Scanning Film with a Camera – My Test

So I was doing a little research about film scanners today and came to realize that most of what’s left in the market are either way too cheap and low-res (basically to preserve family photos) or too expensive and from companies I can’t trust will be around in 6 months. I’ve been unsatisfied with scanning on my Epson 4990. It’s fine for large format and even 6×6, but for 35mm I’m never happy with the results. I’ve tried using the film holders and end up with soft images; I’ve tried laying the film on the glass and then have to fight Newton’s Rings.

I remember a few months ago I read a post somewhere about using your dSLR and a macro lens to shoot slides and thought about trying it with negatives as well. In the end I found this post on petapixel which was very helpful. I didn’t have a light table handy, but I had a little battery powered LED light which I diffused through a stack of tissue paper, set the camera up on a tripod with a 100mm macro lens and pointed it straight down toward the film The results are very impressive. Now these are not the sharpest film shots ever, but they give you some idea of the quality you can get out. MUCH better than I’ve ever gotten from my flatbed and using gear I’ve already got.

I tried some color film as well with less than ideal results. The color temp and spectrum of the LED just wasn’t up to the task. Color negative film is REALLY hard to get the color right when scanning, in my opinion. The only time I’ve ever gotten great results was when I rented time on an Imacon with custom profiles for each film type.

TIP: Use live view and 10x magnification to get the focus right. Also stop down on the lens a bit to get to the sweet spot and handle any slight depth of field softness.

Here’s a 100% blow-up of the above:

 

“Monochrome” a short film

starring Gifford Elliott.

“Lure”, a short film by Bill Wadman

Starring the ever lovely Lindsay Goranson

 

and here’s the script we were working from, with notations and marks by Lindsay

Todd Reynolds on 4×5 Film

“Self Defense” a short film

Learned a lot on this one. First was that my home-built DIY stabilizer worked pretty well considering the fact that it cost all of $28 in parts.

Secondly while I’ve done fine so far making it up as I go along, I’m going to have to start making an actual shot list.

Next stop is to make something with dialog.  Tough.  Sound will be a whole other dimension.

What I’ve Learned About Video – Take One

So as some of you have noticed, I’ve started making really short films. Two so far, more to come. More or less weekly. This is a new experiment. As much about getting the creative juices flowing as it is about actually getting into making films. As the couple I’ve done so far were both thrown together in a matter of hours, they’re not perfect, but I’m learning very fast where my failings are.

“Ice Cream Cait” was done in one shot with the camera on a tripod, which made everything pretty easy. In fact, technically, I’m pretty happy with that one. It looked how I wanted it to look. Creamy bokeh (85/1.2 will do that, even at f/3.2) and great actress. The main mistake I made in that one, was the fact that I used an auto-exposure mode, which caused the camera to stop down once Everett comes in at the end to steal the ice cream, which darkened the image. I guess I could have fixed that in post, but again, it’s not about them being perfect at this point, it’s about shipping. I ended up using some Creative Commons music for that first video, which worked out perfect as a ‘porn soundtrack’

 

On the second film ‘Spring Fling’ I became more ambitious and decided to do one that required editing and a shot list (though it was made up in my head as I went along). This time I ended up having three problems:
1)  I did the same thing with autoexposure and have learned my lesson; Manual mode from here on in.

2) Most noticably, I need a stabilizer. The shots where I’m walking behind the actors are way too shaky. I knew this one going in and the uneven slate sidewalk didn’t help. I shouldn’t have handheld. Even if I had put the camera on a tripod and carried that it would have been a lot better. I’ve also figured out a way to use my little tripod as a make-shift stabilizer which works but requires a few feet to the left because 2 of the legs are extended as counterweight. I don’t really want to pay a few hundred bucks for a commercial one at this point, but I’m probably going to try to build one of Johnny Lee’s $14 Poor Man’s Stabilizers. Even if only for fun.

3) White Balance and overall color are tricky. I’m not shooting RAW with the Magic Lantern hack yet (maybe someday Claude) but when you’re moving in and out of shadows and sun the camera is shifting white balance back and forth which can make matching clips tough. I have generally been able to ignore this when shooting stills by just dealing with it in post, but it becomes cumbersome to color correct each shot in a sequence. Probably better to set it to Daylight outside and work all the clips from there. I should also switch my picture mode to something a lot flatter and low contrast so I can grade the look of the image later.

—–

I have not tried anything with dialog yet. That will involve little zoom recorders and lav mics or a shotgun. All stuff I’ll get to in due course, but I wanted to get some of the visual stuff under my belt first.

The other thing I’ve learned is that video is REALLY time consuming. Both in editing and in rendering. I’ve got a really fast top-of-the-line i7 desktop with 32GB of RAM and it still takes 5-10 minutes to render out my 1-2 minute films to h.264 at 1080p. Crazy. I’m sure there’s more to come in the ‘beginner mistakes by Bill’ series, but that’s the point right? That’s how we learn.

“Spring Fling” a short film

Spring Fling from Bill Wadman on Vimeo.

Fuji Instant 4×5 One Shot – The Long Family

Got the opportunity to shoot my friend Aaron on Saturday and as a bonus his lovely parents happened to be in town and so we guilted them into sitting as well. Amazing people.

Everett and Ralph on Provia

During two of my One Shot sessions last week I also took a frame of Fuji Provia slide film. I don’t shoot regular film in the 4×5 very much because it involves going into Chelsea to get processed and then picked up and the scanned, etc. But I wanted to remind myself of the quality.  The answer is that the quality is stunning, if your technique is perfect. Also below is a little phone snapshot of a 13×19″ print of Everett (Looks dark in the picture, but it’s just because my desk is not well lit). And I can tell you that the results look pretty amazing. That much better than if I had taken the shot with my 5D3?  I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll do a little test at some point.

Bianca – Fuji Instant #2