 Ken Pang |
Cost to Set Up Dark Room I've just played with some pro-grade slide film (Fuji Provia and Velvia), and I must say I am really impressed, even at nearly 10 times the cost of budget film! I'm one of those people who really like getting their hands dirty (figuratively) in hobbies, so I was wondering if it was viable to make slides to prints at home? If so, how much does it cost roughly to set up a darkroom? (assuming I already have a light-sealed basement.) Secondly, I've been told by a shop assistant that printing slides rarely preserves their colour richness and contrast, and that if print was my destined medium, I should choose pro-grade print film instead. Is there any truth to that? Is it worth my while to get a darkroom? Thanks.
|
|
|
|
||
|
t6yi5iu5 y. tk5tyiityjkty |
Hi! This is a very good question, and I would love to see an answer to it, however I don't see one posted. Did it somehow get deleted? I too am struggling with how to get started in color developing (I already to B/W at home) and the "reversal vs. negative" issue. If anyone has any advice or experience with this, it would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!
|
|
|
|
||
|
t6yi5iu5 y. tk5tyiityjkty |
Hi! This is a very good question, and I would love to see an answer to it, however I don't see one posted. Did it somehow get deleted? I too am struggling with how to get started in color developing (I already do B/W developing at home) and the "reversal vs. negative" issue. If anyone has any advice or experience with this, it would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!
|
|
|
|
||
|
Jeff S. Kennedy |
Printing transparencies is tricky and I would guess more expensive than traditional printing. Printing color negatives is rarely done at home because of the expense. I would say the most economical method to print at home is to get a scanner and a good printer. If you want really good prints from slides send them to a lab.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Ken Pang |
Hi Jeff, Thank for the response - funny you should say that 10 months after the intial write up (I've been here that long??!!) ABout 6 months ago, I bought myself some pro-sumer equipment, and I can make a 6*4 to A4, with no perceptible loss of quality. Even with a loupe it's hard to ink droplets. It's not until I crop down to about 2*3 that the photos start becoming soft and pixelated, and I beleive that is the problem with the original print, not the scanner. I am considering getting a 2400 or greater DPI neg scanner to cut out the middle step. I beleive that there is significant loss of quality there except when I go to a better lab. (Read expensive)
|
|
|
|
||
|
Jeff S. Kennedy |
Yeah, it's really tough to be really creative with color stuff at home in a wet darkroom. There's all kinds of things you can do with b&w but color is a different animal. Digital's the way to go if you feel the need to do the color thing.
|
|
|
|
||
|
t6yi5iu5 y. tk5tyiityjkty |
Jeff, Ken , Thanks for your responses. Yes, that is pretty much the conclusion that I am coming around to as well. Coincidentally in fact, I just saw a classmate's (I am studying photography at night school here in Tokyo) prints from his epson scanner and was really impressed. I have a film scanner (HP Photosmart), but I have not been able to get good results with it and probably need to spend some more money to get a better flatbed-type film scanner which will take 6x7 and 4x5 transparencies too. I have an HP printer which I think is good enough... Thanks again for your responses! -Nathan-
|
|
|
|
||
|
doug Nelson |
Nathan, DON'T try to scan 35-mm with a flatbed. The little smoke-and-mirrors prism thingees aren't up to it. For 35-mm, you're better off with 2400 ppi scans from your HP, as long as you know its limitations. If you will be scanning medium format on a flatbed, check your friend's Epson to see if you are happy with the results. After a year of banging my head against the wall with an HP S-20 scanner, I've had to conclude that I was expecting too much from it. It scans negatives fairly well, and can be used with Ed Hamrick's VueScan to give you clean-up of dust spots (A $40 software from hamrick.com). What it can't do is slides with any shadow areas at all. Noise in the form of green specks is inevitable, and trying to despecle in Photoshop only degrades your shadow detail. Even Hamrick can't fix that. I've switched to a Nikon LS-2000, a formerly top-of-the-line 2700 ppi scanner that may be available new very reasonably, since it's been replaced. I can finally get clean scans, because it can rescan the slide as much as 16 times over. For most scans, no oversampling is needed.
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||