Any scanning tips for Velvia 50 120?

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Hey folks :)

Had great results scanning my own B&W and C-41 (reala) so far. Sharp, great colours etc. This Velvia 50 is a nightmare. I have been reading on the line about it being thicker therefore darker or whatever. They just aren't as good as I was expecting from looking at the film itself. Does anyone have any tips or settings advice using Epson scan software and standard film holder please?

Edit - From fiddling myself, the closest results seem to be with Colour Restoration on and backlight correction set to low.

Gareth
 
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It is denser and harder for the lamp to penetrate. Only way I could get a good scan was profiling targets. Have a search on here for it8 and you'll likely find my saga...
 
Velvia is notoriously difficult with consumer scanners, especially flatbeds as it is very high contrast and they don't tend to have anywhere near the necessary density (the density specs are very optimistic - 4.0 is claimed for the V700 for instance, but half that is probably the actual figure) needed to penetrate the shadows, which typically end up as just blocked up and without any detail.

I use a dedicated 35mm scanner (Reflecta ProScan 7200) which has a good density (better than any flatbed), but even that has difficulty with Velvia, and the only way I can get even a good level of shadow detail (but still not quite as good as the original) is to use multi-exposure scanning where a normal and brighter exposure scanning pass are combined to increase the dynamic range/shadow detail. Unfortunately it's not possible to use multi-exposure with flatbeds as their unable to line up the scanning head precisely enough for each pass. To get the colours anywhere near the original with any sort slide film, IT8 profiling is essential as Steve mentioned. Its not too expensive (£~20) to get a target, it can just take some experimentation in order to get an optimum profile.

Sam.
 
You have to look at exactly what is quoted in the density specs, looking on the Epson site it says Optical Density: 4 Dmax which I expect is accurate but not worth jack on account of what actually matters is Drange which is unlikely to be more than 2.5 with dedicated slide scanners coming in about 2.9 the hard truth that no one wants to hear is that it's only Drum Scanners that have true Drange of the order of 3.8 - 4.0.

There are whole threads on Large Format.info discussing scanning Velvia 50 and a common theme is to keep the exposure within certain limits to keep the density down to limits that the Epson scanners can deal with.

Not a vast amount of help I realize and certainly as Steven and Sam have said profiling is a must and will help.
 
Thanks both for the info. I'm not sure I'm dedicated enough at this stage to go to the extent that Velvia requires. There may be a box appearing for sale in the classifieds soon and I may stick to reala and B&W. :(
 
@gazmorton2000 You can get perfectly competent shots and scans with Velvia and ordinary equipment, just remember to avoid high contrast situations unless you're using it for effect because if you lose the shadows you're not going to get them back short of having a drum scan. If you follow that simply rule then you can get some wonderful scans with Velvia; it is important to remember that Velvia was designed to be projected originally so the intensely bright bulb could simply blast through the shadows to reveal detail that the great majority of scanners are unable to.
 
Don't want to hijack an interesting thread on scanning, but I'm thinking of taking my only roll of 35mm Velvia 50 (a few months outdated) to the highlands in a week or so, and shooting with my Pentax MX. Any shooting tips?

(It's still an open question as there's a just-started roll of Portra 160 in the camera just now...)
 
Keep the scenes within three and a half stops using grads if necessary avoid shadows in a scene in bright sunlight as they are basically going to come out as solid black.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/abbandon/8087592494/sizes/l a bit dark and moody but I like it that way and Velvia 50 just scanned on a V750 feel free to hurt your browser on the original size.

The excuse made for Velvia 50's other failings is what it does enhance some tones near sunset

https://www.flickr.com/photos/abbandon/8556200503/sizes/l

I was only using Velvia 50 because relatively speaking I got six boxes cheap ended up passing the last box along to a friend as I prefer Velvia 100 or Provia 100f for their colour balance and better characteristics.


It is of course perfectly possible to get good results from 50 but its wise to use it carefully. Osh has posted many great shots using Velvia 50 if you search his posts in show us your film shots.

I don't nor am I interested in offering a service but if any one wants a few frames drum scanned get in touch but please be warned in the Summer it might take a couple of weeks to post things back out.

Your question seems perfectly valid to the discussion to me Chris.
 
ChrisR said:
Don't want to hijack an interesting thread on scanning, but I'm thinking of taking my only roll of 35mm Velvia 50 (a few months outdated) to the highlands in a week or so, and shooting with my Pentax MX. Any shooting tips?

(It's still an open question as there's a just-started roll of Portra 160 in the camera just now...)
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Chris, I love shooting Velvia 50 in both 35 and 120,I have found that with 35mm ,I let my camera do the work in Auto,but,you have not that luxury with the MX,so, use a good light meter I use the Sekonic twinmate, any like will do. I meter for the thirds top,bottom and middle and left right and center. I then take the average of the three or six and use that setting. If the light is very difficult I then use my Digital camera on full matrix metering to confirm or not. If your film is current,which it is, shoot at box speed,some say shoot at 40Asa,but if you meter as stated then I do not feel that a reduction in box speed is needed,unless old film.

Looking forward to the results.(y)
 
Thanks guys!
 
gazmorton2000 said:
Thanks Steven, wow, that's in depth!!

