[Leica] Not Another Paw - An Update

[gregj.lorenzo at shaw.ca (GREG LORENZO)]

Ted writes: 
 
> Hi Greg,
> My gut reaction when looking at the musicians? It looks like it's printed 
> on 
> a #1 or softer paper. Like there isn't a clean B&W look to it. No 
> contrast. 
> Muddy print. Lot's of detail, just way too flat!
> 
> Another way of what it looks like? If I said the paper was over-exposed 
> and 
> pulled from the developer too soon producing this grey flat look rather 
> than 
> letting it develop for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes producing a nice clean B&W look 
> might be another way of describing it.
> 
> I'm not sure what effect you're trying to get in the look, but I don't 
> think 
> it's doing anything for the quality of photograph as a print. Or if you 
> like, 
> as seen on the screen.
> 
> Is this look happening when you put the neg in the scanner with everything 
> set to "auto- scan B&W negative?" Or does this look happen when you start 
> screwing around trying to get some kind of "old timer" look?
> 
> It's an interesting photograph of people/busker life around Vancouver's 
> Stanley Park or the water front, but the look doesn't cut it for me. Sorry 
> mate.
> 

Hi Ted,

It is pretty representitive of what I've been getting my Nikon scanner for 
the last week. 

All of my digital images have been coming out with major fringing. The scans 
are being done only using Nikon's factory defaults (or Vuescan's defaults) 
with minor photoshop work to cleanup dust and sharpen them afterward.

I've been deliberately picking negatives that I've got nice proper darkroom 
prints from over the last 3 or 4 years. In most caes I've got the darkroom 
print on the wall in my office or sitting on a chair next to me to compare 
to.

Anyway, today I took some of my negatives and the scanner into the local 
camera store where I purchased it along with the resultant digital images 
I've been getting. The store expert(and photographer) did a couple scans and 
immediately confirmed that I have a physical problem with the scanners 
optics.

Thanks to some LUG folk's who, on and off-List, have offered the benefit of 
their superior digital knowledge and skills and made some suggestions as to 
what to look for, what to try, and what may be going on I saved quite a bit 
of time (and a few grey hairs) in determining that I most likely had a 
scanner problem.

In any case, my scanner is going back to Nikon in Vancouver for repair and I 
hope to be able to start posting digital images again in another 4 weeks or 
so.

I don't know of anyone on the list has had to have their Nikon Coolscan 4000 
repaired for a similiar problem but I would appreciate knowing if they did 
how things worked for them after a repair.

Thanks for taking the time to look at what I've posted and commenting.

Regards,

Greg