Tonight I fired up the lightbox and experimented with photographing my negatives. Turned out pretty well for hand holding!
I took this photo last spring in Virginia Dale, CO. Look at the dynamic range of the clouds! You just do NOT get that with digital. <3 Makes me just want to drool, seeing all that detail in the sky.
Taken with a Holga 120FN, Kodak Tri-X 400 film. Developed in the bathroom with Kodak D76. "Scanned" with a Nikon D300/Nikkor AF-S Micro 60mm
@celticmystyc Yep, I bought a lightbox from Adorama, and then used my D300 with a macro lens to photograph the negative. Then I just inverted it in photoshop and did some levels and cropping. My camera gives me a better resolution than the scans I pay for, so I'm saving money this way! Not sure how color negatives will turn out, though, as I've only tried B&W and slide. Hmm... I should go try some out right now!
They're not perfect, as I wasn't perfectly over the negative, so I had to straighten and crop slightly (just a few pixels at most off the edges). And I was hand holding at about 1/30 shutter, which is hard to do. But I'm too lazy to get out the tripod tonight. I have NEVER seen this roll of negatives scanned before, so it's kind of exciting!
@sylphy I tried some of mine really quick, and they came out really blue. I'll have to retry one day in RAW so I can change the white balance. I'm thinking I'll just still have all my color stuff scanned when I get them processed.
@hmgphotos White balance won't help. After inverting, I had to use curves and use the little eyedropper thing to define white & black (& grey if I thought something was grey)... not perfect but a hell of a lot better than the blue haze! But yes, I think it is easiest to have the color stuff scanned when you get it processed, as it is damn near impossible to get rid of the blue cast caused by the orange backing of the film.
This photo is excellent! And you did a wonderful job hand shooting it! Love the out of focus bottom
@sylphy - I haven't found a reliable way to scan color negatives. I am using my scanners software though. If you use one of the two specialty ones, I believe they have all the corrected curves/levels/etc for each type of film. Which then makes it easier than adjusting them all.
@crappysailor Do you happen to know if you can run a jpg/RAW image through VueScan software without using a scanner? I have Vuescan for my 35mm scanner. It would be neat if I could process photos through it, but I have a feeling it might not work.
@hmgphotos - not sure, from what I understand (reluctant to buy it yet) the main advantage of the software is that it has many different film profiles (ie - levels, curves, contrast) so that you don't have to adjust the scan yourself each time. You just tell it what type of film you used.
They're not perfect, as I wasn't perfectly over the negative, so I had to straighten and crop slightly (just a few pixels at most off the edges). And I was hand holding at about 1/30 shutter, which is hard to do. But I'm too lazy to get out the tripod tonight. I have NEVER seen this roll of negatives scanned before, so it's kind of exciting!
@sylphy - I haven't found a reliable way to scan color negatives. I am using my scanners software though. If you use one of the two specialty ones, I believe they have all the corrected curves/levels/etc for each type of film. Which then makes it easier than adjusting them all.