IQ is dependent on its
lens quality and CCD sensor quality Just like digital cameras, the cost of the system
usually dictates its IQ. For making small enlargements for print, the consumer flat beds
are adequate, but they have limitations when you start pushing them to 4k dpi. Their
efficiency falls off a cliff.... and stereo film viewing is the most demanding of all
dupe processes.

But, it can get worse, as next you must consider how you manipulated the files and then,
what type of film recorder was used to write to film. Was it calibrated to to the the
film you used? In the early 2000's, the price range on film writers were from a few
thous to over a $100k....of course the IQ varied greatly. They also have wear and
require maint., which is often not possible with no spare parts for most writers.

I assume your goal was to reduce the MF size to 35mm film size? If you want to see the
potential, I suggest you give the original to a lab with a good drum scanner, like an ICG,
and a good film writer, such as Kodak, or even a Mark IV that a member of this list uses,
luker dupes, ?? I may have got the spelling wrong... of course, this is not a low cost
trial at a lab...

As an alternative, you can find a lab that takes the MF film and reduces onto 4x5 film
sheet size using an enlarger, with the lens reversed, probably much lower cost and this
should be pretty damn good if done with good enlarging lenses and good technique.



bill

>
> I'd really like to see if the film-recorder method will
> produce an acceptable dupe and I think my scanning is the
> weak link. Does anyone have a good image scan they are
> willing to offer up as a sample? If you can produce a 7,744 x
> 15,488 stereo pair, I'll be happy to drop another $12.50 to
> get it printed. If you don't want to manipulate the files,
> I'm happy to do that part, too.
> ________________________________________
> John Thurston
> Juneau, Alaska
> http://stereo.thurstons.us
>
>

Bill G wrote:

> I assume your goal was to reduce the MF size to 35mm film size?

Actually, my goals are two:
A) Produce an reasonably acceptable stereo pair for "family"
distribution. This might be 35mm slides or 4x6 prints with a
folding viewer. I think I can achieve this with my tools and
limited skills.

B) Produce an acceptable MF3D dupe. Here, I'm thinking of a
dupe of sufficient quality that I'd be willing to submit it
to a folio as a facsimile of the original.

I'm investigating getting a contact 4x5 dupe made from my
mounted slide. This will involve mailing my slides somewhere
which doesn't excite me.

I could send my film out for professional scanning, but then
I'm _still_ mailing my film out and I'm not yet convinced
that even a professional scan is going to "print" well enough
to meet goal (B).

________________________________________
John Thurston
Juneau, Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us

> A) Produce an reasonably acceptable stereo pair for "family"
> distribution. This might be 35mm slides or 4x6 prints with a
> folding viewer. I think I can achieve this with my tools and
> limited skills.

Yep, 4x6 prints is ~ 2x enlargement, your scanner will handle that
fine..

>
> B) Produce an acceptable MF3D dupe. Here, I'm thinking of a
> dupe of sufficient quality that I'd be willing to submit it
> to a folio as a facsimile of the original.



>
> I'm investigating getting a contact 4x5 dupe made from my
> mounted slide. This will involve mailing my slides somewhere
> which doesn't excite me.

Yep...

>
> I could send my film out for professional scanning, but then
> I'm _still_ mailing my film out and I'm not yet convinced
> that even a professional scan is going to "print" well enough
> to meet goal (B).

if you use a high-end film writer, which is finely calibrated to a
film that you like, (for 35mm, I would print to velvia) then the results should be
excellent. I have scanned MF slides on both my ICG drum and my Screen Cezzanne Elite....
and printed them on my Kodak drum writer, which writes to 8x10 sheets, so you can fit
quite a few MF dupes on one 8x10 sheet, results were superb.... when viewed at nearly
equal Horiz. FOV loupes, it was very difficult to pick the better one... but now, my
writer is down, I have a 2nd one I had purchased as back-up, cause Kodak stopped making
parts for them in 05... so its a crap-shoot if I can swap the mother board out and make it
work, another very time consuming project I wish I never started...


the other option I would suggest is.... instead of prints, print to back lit trannies,
even on home inkjets, the quality is superb. But you need a decent viewer and nice
diffused lit panels to take advantage of this.... more PITA...


