Medium Format Colour: Transparency or Negative?

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Well I started the year off right and did something I haven't done before, shot color with my SL-66 (in freezing cold). It's maybe the first time I've even looked through the viewfinder without a yellow, orange or red filter on it! The Maxwell screen made it a joy and I shot some macro images on Fujichrome 100F (220). Haven't processed it yet but this may be a new series for me and I'm wondering which way to go, color negative or transparency.

I have a lab (of unknown quality) within walking distance who run both E-6 and C-41 for good prices. My concern is that I will be scanning and perhaps it will be easier to zero in the color on E-6 images rather than C-41. I really want to work out a smooth workflow and don't want to have to start from square one on every roll. Scanning with an Epson 4990.

I think I recall someone saying that E-6 was less problematic? Any of you medium format color shooters have opinions? Rawhead?

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

I've no experience with medium format color, so I'll post just few thoughts.
The big difference from scanning slide and neg, as you may guess, is the orange mask which may be tough to remove. Epson scan (or whatever sw you're using will do that for you) but you may be happy or not with the out of the box job. It's certainly possible to do the job with your photo editing sw of choice but can be a long process to fine tune the color the way you like. This is basically why most people who use to scan find easier to work with slides, what you see is what you get Smile

. Now my experience is with small format scans. Pointed this out, Epson scan does, in my case, a fairly good job with Portra films but when I tried on consumer emulsions the things went a bit more complicated (see color casts, grain). With slides the job is easier, BUT, due to the inherent narrower latitude of slide I ended up often with blocked shadows or burnt h/l (the film is exposed right enough to project fine) . This is a limitation of most consumer flatbed scanners I understand (other than my exposure technique, maybe Smile

). Here some medium format user may be more helpful in reporting whether this problem arises with this media too or not. In the end my advice would be try a roll of negative film
(with a pro one you start a step ahead) as well and compare yourself the result. Your mileage may vary Smile

. Hope this is of some help.

Cheers, M.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Well I can't understand your problem as you can try neg and pos film and see what you prefer....my experience with scanning positive film is with the older stuff i.e. Perutz, Agfacolour and Kodachrome and find it no more difficult (using a flatbed scanner) than scanning negative film.
And for others who might read this thread:- I've found if all you are going to do is post shots on a computer screen or keep under 8X10 prints...a S/H scanner for £10 does a good job.

Members shots using different scanners @
photosig.com

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Marty, thanks. Makes sense.

Excalibur, I will try both but wanted to hear others experiences. I have a fair bit of Fujichrome in the fridge and will start there.

Ektar 100 sounds interesting too.

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

THE dilemma.

I'm a fan of Fuji color, having missed Kodachrome era.

As I understand:

E-6 costs significant more to process.

E-6 costs significant more to print.

C-41 negatives last longer than E-6 slides (arguable?).

C-41 has more exposure latitude than E-6.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Katastrofo · Expire: 2013-11-19

You should do well scanning slide film with the 4990 which has a DMax of 4.
Michael (Cooltouch) has this scanner and I really like his scans from slides.

std · Joined: 09 Feb 2010 Posts: 1826 Location: Bulgaria

Negatives in my experience are much easyer to scan and also are forgiving exposure erorrs.

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Katastrofo, thanks. Very good to know.
std, word.

I'll just try them both and report back.

Been having fun shooting my Rolleiflex SL-66 (macro stuff) and Fujichrome Provia 220.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

I envy you your SL-66. To me it is one of the ultimate medium format cameras. I hope to own one some day. Kinda wish their prices would have crashed the way all the others have. But nope, Rollei's prices are hanging in there across the board.

As for which color emulsion to go with, those before me have raised good points. I think that eventually it's gonna come down to personal preference. Me, I just prefer slides. They come across sharper than negs with better color saturation, and often with finer grain. But I too have gotten really nice results with C41 stuff. I picked up a tip many years ago from a wedding photographer who never shot his print film at the rated ISO. He would always overexpose by about 1/3 a stop. So ISO 400 was exposed at EI 320, etc. By this point I was shooting slides exclusively but I decided to give his advice a try, loaded my F-1 up with some print film and overexposed the roll by a third of a stop, and WOW, what a difference! All the colors were brilliantly saturated, grain was minimized, and overall it looked as if I had been shooting slides.

