Lab scans or negatives with Negative Lab Pro

Denis99

Denis99

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Denis
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Hi,

Returning to 35mm film photography alongside still using digital..

I have bought a 35mm camera, and need some advice about lab scans vs negatives.

I see that all the labs offer, film neg development, varying sizes of scans at differing price points for lower/ higher quality scans, and a range of print options.

I have a Nikon Zf with a Laowa 90mm macro lens, and a version 2 copy of Negative Lab Pro.

My question is,

Do I just get medium quality scans from a lab, and then process in LR.

Or, buy the Valoi easy 35 scan device and just get the negs processed, and do my own digital scan with the Nikon and macro lens.

I know it would involve an additional upfront cost of the Valoi easy 35, but I would be hoping for some parity between lab scans and my digital scanning.

Any advice and comments appreciated.
 
Well, you could do your own scans, of course. But you'd probably still end up putting them through LR, or some such anyway. It depends entirely upon how tactile you want to be.
 
If you're shooting a decent amount of film, and you're able to get satisfactory scans at home, then it will quickly become cost effective. You'll also be able to get much higher resolution scans at home than most labs offer too (unless you're willing to pay for big scans). If you choose lab scans and want to do any further editing, then make sure you can get .TIF files, as JPGs will limit the amount of editing you can do.

Converting colour negatives can take a little practice to get right, even using something like Negative Lab Pro, and you may still find that some pictures (or occasionally whole rolls!) give disappointing results or need a lot of work but, on the whole, you should be able to get scans you are happy with.

There's some info in this thread that might be of use:

www.talkphotography.co.uk

Colour Negative Film: Negative Lab Pro vs Silverfast vs Filmdev

So this is probably overly dull, but getting decent colour has been a real thorn in my side for a *long* time now. In the end, I gave up and sent everything to Filmdev asking for "large" scans so I didn't have to worry. But the expense of paying for a "large" scan that is the same size no...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk

And a blog post I wrote:

steelcitysnapper.wordpress.com

Colour blindness – struggles with converting colour negatives in a way I’m happy with

One of my biggest issues with colour film is, well… the colour. Getting the darned stuff to look “right” is a test for my patience and also my sanity it can seem. Even when I get …
steelcitysnapper.wordpress.com steelcitysnapper.wordpress.com
 
Thanks, Nige

Your info does give me some help.

I think I will settle for just having the negatives processed, and then scanning them myself with Valio Easy 35.

I have a capable camera and macro lens so that part is already in place.

I like the idea of having larger scans made by myself, and although it might be a little bit of a learning curve, I can process the negatives to my taste.
 
Denis99 said:
Thanks, Nige

Your info does give me some help.

I think I will settle for just having the negatives processed, and then scanning them myself with Valio Easy 35.

I have a capable camera and macro lens so that part is already in place.

I like the idea of having larger scans made by myself, and although it might be a little bit of a learning curve, I can process the negatives to my taste.
Click to expand...
My suggestion is, get a roll devved and scanned by the lab AND scanned by yourself. With my setup (completely different from your) I really struggle to get anything half way decent from C41 colour film, and always get it lab scanned. Black and white and E6 (or Kodachrome in days of yore :love:(y)) I scan myself, and save a ton of cash. Filmdev is surprisingly inexpensive for medium C41 dev/scan.

And despite what everyone says about JPEGs, you can do quite a lot of "normal" PP (the kind you might have done in the darkroom in t'olden days) with them. without obvious ill effects But If you're already a hardened RAW user, I'm sure that will fall on deaf ears! ;)

PS I'd REALLY like to know how you get on with the Valoi Easy 35, if you choose that route, for the Big Film Scanner thread.
 
Well, I took the plunge and bought the Valoi Easy 35, with the dust remover as an accessory.

Haven’t had the chance to use my new film camera, but did find some very old negatives that I had from years…..ago.

Bit of set up required with the Valoi, determining the length of tubes required to get the 35mm negative to match my 35mm full frame sensor, but relatively easy.

Feeding the negatives through is easy, position the negative to be central in the 35mm sensor, fine tune the focus and set to f8.

Take the image.

Although the negs are not the best in the world, probably processed by a high street shop, back in the day.

I used Negative Lab Pro in LR.

Pleased with the results, I am sure that they will be better given new negatives and some more accurate focusing from my (new to me) Nikon F4.

Keep you posted.
 
I would heartily recommend anybody who's serious about the results, doing their own scanning - whether with a decent film scanner or by the camera method. That way, you have quality control of the output. Colours are one thing - which shouldn't be that hard, though could be time-consuming - but also critical across the board for colour or mono is tonal range - or more exactly, the end points. Lab scans can lose information that was in the neg, in which case you're compromised in what you can take forward with further processing. I'm not just theorising with this- it happens!
 
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If it helps anyone at all, I've been faffing around with a lightbox and a vintage macro lens on my Fuji X-T20, in combination with this excellent tutorial that uses free tools (GIMP & Rawtherapee). I think, colour accuracy-wise, the results speak for themselves. My ability to focus the camera, on the other hand, is questionable. But this is at least a useful comparison to what you can expect to get at home with a truly basic setup.

Scan from Take it Easy Labs in Leeds:
TakeItEasyLab-Scan by Chris Walker, on Flickr

My scan at home, using a Fuji APS-C camera, PK-FX converter and a Pentax SMC-A 50mm Macro lens; plus the above linked tutorial:
Home-Scan by Chris Walker, on Flickr

I am not particularly interested in doing this process for whole rolls of film; its fun for a few and to process under/over exposed negs or weird colours (like above) but a total faff for whole rolls.

However this does lead me to ask questions about how labs are scanning, and who might be the most colour accurate lab...
 
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I was thinking of the Valoi Easy 35 myself.

The lab I now use is £21 for colour & TIFF scans - I think £6 develop only. So after at least a dozen films at -£15 a time I'd be starting to break even :)

The trouble is, I don't have a macro lens either.... :ROFLMAO:
 
LeeRatters said:
I was thinking of the Valoi Easy 35 myself.

The lab I now use is £21 for colour & TIFF scans - I think £6 develop only. So after at least a dozen films at -£15 a time I'd be starting to break even :)

The trouble is, I don't have a macro lens either.... :ROFLMAO:
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The Pentax one I have, i picked up for £30. Its a cracker too. You don't need a spangly one. Well, I don't :ROFLMAO:
 
LeeRatters said:
The trouble is, I don't have a macro lens either.... :ROFLMAO:
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At 1:1 magnification the “APS-C” TTArtisan 40mm covers full frame on Sony, quite close working distance though (which might not matter here) but I find it excellent, especially for the price.

I will probably end up using mine to scan some 6x6 negs at some point, but if you’re interested I can find something to shoot for a resolution target across full frame at 1:1.
 
LeeRatters said:
I was thinking of the Valoi Easy 35 myself.

The lab I now use is £21 for colour & TIFF scans - I think £6 develop only. So after at least a dozen films at -£15 a time I'd be starting to break even :)

The trouble is, I don't have a macro lens either.... :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
You could reverse an old 50mm standard lens fitted to a cheep set of manual bellows for the cost of not a lot.
 
zx9 said:
You could reverse an old 50mm standard lens fitted to a cheep set of manual bellows for the cost of not a lot.
Click to expand...

Actually, I have a Yashica ML50/1.9 in my film collection. And I do have a set of extension tubes too.

Will have to test IQ through it.
 
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My overall impression is that I would prefer to have good quality scans made by the film developer,

It’s just a little bit of a faff , and not quite there in terms of colour quality.
 
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