FiLM Part 001
Before I get to far in this mess of all over the place experience the equipment I have and am using for scanning film.
Scanner: Epson V550
Software: I tried EPSON Scan V1 and V2 on Mac it somewhat worked, Windows 11 it worked but was a headache and underperformed no matter the settings I tried.
I now use SilverFast 7 I will come back and change this if that is wrong, but it has been so amazing with everything I have needed and more. The quality is better the dust removal has been better, color and contrast are better.
I scan in .tiff format and process the images in Lightroom Classic using NegativeLab Pro
The Epson V550 was $260 from eBay, NegativeLab Pro was $100 and SilverFast was $50.
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I just started with scanning and processing film negatives so I can not act like I know everything only what I have experienced and what I have watched on YouTube.
I wanted to make a video on this so bad but trying to setup my camera and also dealing with issues setting up it just has not worked out. That and I get to focused on everything I am doing but I am determined to get a video of scanning soon and also in the process of making a video of shooting a 21 year expired roll of Kodak Gold 200.
Scanning has been so awesome when it works out. I have ran into issues with my scanner having errors and spending an hour reseting it and my pc to make a scan work, one of the reasons I have not setup to make a video of me scanning. I did the unboxing and setup in a video and scratched it when it took 3 hours to connect properly to my computer. Instead of burning my house down I just quit the video snd hyper focused on making the Epson software work which I don’t even use anymore.
On my negative scans I don’t mind having some dust, these are all 20-30+ year old film negatives so showing some ‘‘age’’ I like but dealing with new scanning softwares and trying to color and edit them to be true or appealing has made me want to go back to my first scans and rescan but I just haven’t because mainly I like seeing the difference in my learning.
Scans like this that have a very burgundy red for brown and a blue for while look. I love it, I would like to see it with how I scan currently BUT I was learning and it is beautiful as it is.
I think I will have more consistency when I start shooting more with some of the point and shoots I have and I am not manually focusing the lenses I am trying to test and use on manual bodies I am also trying to test and use.
I am not knocking all the manual things, I use my Sony A7RV in manual and when I was shooting with my Sony a5100 I used it for a year with a $40 manual lens BUT I could see everything a lot better with making sure I was focused properly.
As of right now the only film I have personally shot with and have scans of is Fuji400 it is cheap enough I can afford to test with.
I have some 120 Lomochrome 92’ I will have in today to scan and I am really excited for that, it is also my first time shooting 120 film. This will be posted before I process the film and I plan on having a blog of its own of shooting 120 for the first time with the Kodak Reflex II so I will link that here once it is don’e and up. Even if it doesn’t turn out.
After scanning hundreds of film negatives 1 by 1 and editing them in Lightroom and some inside Photoshop I think I am able to say I have gotten then hang of using my scanner and softwares.
Scanning 35mm and 110 film is a bit different and getting the quality you can from 110 is really surprising when you are holding it, it seems like nothing but once you scan it, I don’t know I just was not expecting that, I also love leaving the border in the 110 photos because I think it adds so much more to the photo its self.
Some of these are kind of scattered I am going from modern day to way back 20+ years ago, you should really be able to tell the difference between the two but I could also say I guess. This was shot this year (2024). This Camera Nikon FG film Fuji 400, I really like Fuji400 and it is cheaper.
If I don’t end this I will never stop talking about how much I love film, and how amazing it is to scan old negatives and seeing new photos you have never seen from when you were a kid appear in front of you to share with your kid. I just love everything about it. Even the times the photo is not focused, or you expose wrong because a bad photo is a good learning experience and you can look back on your mistake and laugh about it. I am very fortunate to be able to do this and to learn the process of it all. Being able to rescan photos of my family that have been damaged and lost over the years is an amazing feeling. Especially getting photos of people who have passed away and are no longer with us. Having new photos of them is really crazy to think about and I am grateful for that.
I still have a lot more to find and scan, I can not wait to see what else I can recover.
It' is upsetting how many people in these photos are not with us anymore, how their physical absence in our lives have changed a lot of us; it is important to remember the time we did have with them, reflect and cherish that. A lot of questions and what ifs can go on for days, but the years we got to have with them will not change. Our good times, our bad times, when we fought, when we got along. Laughing, or crying. Our memories are ours, and our photos hold meaning to that. As long as I know they would be happy of me today, I can be content.
P.S I looked like a pug ass baby..
