Re: [Leica] Colour negative film

["Henning J. Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>]

At 4:29 PM -0400 4/20/00, AWSteg wrote:
>Usually the opposite is true since slide film has less dynamic range than
>neg.!
>
>Al Stegmeyer   UPSTREAM PHOTOGRAPHY & www.upstrap.com a non-slip camera
>strap guaranteed to stay on your shoulder!
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jeff Moore" <jbm@oven.com>
>To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
>Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 4:10 PM
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Colour negative film
>
>
>> 2000-04-17-16:21:35 Martin Howard:
>> > Another thought: I read in a review of the UMAX PowerLook III that it
>> > doens't handle colour negative film as well as it handles the colour
>> > reversal type (there where scans on the page to illustrate the
>concept --
>> > the difference was dramatic).  Is this a common feature of scanners and
>> > therefore one should shoot chromes rather than negs?
>>
>> I'm pretty sure that the most fundamental weakness in CCD (read:
>> affordable;  not the photomultiplier tubes in drum scanner) scanners
>> is their ability to ``see into'' the densest areas of the medium being
>> scanned.  So do you want to lose shadow detail (chromes) or highlight
>> detail (negs)?  I understand (but will doubtless be corrected if
>> wrong) that most people who scan as their primary use for film choose
>> to work with negatives.

The on-film density range of transparency film is much higher, but the
ability to record a wide dynamic range subject matter is greater with
negative film. So the compression that the scene undergoes is much greater
on negative film, but the dynamic range that that scene produces is smaller
on negative film. Scanners such as the LS-30 do a fine job on color
negative material, but fall down on slides such as Velvia and Kodachrome 25
which have information just off their considerable D-max.

   *            Henning J. Wulff
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