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This is the third in what will most likely be a never-ending series on what Ken Rockwell coined RealRaw™ -: good old fashioned film. When I arrived home yesterday, a box from North Coast Photo was waiting for me. Exactly 7 days from the time I mailed it off until I received it back. Not bad.
The scanning from North Coast is very high quaility as well as very high resolution. The 645 negatives were scanned at 4824 x 3533, just over 17 megapixels. The 35mm Velvia was scanned at 5035 x 3339, 16.8 megapixels.
In order to determine which film I wanted to use for my daughter's engagement photos, I took test shots of Terri from two different types of film in the old Bronica ETRS, which is a 645 (Film Size Chart here) camera. One roll was color negative material, Fujicolor Pro 160S, a low contrast industry standard portrait film. The other roll was Fuji Astia 100, a color slide film with low grain and normal color correction (supposedly). As well, for the heck of it, I put a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 slide film in the old Nikon FG - definitely not a portrait film as it has vivid, saturated colors.
The Fujicolor Pro 160S wins hands down for the portrait. Look at the color and contrast differences in these two photos:
Man, ain't she purty! The one on the left is the Fujicolor Pro 160S. Notice how much 'softer' it looks because of the lower contrast. You could obtain similar results with Photoshop by using filters and curves.
Velvia rocks for landscapes and such. Rockwell has already covered that film very well, you can read it here. My purpose was to test North Coast's scans and they came out very well. Sharp, saturated, well exposed. Here is a sample:
The left image is the original frame, the one on the right is a crop to show you why film is, at this point, superior to all but the most expensive digital cameras. Click on the two pictures and look at the color in the petals of the small flowers. These guys are tiny, an quarter inch or so in size. On just about any digital camera, the contrast would have 'blown' the color out of the petals. Velvia captured it perfectly. Which is why Rockwell and others say that there is still a place for film but I'll save that for another day.
Here is another from Velvia:
The subtle colors of these flowers are hard to capture at this point on most digital cameras, which are great for bright primary colors. The picture on the right is a 100% crop (you have to click on it, which shows the detail of the scan and highlights the quality of North Coast scans. Again, notice the subtle colors.
I'm pleased with these results. Would I send all of my film to North Coast? Probably not because it is about 3 times as expensive as the CVS in Seabrook. But if quality counts or if I'm concerned about ruining an entire roll in processing, you bet I'd send it to North Coast.
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