Photos, the old school way

That's awesome! I have thousands of C-41 negatives that I shot from middle school through college and beyond... photography has always been a big part of my life. Every now and then I dust off the film scanner and bring a few more of those old images back to life, and once I get started it's hard for me to stop.

Having said that, film is a pain in the ass.
 
I've been doing that as well. Unfortunately, I'll need to fix them with Gimp or similar. Can't seem to keep the dust away, and the colors definitely will need fixing. Wondering if I can smooth out graininess as well for the big blow ups. I'd eventually like to print and frame some of my shots.

Here's one of the ones I've scanned. I've actually used this crossing a few times.

PICT0006.JPG
 
My problem is 10,000 8x10 glass negatives my father rescued from the the dumpster at Sawyer's post card company in 1938.

He brought them home in his Studebaker pickup truck. I've scanned hundreds of them, but have given up.

If you think "film" is a PITA, try large, heavy glass plates!
 
Andy: I use VueScan. It has predefined color corrections for dozens of manufacturers and film types. Most work pretty well unless the negatives are majorly color shifted. It also does a good job of removing dust.

If you use Photoshop, the Google NIK collection has an excellent filter for removing film grain called Dfine.
 
+1 for VueScan.................................the best of the best.
 
I just gave away a number of film cameras and lenses. I discovered they weren't worth anything. I should have tried to sell them 10 years ago when they were. Instead they sat in my closet.
 
Everskyward said:
I just gave away a number of film cameras and lenses. I discovered they weren't worth anything. I should have tried to sell them 10 years ago when they were. Instead they sat in my closet.
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I just got rid of some old photographic stuff. The most valuable items were lenses that could work with DLSRs. Some I gave away, but I got good money for some of it. There are still folks shooting on film. Just not yours truly.
 
Those are really cool pictures... I think you could give this photographer any kind of camera and the pictures would turn out great. :)
 
kgruber said:
My problem is 10,000 8x10 glass negatives my father rescued from the the dumpster at Sawyer's post card company in 1938.

He brought them home in his Studebaker pickup truck. I've scanned hundreds of them, but have given up.

If you think "film" is a PITA, try large, heavy glass plates!
Click to expand...

Some larger libraries have folks who do nothing but digitize old stuff like that. Might check with them.
 
colojo said:
Andy: I use VueScan. It has predefined color corrections for dozens of manufacturers and film types. Most work pretty well unless the negatives are majorly color shifted. It also does a good job of removing dust.

If you use Photoshop, the Google NIK collection has an excellent filter for removing film grain called Dfine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'm using a Wolverine scanner. I'll have to keep the Dfine thing in mind. Right now I'm playing with Gimp. Can't beat the price!

In other news, I'm surprised no one picked up on the aviation them of the picture I posted. Granted it was overly green.
 
GlennAB1 said:
Some digital cameras use the 35 mm lenses.
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My Sony uses the old Minolta glass and family members still have quite a bit of that. No AF of course back in those days, or power zoom or any of that, so it turns it all back into a manual process... Which is fine, but not my chosen way to shoot action stuff anymore. I'll let the Sony glass and camera do their thing automatically.

I don't want to make it sound like the Sony nor their glass turned out to be a good purchase decision however. One of the lenses always misfocuses at infinity (how they screwed that up, I have no idea) and the body has been a disappointment. A friend who jumped to Sony who's a pro has absolutely nothing good to say about them after he wore out a sensor. They pretty much price repairs so high you might as well throw away the body.

The real camera companies (that would be Nikon and Canon) will bend over backward to help a pro maintain their gear when it breaks, at a much lower cost, knowing keeping a pro happy on their brand will bring many future sales.

Sony is consumer grade junk, and I was hoping their bringing Minolta people in from the cold was going to be a match made in heaven. It's not.

The only thing the Sony did absolutely brilliantly was low light. Their sensors, at least back when I bought my body, couldn't be beat on that. Even when specs looked the same between them and Nikon, the actual images were better from the Sony.

But they'll never get another dime from me. Minolta died after they bought them.
 
I had (still have) a fine (worthless) collection of Pentax 35 mm equipment. I too, went for a Sony (A100) when they first came out and I've had good luck although the flash is acting kinda funny. No, I wouldn't do another Sony DSLR. I tend to not go mainstream, I like Olympus.
 
My Nikon film camera, lenses, and Speedlight haven't been out of the bag in years. Too, bad, really. I'd like to get a DSLR, but just can't justify it anymore.
 
I still have my dad's Nikon F. Now that Kodachrome is gone it's totally worthless. Keeping it for sentimental value. I just shoot away with the D-50.
 
Yeah, I have a half a dozen rolls of film I've not developed. I have no idea what's on them (could be some Oshkosh shots though). I checked a while back to make sure they weren't Kodachromes (which was unlikely, as I rarely shot with that after I got royally screwed by the Kodak labs on my shots of my sister's wedding in Taiwan).

Of course, the last time I sent a random roll of film into be developed, I found half the roll to be shots of my 12 year old goofily grinning into the camera. Evidentally, he'd figured out how to use the self timer (for those of you younguns that's the way we USED to do selfies).
 
GlennAB1 said:
I had (still have) a fine (worthless) collection of Pentax 35 mm equipment. I too, went for a Sony (A100) when they first came out and I've had good luck although the flash is acting kinda funny. No, I wouldn't do another Sony DSLR. I tend to not go mainstream, I like Olympus.
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My older camera and lenses, which I got rid of, were Olympus. I have an Olympus DSLR, but I never used the old lenses on it. I recently bought a Sony A5000. I like it better than the Olympus, mainly because it is much lighter.

I have WAY too many things that I could keep "for sentimental value" but they are doing no good sitting in my closet.
 
I gave away my Canon film camera. The one thing I liked about making the transition to digital was my Canon digitals work pretty much the same way my Canon film camera did. I decided to make the leap back when Canon used to allow you to borrow a camera at Oshkosh and shoot with it for a few hours. If you borrowed a film camera, you just kept your film. If you borrowed a digital camera, they'd transcribe the memory card for you onto CDROMs when you returned it. Too bad when Nikon became the sponsor for the show they didn't keep that idea going. I might be a Nikon man now if they'd have let me try and drive one of their cameras.
 
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