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Slide Projectors?!
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 2:40 pm    Post subject: Slide Projectors?! Reply with quote
Is there a slide projector for negative film (b&w and color)? Not for transparencies/slide films, but strictly for negative only?
I did google, but couldn't find any legit answer.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
well, enlargers are sort of.

but a machine that would optically reverse colors? I don't think it is possible? Confused


PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 10:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Explain what exactly you hope for.

Any slide projector will project negatives and film-strip projectors will show the uncut film, not mounted slides.

If you are hoping there is a projector that reverses the image (i.e projects the negative as a positive) you are out of luck unless you go down a very complicated route comprising a neg scanner, pc and video projector linked together. Any slide show would take ages as each image must be scanned, reversed and colour corrected before it can be shown.


PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:48 pm    Post subject: Re: Slide Projectors?! Reply with quote
Jvg wrote:
Is there a slide projector for negative film (b&w and color)? Not for transparencies/slide films, but strictly for negative only?
I did google, but couldn't find any legit answer.


No. There are no other legit answers either. Wink Could one be made? Of course...


PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 3:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks all for your replies.

Recently i saw a youtube video: someone had setup an automated film scanning rig, using slide projector + dslr. Obviously very useful when "scanning" transparencies, and it got me thinking abut setting something similar for negatives. Optical negative to positive conversion is (as everyone claims) either too expensive and near impossible.

The reason behind all of this: i'm still struggling getting accurate colors with my dslr scanned negatives, and i fear that after all editing/conversion in photoshop i might be actually loosing some of the film's characteristics. What i am trying to achieve, is to faithfully reproduce films true colors without screwing with it much in photoshop.

I know there are color enlarger heads, but they're still project negative image. No?


PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Colour enlarger heads still project negatives. The colour filters in them adjust the colour balance to match the combination of negative and paper as emulsion batches vary. Not at all how digital works, and not a solution in this case.

I also have problems getting the colour right when 'scanning' negatives with my digital camera. I always include a bit of the clear film base in my images and take a white balance with it.

I put up a post a while ago read it and perhaps you will get an idea.

http://forum.mflenses.com/scanning-negs-via-camera-t61765,highlight,%2Bscanning+%2Bnegs.html


PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:15 pm    Post subject: correcting negatives Reply with quote
The Vuescan program can read from C41files etc. and convert to what I find to be usable colours. From negatives, I scan directly with a film scanner and have not tried the route via the DSLR which I use for slides. It should be possible to copy a negative via a bellows plus an enlarger lens and then feed it into that program.

Vuescan has a number of colour film profiles, but does originate in the US, hence it mostly has Kodak rather than say Agfa or Fuji colour preofiles.

Extremely good support by the program author, not like big company ignorami.

p.


PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
philslizzy wrote:
Colour enlarger heads still project negatives. The colour filters in them adjust the colour balance to match the combination of negative and paper as emulsion batches vary. Not at all how digital works, and not a solution in this case.


Yup thought so. The only experience i had with enlargers - was with B&W print, not with color, but still assumed that with color negative - conversion would happen directly on paper, not optically.

philslizzy wrote:
I also have problems getting the colour right when 'scanning' negatives with my digital camera. I always include a bit of the clear film base in my images and take a white balance with it.


Tried that as well, sampling the orange to set a white point - but results are not always accurate though, and within a roll of film shot under the same lighting conditions - result very from frame to frame - and hence my concern - that i am not getting the accurate colors. One other thing that i've noticed: if i set the white balance on the camera to light source (in my case Sunpak VL-LED-96 with color temperature 6,300K with diffuser) - colors in the positive image (after conversion) are way off. If i set white balance to whatever the lighting condition is on the negative frame - (i.e. white balance set to daylight on camera for frame with bright daylight scenery) - positive colors come out more natural/pleasing. This however requires changing white balance individually frame by frame, and is more time consuming.

Same goes with B&W negatives, although, with b&w there are even more troublesome issues: to be exact if B&W frame is "scanned" with camera color settings set to faithfully reproduce frame colors (in my case canon 6d with picture styles set to faithful) - frame is capture with silverish tone all over. And once converted from negative to positive - it lacks that "black & white" feel to it, it's rather gray-toned with washed out contrast (i.e areas that supposed to be black are dark grays, and brighter areas are bright-gray). Setting color more to Monochrome - gives more of a black & white feel to it, but then again my understanding is that camera converts to black & white what already is black & white, so double conversion might lead to loss of color detail (film characteristic) - i assume.

A while ago, i did fool with an idea of doing color conversion directly on the camera. Canon's have picture styles feature, and comes with a software to create or edit custom picture styles. But my attempt of picking 3 primary colors on RBG scale and setting their values to opposite color (on color wheel) weren't successful so i gave that idea up.


PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 8:10 pm    Post subject: Re: correcting negatives Reply with quote
paulhofseth wrote:
The Vuescan program can read from C41files etc. and convert to what I find to be usable colours. From negatives, I scan directly with a film scanner and have not tried the route via the DSLR which I use for slides. It should be possible to copy a negative via a bellows plus an enlarger lens and then feed it into that program.

Vuescan has a number of colour film profiles, but does originate in the US, hence it mostly has Kodak rather than say Agfa or Fuji colour preofiles.

Extremely good support by the program author, not like big company ignorami.

p.


I did download the trial version of vuescan, tried using "scan from disk" and raw file selected as a source. To be honest, the quality of conversion by vuescan left a lot to desire for, and was far worse than what i get with my current setup (bellows + dslr + slide copier attachment) and photoshop. Perhaps i need to better understand the program or had some settings incorrect?


PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jvg wrote:


... but still assumed that with color negative - conversion would happen directly on paper, not optically.



Its kind of a combination of both, the film has a base colour of orange, the emulsion on the printing paper was balanced to compensate for it. The colour filters and the paper, which is a negative emulsion, create the colours. In the old colour neg printing days you had to make a test print to get the exposure and filtration test print(s) to get the correct balance of the 3 colours - although only 2 were used at a time. The paper's colour balance was different batch to batch so it made sense to buy a few packs with the same batch number - if you could afford it.

Its much easier now to adjust the settings in photoshop than it was determining correct filtration and exposure - not to mention using temperature critical chemistry - in the old days.

Easier but still a difficult job. At least its free and you are not throwing away over £1 every time you mess up a print.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well in any case, enlarger color head is no use to me (at least with the setup i have in mind).

The thing is, i was getting my color negatives developed and scanned at the local drug store. That is until:
1) person who was doing excellent job at developing and scanning suddenly stopped working there.
2) 3 subsequent employees that did developing and scanning after her, completely ruined my films (heavy scratches, bleaching, incorrect color reproduction, color smears & fogging).
3) figured that tetenol/jobo C41 dev kit costs much much less than having to pay $12 (dev + scanning) for each roll of film, especially when i have everything for developing (not printing).

Scans that "awesome" employee did were great, natural colors, just perfect reproduction of what i would get if i had those rolls printed on paper. Obviously, one downside is that scans were only 5mp.

Tried to reproduce the same quality by digitizing the same film with dslr, and editing in photoshop using different methods, i got nowhere near to those scans.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 5:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I'm sorry to hear about the person going. I have a local supermarket develop and scan mine with pretty good results and the day the department closes is when I may consider not using films at all. I pay £3 for develop and scan. and an extra £3 for 6x4 inch prints of super quality.

A specialist processing shop is next door to my supermarket and they produce results like you are getting now; scratched and dirty films colour casts etc. I wouldnt even consider using them as an alternative.

I have thought of the tetenal kits but for the cost per film, at the moment, its not worth it.

I guess the only way to get round the scan problem is to buy a decent neg scanner, they all have proprietary software that reverse the films for you - properly. But at a high price.


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 5:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
philslizzy wrote:

I guess the only way to get round the scan problem is to buy a decent neg scanner, they all have proprietary software that reverse the films for you - properly. But at a high price.


That was the first thing that i've tried, got myself dedicated film scanner - wolverine something, claiming to scan negatives at 20mp resolution. But the quality of it was pure crap, returned it after a week's use and switched to bellows + dslr option.

Most likely i will run few more tests, perhaps get color chart and shoot it in the beginning of the roll and then work out a method in photoshop where colors balance out properly and their values match to that of a chart. Should be interesting. It's shame though, scanning negatives with dslr has been around for quite some time now, and there doesn't seem to be a one set of methodology in photoshop to faithfully reproduce the true colors of the film. Don't get me wrong, there are many ways but all yield different results. ah!!!


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Jvg wrote:
Obviously, one downside is that scans were only 5mp.


I'm not sure how much more you want to get out of 35mm film?

what film what was you were using?


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
kansalliskala wrote:
I'm not sure how much more you want to get out of 35mm film?


Well 20mp scan made with DSLR gives far better detail than 20mp scan done with wolverine. There are couple of factors why dslr exceeds over consumer based film scanners even flat bed scanners: edit-ability (raw vs compressed & pixel stacked jpg), superior sensor and sensor size, superior optics (macro lens on bellows vs some cheap plastic lens inside the film scanners). Level of details a 35mm film gives is quite impressive, with optics being the only limiting factor. For instance take a look at the Fuji Neopan 100 Acros - it's resolving power is rated at 200 line/mm with 1000:1 contrast ratio. Most of 35mm lenses won't even resolve that high.

BTW, let me be clear, i'm not complaining about the level of detail, but rather true to film color reproduction. Basically, i'm not trying to make my scans look good, i'm trying to get them to look right.

kansalliskala wrote:
what film what was you were using?

Different ones, ektars, portas, velvia, neopans, fomapans, t-max, cinestil, deltas....


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think the only way is to reproduce the colour conversion manually with software, do some macros to remove the orange cast etc .. it may take a lot of trial and error but when you get it right, it's just running the macros?

edit: I don't know about photoshop macros but gimp macros you can edit line by line


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
The problem is with macros, or actions as they call them in photoshop, is that while one may work with a particular negative, it may not work with another e.g. that is shot on a different film, old C22 negs, under/over exposed etc.

It seems that the proprietary software inside or with scanners does it well, but that software isnt available to use outside that scanner environment. Vuescan does it and apparently does it well, but I have had difficulty using it and the free version is feature limited. It may work but I havent had the confidence to purchase it.

I used Photomizer but with little success

Last edited by philslizzy on Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:09 pm; edited 2 times in total


PostPosted: Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
For your info, here is a lab scan and my neg conversion, then a print scan and Photomizer conversion of a 'camera scan'

Lab scan


Photoshop


Print scan


Photomizer conversion
oops not the same image - but from the same session.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
philslizzy,

In your photoshop version, asides from the fact that colors have warmer tone, i see whole lot of diffraction going on. What was the negative scanned with?


PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2014 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
My camera, NEX5 as was the model


PostPosted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 4:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
philslizzy wrote:
My camera, NEX5 as was the model


Hmm, strange. One would think that NEX5's sensor and the lens to be superior to lab scanner's.
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