Let the Drum Scanner be the Judge of Your Shots!

It's been quite a while since we've been posting anything here. But I thought that would well be worth to post, to demistify certain misconceptions about the "high" resolution of contemporary consumer (or even prosumer) scanners. Fact is, our featured (and excellent, too) photographer, Margus has been in the "drum scanner business" (so to speak) for quite a while. And he's got enough guts to take the bumpy (and expensive) road to restore a drum scanner back in working order. Bravo!

Anyway, I dared to post a couple of photos (retrieved from his photostream). These pics very explicitely show the obvious superiority of a drum scanner, even though with such a "low" (nominal) resolution of 3000 ppi and the "modest" Dmax of 3.6. 

 

 

Copyright Margus Sootla. Retrieved from Flickr.

Copyright Margus Sootla. Retrieved from Flickr.

Now, a question arises very naturally: if drum scanners would be more common (=affordable to use) in the past years, how many more photographers would stick with film (or at least for a much longer time)???

Margus, my very compliments for the excellent scanner restoration job!

Mitja

Monday Column which is Not a Column, It's about the Schedule

Many many times in a lifetime things just get complicated and/or overcrowded. Looks like that the very same situation happened to the blog's authors as well (albeit to each one due to different circumstances, but personal issues anyway). It thus became to us (Matjaž and me) a bit difficult to keep the blog running in the same manner as we have been for a few months so far. No, we are not shutting down the blog, only the posts will be updated somewhat less regularly as they have been so far. We hope you understand. But we also want to thank all of you who have participated so far-it was really a refreshing experience!

Oh, about the new scanner I got more than a week ago: yesterday I finally unboxed the whole thing...and tested a few mounted slides, but without playing aruound with the adjustments (in the scanner software). Below, there is a scan from a Kodak Elite slide (not Extra Color) made at 3000 dpi, slightly sharpened with unsharp mask (and reduced red saturation) in Gimp. Clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement in the scanning approach with this Plustek. Reportedly, the scanner does its best when scanning at the maximum 7200 dpi, then resizing down to 3200-3600 dpi. Trouble is, if you own a 5-year old computer like mine, it's just too slow to do the job done in a reasonable amount of time. So for now, I am just bound to use that scanner at some low to mid point of its performance- until I get a new PC.....yes, this IS consumerism!

Cottage Tip: Building a small exposure meter-Part III

When I finally got a working panel voltmeter (measuring range 200 mV) I got an unpleasant surprise; it needs a separate supply, other than the circuit, but it wasn't specified in the catalog I bought from. There are also voltmeters able to share the same power supply with the rest of the circuit (the so-called common-ground type), but unluckily not this one. So I needed first to make somehow a split power supply with the same battery for both the sensor circuit and the voltmeter, with the available resources. So I redesigned the circuit a bit. The aim is to keep both voltages (for the meter and the sensor) as »far away« as possible from each other, preventing to get faulty readings. Below, see the circuit schematics.

 After that, I needed to do a quick test to such a circuit on the breadboard. I also needed to do a short-circuit on one contact pair on the voltmeter, in orderto get into the 200 mV range (following the instructions). Oddly, there was already one short-circuit present (factory-made). These »shorts« also set the decimal point. So two decimal points are now present. Nothing dramatic, only funny somehow (note in the photo).

 

As the weather wasn't really appropriate (for several days) to fully test the meter outside and in sunny conditions, I relied on my instinct so I soldered the final circuit on the prototype board.

 

I then made the apertures on the enclosure for the display, the sensor and the activating switch. The battery holder is just an ordinary AAA battery holder shortened by about 15 mm and glued together (the batteries A23 and AAA are of the same width).

 

the battery holder

Finally, I put everything inside the enclosure: switch, panel meter, sensor, circuit and battery-using solder and glue. As it seems, it works nicely! Now, a necessary addition should be to mount (below the panel meter) also an exposure calculator wheel to be able to set the exposure settings. But I first need to buy some plastic printable film to do that.

The inside of the exposure meter

The finished "product"

 Should the precision of the meter be a bit off, I will still need to change the Zener diode in charge to power the panel meter, i.e. using one with a bit lower voltage-just enough to ensure the meter to work, by changing the existing diode in the circuit with another one.

Portfolio of the Week: Kit Yip

Dear Readers,
This week we moved quite a bit east, to Hong Kong and it's my pleasure to introduce Kit Yip and her featured work. She started her photographic journey in 2006. She states that her photos are are mostly inspired by light and shadow, as well as character and mood. But I would add the she is also a master of bokeh (check the photos, what a subtlety!). When chance occurs, she promptly joins to collaborate with other artists and models, since it's always a good learning experience one can draw from such a circumstance. She describes herself as wanderer in her spare time, being that very wandering in the streets her major source of inspiration. As for the films and cameras used; she uses a really wide range of films and cameras. However, her mostly used cameras are a Leica M and a Hasselblad, being always carried around. Nice choice, Kit! You can get a grasp of Kit's work on Flickr and her Facebook page. Enjoy!

Mitja

 

 All photos copyright: Kit Yip

Monday Column: Is Analogue Photographer not Hooked by Consumerism?