Another option, I saw a nice print viewer on Jon Goldens site, (I don't own one) which
will accept 65mm wide prints, this might be a nice low cost means to share your work with
others... its worth a try, very simple low cost method to reproduce 3d

http://www.stereoscopy.com/3d-concepts/viewerspr.html



Bill

>
> ________________________________________
> John Thurston
> Juneau, Alaska
> http://stereo.thurstons.us
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

I'm just looking to "dumb down" some of my MF format slides to digital format to enter some competitions.

I'm wondering if using a scanner service would be noticeably better than using a home scanner for required low resolution.

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, Bill G wrote:
>
>
>
> > A) Produce an reasonably acceptable stereo pair for "family"
> > distribution. This might be 35mm slides or 4x6 prints with a
> > folding viewer. I think I can achieve this with my tools and
> > limited skills.
>
>
> Yep, 4x6 prints is ~ 2x enlargement, your scanner will handle that
> fine..
>
>
> >
> > B) Produce an acceptable MF3D dupe. Here, I'm thinking of a
> > dupe of sufficient quality that I'd be willing to submit it
> > to a folio as a facsimile of the original.
>
>
>
> >
> > I'm investigating getting a contact 4x5 dupe made from my
> > mounted slide. This will involve mailing my slides somewhere
> > which doesn't excite me.
>
>
> Yep...
>
>
> >
> > I could send my film out for professional scanning, but then
> > I'm _still_ mailing my film out and I'm not yet convinced
> > that even a professional scan is going to "print" well enough
> > to meet goal (B).
>
>
>
> if you use a high-end film writer, which is finely calibrated to a
> film that you like, (for 35mm, I would print to velvia) then the results should be
> excellent. I have scanned MF slides on both my ICG drum and my Screen Cezzanne Elite....
> and printed them on my Kodak drum writer, which writes to 8x10 sheets, so you can fit
> quite a few MF dupes on one 8x10 sheet, results were superb.... when viewed at nearly
> equal Horiz. FOV loupes, it was very difficult to pick the better one... but now, my
> writer is down, I have a 2nd one I had purchased as back-up, cause Kodak stopped making
> parts for them in 05... so its a crap-shoot if I can swap the mother board out and make it
> work, another very time consuming project I wish I never started...
>
>
> the other option I would suggest is.... instead of prints, print to back lit trannies,
> even on home inkjets, the quality is superb. But you need a decent viewer and nice
> diffused lit panels to take advantage of this.... more PITA...
>
>
> Another option, I saw a nice print viewer on Jon Goldens site, (I don't own one) which
> will accept 65mm wide prints, this might be a nice low cost means to share your work with
> others... its worth a try, very simple low cost method to reproduce 3d
>
> http://www.stereoscopy.com/3d-concepts/viewerspr.html
>
>
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > John Thurston
> > Juneau, Alaska
> > http://stereo.thurstons.us
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Hello Lattie,

A home scanner is plenty fine for this. In fact I think it is plenty fine for much more than that. I am using an Epson V700.

Thanks,

David W. Kesner
Boise, Idaho, USA
www.dddphotography.com

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 9:33 AM, lattie_smart <lattie_smart@yahoo.com> wrote:

I'm just looking to "dumb down" some of my MF format slides to digital format to enter some competitions.

I'm wondering if using a scanner service would be noticeably better than using a home scanner for required low resolution.

lattie_smart wrote:

>
> I'm just looking to "dumb down" some of my MF format slides to
> digital format to enter some competitions.
>
> I'm wondering if using a scanner service would be noticeably better
> than using a home scanner for required low resolution.

