> Shoot on film, E6 process, scan, manipulate, Inkjet print, copy on to > 5x4, E6 process again. > > That'd be an efficient workflow. ........ Not. > I'd need a profile for my lightbox though!
No you don't need to profile your lightbox, just rescan again both slides and compare results in your profiled monitor. WIth this efficient test you don't offer film any oportunity and digital wins over, since you are going through a second generation reproduction with film, while you are still working on the original digital file from camera to jump back into film. Stay at the point of print comparisons it will be fairer for film. The lack of grain and the extended range of digital provide ample help and flexibility. Actually many photogs end up adding grain artificially to bring the image a sense of "film-like" quality. In my opinion, this is just a practice that comes from all those years scanning film and living and getting used to the "aesthetics " of grain and emulsion as part of the digital file. It looks different because it is a different capture method. Personally, I am happy with the absence of grain. Scan just look dirty now. And, if and when I want grain, then I add it to my satisfaction. Bob suggested the use of the KPT filters, and they work really well for this. Grain can not be removed from scans, only smoothed,along with the whole image. I offered some posts ago samples of images from an assignment I did both with 120 film and digital(D60 ).Still available . > However again in the interests of science, I can only see some value in > doing this provided the image from the RZ has been captured on a high > resolution fine grain transparency film, nicely processed and of maximum > sharpness. This would suggest to me that it was used on a stout tripod > without column extension, the mirror up facility was used, and that an > appropriate aperture selected on a lens known to be excellent. THis test is self contained Richard, since the only real way to run this comparison is by having, say a Hassy and shoot digital with the Kodak back and with the same camera ,same lens, same settings etc, shoot with a film back and this would provide specific comparison between digital and 120 film.But there is no way you can ascertain you are having all this control if you are shooting and RZ with 120 film and a Canon 1Ds for digital. You also added an important thing. Processing scapes from our control and poor processing is not detachable from the scan. Final Quality depends on the soup and the soup keeper.. THe rumour of what is Canon bringing to the market in the next PMA ( march) goes around a camera ( many have called them the D80) with a smaller file size than the 1Ds, since the economy in file size provides a better and faster performance of the camera. You may remember I have said many times over that bigger file sizes would only introduce slugginesh and poor performance without any major improvement in file quality at all ( ask Kodak). Talk says it is going to be an 8+MP camera. THis file would provide a native 32 Mb RGB tiff, and this could set a real landmark in commercial photography, considering the price would be a tad slower than that of the 1Ds.( around the 4K US$, just to go after the never-showing- Kodak14n) and still being a file size that can easily compete with medium format scans for most average applications. All the best. Jorge Parra APA/ASMP www.jorgeparra.com =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