We all live in consumer capitalism, where big (and small) corporation by ads make our needs. As photographers we are targeted by the corporation which produces all sorts of photographic equipment. The pace of new products is higher and higher every year, but in the photographic markets with digitalisation is this trend even higher. Corporations make our needs of photographic equipment, by minor tweaks of existing stuff and advertising them as revolutionary change that you must have and that it would change our picture making from amateur to professional. When we fell for it (and we all in some sort of another do), then we are hooked by self propelling chain of consumer hell. Did your pictures, with your brand new revolutionary camera, look the same as they did with your old camera? Then you need the super new lens(es). Still not happy? Maybe you can improve them with new tripod, or some other accessory! Wait, your computer can not process the huge amount the new huge raw files of your brand new camera? Maybe is there an answer on the computer market for this (think fruit), you can get also a new version of your favorite software for editing your picture. And then you need the new printer to print bigger prints. Are still not happy with your pictures? Maybe the next year new revolutionary camera with missing features will improve your work! You get the point.

So, we get stockpiling “old” unused still capable equipment on our shelves, worthless for the used market in the case of the “old” used digital cameras. But what about analogue photographers? There are no new revolutionary products every year. The old cameras are those who are more interesting. We don’t leave them to collect dust; we repair them, lubricate and take them on photographic trips time to time. Just the right thing to get off the hook of modern consumer world... But if you need the new revolutionary scanner, you are on again!

Matjaž

Scanners: The »Missing Link« finally arrived!

It's been a while since I used to use my own, now defunct film scanner. It was a flatbed Mustek Bearpaw with the transmission mode scan option. It wasn't a stellar scanner, but you could scan 35 mm images and get a decent quality 20x30cm prints from a Frontier machine, or a decent A4 inkjet contact negative to use with alternative photo techniques. But it died some years ago....well, it's performance did (and who will ever repair an obsolete scanner?). All in all, it wasn't a bad scanner considering the price at the time. For a couple of years I was actually relying only on outsourced scanning-be it made by a friend or by a photo lab. Fact is that I was shooting mostly slide film in that period and scanned only selected images. Fact is also that all that time I was toying with the idea of getting a »serious«, medium format scanner. MF scanner prices were never low (new or used ones), but looks like their prices even skyrocketed a bit in the past time (for respectable used models). Then, I was waiting for the (so long) announced OpticFilm 120-until its price has been disclosed...no, thanks, I said-for such an extra premium in price I can rely on outsourcing for scanning medium format film, for many many years. So I got annoyed of myself not being able to decide which scanner to get. And owning a good scanner is always a good thing....

Anyway, finally I decided to get a Plustek scanner, more precisely the 8200i SE model. Just arrived yesterday! I am still in the need to install it, can't wait for the weekend to test it!

I chose the intermediate model of this Plustek scanner line, since the 8100 model doesn't have the nice and useful feature of IR detection (and removal) of scratches and dust particles, while the 8200 Ai model costing over 50 % more than the 8200 SE (and more than double of the 8100), but having the auto IT8 calibration feature seemed to me way too much. Optically-sensor and lens wise-all 3 scanners are identical, save the mentioned features. While the IT8 calibration is surely a nice (and expensive addition), it can be compensated by a much cheaper solution: you can shoot a test image of a (reasonably priced) color-checker chart (yes, those which became popular among digital photographers, but they existed also before...) and then set and save you color curve values in an image editor for any given film type. You can even borrow from someone a test chart for a day or so and have the job almost done. That's it! Anyone who ever worked in the darkroom for a while can get a grasp of such a procedure. And, if you really want to go crazy, you can buy ready-made IT8 targets on specific film emulsions-check this link for these outrageous prices! If I knew before, that would be my best investment in a Kodachrome film....just kidding

Note: if you shoot only BW film, even the IR dust removal feature is useless, unless you are using chromogenic BW film. So in such a case you can save some money too.

Portfolio of the Week: Giangiacomo Pepe

Dear Analog Photographers,

so far, we've been dealing mostly with portrait photographers, right? This week we decided to push that boundary even further, so let me introduce Giangiacomo Pepe from Genova, Italy. Giangiacomo is a young photographer (in his late 20's) and his main subjects are female nudes. Since we are not an adult-rated site, we needed to carefully choose the photos to (hopefully) comply to rules. Giangiacomo works with various 35 mm cameras, from Nikon to Contax, and uses various BW films. Sometimes, he also uses a Polaroid. The lighting source mostly used is flash in the reportage-style fashion. His shooting style is actually quite »guerilla-style«,  »haiku« or even Terry-Richardson-style, if you prefer. The backdrop of his shots are ordinary places-apartments, bedrooms, gardens etc. 

While at first glance his photos might not look glamorous or sophisticated, I think this is also the very charm of his work-breaking the established composition (and other) rules, bringing us for a while back at the very primordial photographic basics, but also intimately closer to his subjects. I think many of his photos could be accomodated equally well either in a gallery or a personal album. Besides nudes, he also began on a few reportage projects. Giangiacomo's other (and more explicit) work can be found on Tumblr.

Mitja

 All photos copyright: Giangiacomo Pepe