There's only one answer to that. "It depends."

I have scanned my own film, and had film scanned both at the time of
processing and afterwards.

The film lab I use will provide low resolution (3000x2000 for 35mm,
2000x2000 for 6x6) JPEG scans made at the time of processing. These
are generally good enough for the web, and quick 4x6 prints on an
Epson Picture Mate. I don't think flatbed scanners are good enough
for 35mm film, so this is the only way I scan 35mm. For quick low
resolution scans I think this is the best option.

For my own film scanning (MF and 4x5) I use an Epson 2450 flatbed
scanner (quite old) with a Better Scanning
<http://betterscanning.com/> film holder (without the ANR glass), and
Vuescan software <http://hamrick.com/> on an iMac. While I've had
success with this (last year I scanned film from my Yashica Mat 124G
for a book project), I've also had failures (for this year's book
project I wound up abandoning my scans of the negatives from my Pentax
67II and used shots from my Pentax DSLR, finishing with a completely
different project). I've waffled over getting the ANR glass for my
film holder (which I think will improve the work flow, and help keep
the film flatter), versus getting an Epson v700 flatbed scanner. The
third option is pitching it all and spending the time and money
building out a darkroom.

I've also had some 4x5 film scanned at very high resolution. The
results were mixed. A shot that needed a bit of digital work done,
and was output to another sheet of 4x5 didn't impress me at all (going
from Kodak Ektachrome 100Plus to some Fuji film produced awful colors
in the final film), but another shot that was scanned by a different
lab and output on a Lightjet turned out very nice. If you're going to
have someone else scan for you, picking the right lab is very
important.

--
Brian Reynolds | "It's just like flying a spaceship.
reynolds@panix.com | You push some buttons and see
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/ | what happens." -- Zapp Brannigan
NAR# 54438 |

--- In MF3D-group@yahoogroups.com, John Thurston wrote:

> While Gamma Tech charges $10/medium-format-image, I was able
> to get my stereo image printed for $10 by noticing that they
> charged the same for a 6x6 as they did for a 6x12. The image
> area available for the "6x12" is actually 54.4x108.8mm which
> is sufficient for two 54x54mm images crammed side-by-side. It
> worked out to $5 for a 35mm pair and $10 for a MF3D pair.

Hi John,

I hadn't seen this. The Gammatech website has been updated since I first used their MF service a couple years ago. Getting a MF3D pair for $10 (maybe even like ~$7each for a "bulk" order) is possibly a great deal, since they do a better job than Slides.com which charged me $10 per pair. Trimming that 118mm wide strip doesn't leave much room for error though! I wonder if there is any lens errors or vignetting in the far corners?

In my experience all 35mm film recording sucks in a high mag hand viewer, though I admit I haven't tried Lukerdupes (which some people swear by). It was fairly OK for 35mm twin projection, but who the hell does that anymore.

Off the top, my guess is you'd be hard pressed to see a significant difference between an 8K feed and a 16K feed. I'm willing to try a few (eventually). My biggest scans of real photos (which you like ;-) are 5400 high, but I can make CGI stuff 7744 high with ease (or maybe one could just render up a test chart).

Fun stuff,

John

Have any of you considered Cibachromes as the answer to your problem?
Steve

coronet3d wrote:

> Have any of you considered Cibachromes as the answer to your problem?

I have two very different needs, and I don't see Cibachrome
as helping me reach either of them.
A) Produce some low-cost images from my MF3D media. This is
either 35mm slides or stereo cards. Stereo cards are going
to turn out just fine with a scan of my film as the source.
35mm slides will probably turn out adequate with a scan of
my film as source.

B) Produce MF3D from my MF3D media. Slides produced from my
scans were inadequate so I'm going to see about optical
dupes. I don't see how cibachrome is going to help me here.
--
John Thurston
Juneau Alaska
http://stereo.thurstons.us