Digital BW, The Print

Anthony, Thanks for your advice on scanners.  Looks like I will 
probably have to invest in a scanner and do it myself to get the 
quality I expect!

I was really intrigued by your night shots using Portra 400BW.  
Being out of conventional photography for quite a while I'm not 
familiar with this film.  Is it a BW film you develope yourself, or 
one of the color processed BW films.  The control of your 
hightlights is extraordinary, with shadow detail a plenty.  Loving 
night photography, I used to couldn't get that much shadow detail 
and highlight control using 4x5 Tri-X with a pyro developer.  I 
guess film technology has come a long way in 25 years!
Thanks
Randy


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Anthony G. 
Atkielski" <anthony@a...> wrote:
> randyrancier writes:
> 
> > I'm a real stickler for quality, coming from a large format 
camera 
> > background.  I'm planning on purchasing a MF (medium format) 
camera 
> > in the near future; I've been seeing some good deals.  BUT, I 
feel I 
> > will have a hard time justifying the expense of a 4000 dpi 
scanner.
> 
> Quality isn't free.
> 
> > Are there any labs that will scan to that resolution?  If so, how
> > much are they getting for a roll of 120 film?
> 
> About 1/3 the cost of a scanner (I'm not kidding).  For the cost of
> scanning several rolls of film at a lab, you can buy your own 
scanner.
> Lab scans are often of much poorer resolution, anyway, and they 
don't
> optimize the scan unless you pay (a lot) extra.  You're far better 
off
> buying a good scanner of your own and scanning yourself.  It does 
take a
> lot of time, though.
> 
> I'm quite enamored of my Nikon LS-8000, which scans MF beautifully.
> There are other scanners as well.  None of the MF film scanners is
> cheap, but you can go the flatbed route and scan MF with lower
> resolution, which is ten times cheaper.  Of course, the flatbed 
scans
> are also many times poorer in quality, too.
> 
> See
> 
>  http://www.mxsmanic.com/street.jpg
> 
> for a scan of Portra 400BW on the LS-8000. The original shot was 
taken
> with a Hasselblad on a tripod. See
> 
>  http://www.mxsmanic.com/street1.jpg
>  
> for a full-size excerpt of the same image, showing the original 
scan.
> Two other examples:
> 
>  http://www.mxsmanic.com/salute.jpg (full frame)
>  http://www.mxsmanic.com/salute1.jpg (excerpt at 100% scan size)
> 
>  http://www.mxsmanic.com/stairs.jpg (full frame)
>  http://www.mxsmanic.com/stairs1.jpg (excerpt at 100% scan size)
>  
> > Would it be more economical to send them already processed film 
and
> > just have them scan the images that I want?
> 
> Not at all.  See above.  Labs charge so much for scans that you can
> amortize the cost of your own scanner with the savings in lab costs
> after only a few rolls.