[filmscanners] Re: Does brand of film really make any differencenowadays?

["alan" <list@alanharper.com>]

[From a lurker on this list]

Well, I think so. Two simple examples--one from film per se, one from
scanning.

Last year I tested some film on a 4x5, comparing Velvia to Astia. Photos
were on the coast, mid afternoon, clear skies but high humidity, hence
the light was a little blue. The difference in the color was remarkable
between the two--the Astia being blue/magenta, while the Velvia really
brought out the greens. I showed the images to a group of people, a
photography class, and everyone agreed that the Velvia was a much better
image. If I had scanned the images, the first thing I would have tried to
do is to match the film, and then "improve" it. If I hadn't had the
Velvia, I wouldn't even have known that the image could be so much more
alive. I don't know how much work it would have been to move the Astia
towards the Velvia digitally, but I suspect it wouldn't be a simple
transformation.

Second example from scanning some medium format E-100S. A desert scene
just after sunrise, orange light, blue shadows. The shadows, which were
naturally a little blue, went more blue with the E-100, then even more
blue on the scan. It was a lot of work to bring them back to something
approaching what I had seen. If I had shot this picture on something
other than E-100S, I suspect that I would have saved hours in Photoshop,
and probably had a better final image. Again, my approach here was to
first "correct" the scan to make it approximate the film, then "improve" it.

Granted, I still have lots to learn about Photoshop....

A



Dieder Bylsma at Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:25:00 -0800 said:

>With the big catch being that grain structure is different at a fixed ISO
>rating between brands of films.... i.e. Portra 160 vs NPC 160 etc...
>
>and with the observation
>
>       *our film scanners can scan an incredible range of colours at high bit 
>depth
>       *digital photo editing tools are highly capable nowadays
>
>does it really make much difference if we choose to shoot with one brand
>of film or another? (assuming grain detail is the same)
>
>
>
>Dieder
>
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