So my advice is, when you shoot your roll of C41, overexpose it some.

I was about to tell ya I have a 4990 also, but Katastrofo beat me to it. Cool

And yeah, I've gotten some killer scans with my 4990 and medium format slides. Not so hot with the 35mm ones, but the MF ones just really pop. But ever since I've started slightly overexposing my C41 negs, I gotta say they look good too. Here are a couple of examples:

E-6 Fujichrome, Yashica Mat 124G -- From about 25 years ago, my friend Ted, clowning around with my Canon F-1 and Sigma 600mm:

Shot in 2010: Bronica ETRSi, 75mm, Kodak Portra 160 NC, shot at ISO 100. Chances are the VC flavor would have given me even more color saturation!

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Michael, thanks for that. Smile

Yes, the SL-66 is the Rolls Royce of medium format for me. I've used Hassy's and Mamiya RB/Z's, Bronica GS-1. The SL-66 has everything I want. I wouldn't own one if I hadn't have had a really bad toothache.

I'd had this toothache for three days, couldn't get in to see a dentist, was in constant pain, no pain killers would work, so finally, sleep deprived and mad with pain I drank some vodka! And then- I got on ebay! Woo-hoo!

Kinda lost my mind and won in the final seconds. $579 (about three years ago). Best camera I've ever owned. Normally, I would not have spent so much. Viva vodka!
Cool

I am used to shooting transparencies, so I'll start there as I have about twenty rolls in the fridge. Will post results withing a few weeks.

Thanks again everyone for your good advice.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

First scan with medium format transparency film.
Wanted to see how Fujichrome Astia handled colour. Not bad.
More soonish in another thread.

Rolleiflex SL-66, 80/2.8 Planar, a bit of a tilt.

marty · Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 767 Location: Italy

The colors look wonderful. I see no clipping in high lights, the shadows appear to have enough detail. The scan job works better with med format than it does with 135, I see. Looks like you found your way Smile

Cheers, M.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I think slide produce better images without any doubt if subject distance is far away. I like lot better output from slides than from color films. Perhaps there is some exception , but generally this is my opinion.

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

Marty, thanks. Yes, I'm pretty happy with it. I'd heard a lot of people say that transparencies and color negs are hard to scan. Maybe not so much. I know Velvia nd Kodachrome are supposed to be.

I have more to scan so we'll see...

Attila, I've always felt that way too and made my living at shooting chromes for many years.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

On my Epson V500 both type of film scan is easy automated process. Usually I scan them to tiff and if something not so good quiet easy to fix in Photoshop.

lulalake · Expire: 2011-11-18

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Have to agree with the above comments as well. The two images I posted in an earlier comment didn't require any sort of special handling. The slide did require a bit of color adjustment, but that was only because it was about 25 years old, and the colors had begun to shift. And even that was just a 1-click process in Epson Scan software. In both cases, I just set my Epson Scan software to auto exposure with few, if any, enhancements, and just let the scanner run.

Kram · Joined: 06 Feb 2010 Posts: 1344 Location: Portland, OR

After scanning the Provia, Astia and Kodak color negative 160 NC, I find the transparency film far easier to scan and adjust. The 160 NC was very grainy. Maybe I should try the Ektar one day but with an E-6 lab within walking distance of my studio, I'm going with the E-6 while it's still around!

Provia III 220, Rolleiflex SL-66, Planar 80/2.8, 40mm extension tube.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Another gem, Kram. Hopefully E-6 will be around for a long time.

I've shot a few rolls of Portra 160 NC with my ETRSi, and I thought it was actually a fairly fine-grained film. I'm headed to bed in a few minutes, but maybe tomorrow I can post a couple of 100% crops of the 160 NC and Ektar to give a comparison.