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RE: filmscanners: OT:X-ray fogging
From
the quotes that have been included, I am not sure if you are responding to me or
to someone else. However, I will make a few counterpoints to your
comments.
First
of all, many of those high quality magazines published in the US which are
printed or distributed in Europe have bureaus in Europe whose staffs are full
time residents in that location and not temporary traveling staff personnel
( with some of the full time resident staff being professional
photographers). Thus they are familiar with the consistent and reliable
sources for supplies as well as for processing and if need be pass the
information on to visiting photographers from elsewhere who come to their
location to shoot for their magazines. In the case of the high quality
European magazines that publish and distribute in Europe, their full time
resident staffs as well as any freelancers shooting for them are very familiar
with the reliable and consistent suppliers and labs in the area or are made so
by those in their publications who have that knowledge. This is not the
case for visiting tourists or professional commercial photographers who may be
passing through a given location and not affiliated with any of the major
European or US magazines or newspapers - be they their on vacation, to shoot
stock photos or on commercial assignments.
Secondly, not all the locations in the US or out of the US are major
metropolitan urban areas or near such areas so as to afford visiting
photographers access to high quality suppliers and labs that might be found in
the major metropolitan urban areas; and if they do exist, the visitor will not
know of their existence in advance so as to be able to count on there being at
the location when the visiting photographer is in that location. I would
hate to arrive in some rural village 200 miles from any major urban metropolitan
area with a few rolls of film only to find that there are no suppliers in that
village or the surrounding area or that they only carry one type and speed of
film in small quantities such that I would have to go 200 miles to get the
supplies that I needed. Moreover, not all countries in the world are
industrialized so as to even have major urban metropolitan areas that
serve as centers for any of the uses of commercial photography so as to have
suppliers of international brands of film and modern processing available.
Thirdly, you can get bad film anywhere and you can get screwed up
processing anywhere; that is not the point. The point is that visitors to
a strange area do not know or have any way of knowing who is and who is not
reliable on a consistent basis in the area that they are visiting unlike people
from the area. This means that the visitor takes a much more uncontrolled
and uncalculated risk than the person who is from the area in making purchases
of perishable - so to speak - supplies and getting demanding precision
processing and/or printing done.
Consequently, the risk of fogging via x-rays may frequently be less if
one takes precautions than getting supplies on location or having processing
done on location. Some of the precautions include knowing what countries
have airport scanners that are cranked up to high levels or generate stray
x-rays, which airports do not allow hand checking of films, and the like.
Furthermore, if one is shooting for some major internationally influential
client, the client may have some ways of by-passing the x-raying of their film
via some special arrangements with customs and airport security which the
individual photographer will not have. Many companies that engage in
international commerce use brokers and expediters to get around many of the
requirements that mere mortals encounter.
As a
couple of asides, many of the high quality magazines use their own staff
photographers and staff operated labs; they buy their film, paper, and
chemistry in bulk direct from the film manufacturers or their
distributors. They therefore control the storage conditions of the
supplies which their staff uses so as to assure as best that anyone can the
quality of the supplies rather than leaving such things up to random
chance. They also maintain and control their own developing and
printing processing equipment and activities with respect to regular changing of
chemistry, filtration of water, cleaning of processors, etc.
Another aside has to do with distinguishing between professional
photographers and non-professional photographers with respect to their demands
and needs concerning the delivery of a high quality successful product.
Professionals shooting for commercial purposes are paranoid and concerned about
quality because not only is their reputations at stake but their livelihood is
as well which is not the case for non-commercial photography done by amateurs or
professionals. Thus, while some of what has been said may be appropriate
for non-commercial photography where an adequate or satisfactory quality may be
all the is needed with no major long lived repercussions for failures of poor
results; it is not so for commercially motivated photography. The two
should not be lumped together as having the same demands or needs so as to have
the same solutions.
Just sticking my nose in here, with a
little trepidation, we are surely aware that there are numerous high quality
publications in Europe, including photographic magazines on sale at Borders
and B&N, and I'm sure they didn't have agents in the US getting film at
our local stores, or having their stuff processed in the US. I think Anthony
has a point.
However, photographers are inherently paranoid about having
their precious films processed somewhere that they don't know or have
experience with. I lost an important roll recently here in California when the
local camera store operative screwed up his mini lab, with a grossly
underdeveloped roll. It can happen anywhere.
Hersch
At 03:36 PM
09/07/2001, you wrote:
Laurie writes:
> But not
everybody uses the same quality controls
> or implements them in the
same way with regularity.
The results I've obtained have been
extremely consistent. The process is so
highly automated and
consistent that it is far less likely to be messed up than,
say, the
preparation of prints (although recent advances such as the Fuji
Frontier
appear to be making prints nearly as foolproof as
well).
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