You
may have been in the situation where you had a photo shoot and your
film is ready to be developed, but you don’t just want prints and
negatives. You want to be able to edit your photos on your computer,
share them online, and be able to print them on your inkjet printer
whenever you want. For all of these things, you will need digital
scans.
When
it comes to scanning your film, you have a few options. Each
has their own price point and set of pro’s and cons.
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| scanning at home with a flat bed scanner |
For
at-home scanning:
You
can just have your negatives developed (by yourself or by a lab) and
then scan them at home. You can use a flatbed scanner with a
negative light (usually LED) that will allow you to scan strips of
negatives in usually any size from 8mm to 8x10”. Most flatbed
scanners have low dynamic range (the amount of shades of gray from
white to black). The higher the dynamic range, the more information
or detail your scanner will be able to pull out of the shadows in
your negative. The other flaw of most flatbeds is sharpness.
Negatives must be held flat for the image to be scanned sharply and
most of the film holders that come with flatbeds are flimsy and won’t
hold a negative perfectly flat. There are third party film
holders you can purchase that will make this a little better
however. Flatbeds are usually the most inexpensive way to scan your
film. Tip: It will also be handy to have a dust blower on hand, as
you'll want your flatbed as clean as can be. Any dust on the negative
or glass will show up on your scans.
Your
next at-home option is to get a dedicated film scanner like a Nikon Coolscan (I recommend the Nikon Coolscan 4000- I love this scanner
for 35mm), a Minolta Dimage, or an Imacon. These scanners are your
best option for high quality at-home scans. These machines are set
up for film-only and not for documents or prints like a flatbed is.
Some film scanners just scan 35mm, but the higher-end models can also scan medium format (and sometimes large format) film sizes.
Dedicated film scanners can scan entire rolls of film, a single
slide, or a film strip. The better models include digital ICE to
remove any dust and even multi-pass scans. In multi-pass scans, the
negative is scanned several times, each time for a different
highlight or shadow level so that you get a file that has all of the
highlight and shadow detail in it. This feature increases scan time
but creates the best scans. Depending on your DPI setting and multi-pass setting, a roll can be scanned anywhere from 15 minutes to over
an hour (multi-pass increases the scan time greatly).
At-home
scanning takes time and effort. You will have to color correct and
watch out for dust. If you are only shooting a few rolls of film
here and there, or just want the ability to scan right away when you
develop your rolls, then this option is great. If you're shooting a
lot of work on film where a good chunk of it needs to be scanned in (such as a wedding photographer) however, then I would recommend considering
outsourcing your scanning to a lab, or even have the lab develop and
scan your film at the same time. If you are like me and have over 30
rolls a job to develop and scan, then this is a great time saver.
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| scanning process options, computer screen |
For
photo lab scans:
Having
your lab scan your film is definitely time saving, but more costly
than doing it yourself. With labs, you don’t have as many options
as you would with doing it yourself, but you do still have options.
Most
labs scan on one of two kinds of commercial scanners, a Fuji Frontier
or a Noritsu. Both scanners are awesome but both have different ways
of reading color and rendering sharpness. Some photographers prefer
the Fuji for color and the Noritsu for black and white. Your best
bet if you're planning on outsourcing a lot of scanning it is to send
the same roll of film to a few different labs and then compare the
results before you choose which lab as your go-to lab.
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| scanning at a pro photo lab |
I
have found that the machine the lab uses is not as important as the
person doing the scanning however. The lab employe that is doing the
scanning has more control over how your image will look then anyone
else. A good lab will talk to you about how you want your film to be
scanned, how much contrast you like, your color tone, etc. For example, do you
want your images to look cool or warm? These are options a good lab
will offer you.
Watch
for labs that don’t color correct or watch for dust on your film.
The scans you get back should be clean and free of dust. One dot of
dust here and there is fine, but if you are getting dust all over
your scans, find a new lab. The scans you get back should be good
enough to blog or print. (This is of course when we are talking about
professional photographic labs and not the scans you can get at your
local drug store photo lab.) Having a good lab do your work will
create a relationship and consistent end product for you and your
clients.
Most
labs offer two different sizes of film scans- 6 megapixels and 11
megapixels. Average cost at a good lab for the 6 megapixel range is
$15 for a develop and scan at the same time. An 11 megapixel scan
will cost more since it takes the lab’s machine longer to render
the images.
Labs I personally recommend: Richard Photo Lab, North Coast Photo Lab, and The
Finer Image Photo Lab (I use all three of these labs and get great
work from them).
While
labs may cost you more out of pocket, it can save you time and
energy. And on the flip side, if you like to experiment with your film or have complete control, then purchasing your
own scanner and doing it yourself is a great option. Which ever way you decide to go, the scanning
features that you need to especially pay attention to (or ask about) are the scan size (file
size), dynamic range (image shadow detail), and digital ICE (dust
detection and removal).
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Click here for more places to buy and develop film
Contributor Bio: Joseph Prezioso is a
professional photographer who has been shooting for over twelve years
and went from shooting film, to 100% digital, and then back to film
again. He says, "By trade I am a wedding photographer, I shoot over 30
weddings a year and this year they were all on film. My career started
as a newspaper photographer though. I was 16 and like Jimmy Olsen. I
learned on the streets shooting next to veteran photographers for the AP
and Boston Globe (I worked for some weeklies but I got to cover a lot
of cool events that the big news guys covered too!). Film is something I
have fallen in love with, its the medium I learned on. Film will always
be something special to me. It feels more versatile and creative in my
hands then when I am using digital."
