From Negatives To Digitals

[LivinLOS]

OK so I had a important event I needed covering properly upcountry.. Left it to Thais to organise with predictable results.

The one thing I was insistant on was I wanted the photog to be shooting in high res digital as I had little interest in the physical pics and was assured over and over he was.. And the pics would get the photoshop touch up treatment, I presumed framing, B&W color isolation, what I call normal effects from a pro.. Onto a prepared DVD.

Of course I should have double checked by asking what camera or something to verify but the day came and he turned up with 2 film cameras.

Not only was he a poor photographer, and because of the film he didnt shoot much / enough.. But the pics he has sent are real flat, he made a ugly low res VCD movie / slideshow, we had to call him multiple times fighting to get 'just the shots' on a DVD and they made some of the worst amateur cut out / layer chops as an attempt to fulfill thier promise for post shooting work...

Basically just another over promised under delivered.

I am really hoping the reason the pic quality is so nasty is they just scanned the final prints and thats the 'digital' source.

What I want to try to do is find a high quality film negative to digital transfer. I am going to be in the UK in a few weeks so if theres a known service there thats fine too.. From there I can try to either do some work or get work done to post process.

Any suggestions ?? Thai or UK ??

[The Vulcan]

Take a look

http://www.onasia.com/

[LivinLOS]

Thanks.. And sorry for slow reply.. I was set for notifications but didnt get em..

I have been taken to a local film developer who claims to have a high quality scanner for 35mm.. Will try him first and see how it shakes out.

[zz.fugazi]

Look for drum scans if you want the best quality. IQ Labs in BKK used to do drum scans, but I don't know if they still do. I scanned many of my old transparencies and negatives using my own drum scanner, and I was much happier with the results than with your standard CCD film scanner. (I have the scanner in Thailand, but, unfortunately, I haven't set it up because I have no need for it now that I shoot digital.)

[LivinLOS]

Well just got the local scans done, and they are just as bad..

Worst case scenario tho, they say the negatives themselves are bad.. Might be just covering themselves, I will still see if I cant get better work done, but they assure me they usually get good quality scans from good negatives but these are really poor, flat, hot whites, grainy, etc.

Trusting a thai professional.. Sigh..

[astral]

I used to have a Canon FS2710 35mm negative/ positive scanner.

The sw would pull out images that shops just could not handle.

2800dpi with full filtering for the orange background on negatives.

I am very sorry I lost it.

Be careful of how outsiders will handle the negatives.

It used to annoy me intensely how negatives would come back from the

processing shops with un-necssary scratches along the length of the film.

One more problem to correct when scanning to digital.

[MKAsok]

What I want to try to do is find a high quality film negative to digital transfer. I am going to be in the UK in a few weeks so if theres a known service there thats fine too.. From there I can try to either do some work or get work done to post process.

Any suggestions ?? Thai or UK ??

If you're in London, I'd suggest Spunkies in Clerkenwell - 0207 336 6999. Ask for Peter. All my film used to go through this lab (and this was for magazine work), both 35mm and medium format. These guys really are top-notch.

Edited May 20, 2009 by MKAsok