Here is an example of where I am at so far.....

Crosby Paraglider
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Hi Gaz,

Velvia isn't the easiest film to scan but getting good results doesn't need to be a horrendously complex process. You don't *need* profiling, you can get perfectly good results by getting a good basic scan and tweaking colours in editing software.

When you scanned this did you use an auto mode or did you tell the scanner what you wanted it to do? The contrast has been pulled quite hard, the blocked shadows are giving quite a harsh and aggressive feel and the highlights being pushed so far is having the effect of making the image seem less colourful - probably not something you want with Velvia!

I just spent 15 minutes writing a long explanation with examples of how these things affect the image and how to spot them in your editing software and then I realised you'd said no to editing!
 
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Thank you all for the information. Perhaps it is worth persevering with.

@PMN , I adjusted settings myself with Colour Restoration on and backlight correction set to low. I didn't adjust the histogram etc though pre scan. It has had a little tweak in LR afterwards though. Do you have any setting suggestions for the scanner perhaps?

@abbandon , Thank you for your kind offer of a drum scan. I shall persevere with the advice from you and everyone else to see fi I can get any more pleasing results myself before bothering you with that, but it would be good to see the difference it makes. It's frustrating when the shots on the film look reasonably good compared to the scan though. Another problem is they don't look as sharp as the B&W and C-41 film I have scanned previously.
 
gazmorton2000 said:
@PMN , I adjusted settings myself with Colour Restoration on and backlight correction set to low. I didn't adjust the histogram etc though pre scan. It has had a little tweak in LR afterwards though. Do you have any setting suggestions for the scanner perhaps?
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To be honest if you want the best results it's pretty much vital that you check the histogram and tweak accordingly when you scan to make sure you're not binning information in the image. When you're turning a frame of film into a digital file you're working within exactly the same technical restrictions digital cameras have, and digital cameras are probably the most unforgiving of mediums when it comes to getting your exposure wrong. Ideally you want to be aiming for the information to just touch both the left and right sides of the graph, if it's going up either side then you're losing information. Sometimes you might actually want to lose information; if you're shooting into the sun and making a person into a silhouette for example you might want pure black so the graph will naturally work it's way up the left side in the shadows, but for general day to day images just hitting the left and right sides of the graph and avoiding blocked shadows and blown highlights will help preserve as much tonal detail as possible.

Personally I'd also avoid things like backlight correction, they can add all kinds of unpleasant artefacts to the image that are impossible to remove afterwards. Scanning is a very simple process, generally using as few steps as possible (i.e. avoiding 'automatic' processing like backlight correction) but making sure what you do is as accurate as can be will give the best results.
 
PMN said:
To be honest if you want the best results it's pretty much vital that you check the histogram and tweak accordingly when you scan to make sure you're not binning information in the image. When you're turning a frame of film into a digital file you're working within exactly the same technical restrictions digital cameras have, and digital cameras are probably the most unforgiving of mediums when it comes to getting your exposure wrong. Ideally you want to be aiming for the information to just touch both the left and right sides of the graph, if it's going up either side then you're losing information. Sometimes you might actually want to lose information; if you're shooting into the sun and making a person into a silhouette for example you might want pure black so the graph will naturally work it's way up the left side in the shadows, but for general day to day images just hitting the left and right sides of the graph and avoiding blocked shadows and blown highlights will help preserve as much tonal detail as possible.

Personally I'd also avoid things like backlight correction, they can add all kinds of unpleasant artefacts to the image that are impossible to remove afterwards. Scanning is a very simple process, generally using as few steps as possible (i.e. avoiding 'automatic' processing like backlight correction) but making sure what you do is as accurate as can be will give the best results.
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Thank you for all that information. Here is another one following on what you said. Colour Restoration ON, no sharpening at scan, adjusted the histogram so it touched each end. Added a little conrast in LR. I have no experience of Velvia so unsure how it 'should' look which is I think what I want to achieve from it. This one is uploaded to PB instead of my FLickr so unsure it it will affect the image. Also just realised it's a different image and probably not the best one. Perhaps I will go out and shoot more/different things with it now. Probably the best way to learn.

 
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Funny artefact on the RHS of that one, Gareth?
 
ChrisR said:
Funny artefact on the RHS of that one, Gareth?
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Oh yes I know about that. Perhaps down to the developing, as it's on the film? Either way, more interested in the scan at this stage I think. Looking any better?
 
gazmorton2000 said:
Colour Restoration ON, no sharpening at scan, adjusted the histogram so it touched each end.
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Why even have colour restoration on?

I'd leave all colour tweaking to Lightroom/Aperture, personally.

My aim is usually to do as little as possible within the scanning software itself, while extracting as much information as possible from the film at that stage and then do any heavy lifting in Lightroom as necessary.
 
skysh4rk said:
Why even have colour restoration on?

I'd leave all colour tweaking to Lightroom/Aperture, personally.

My aim is usually to do as little as possible within the scanning software itself, while extracting as much information as possible from the film at that stage and then do any heavy lifting in Lightroom as necessary.
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Without it, it looked very purple. Will give it a try though tonight.
 
skysh4rk said:
Why even have colour restoration on?

I'd leave all colour tweaking to Lightroom/Aperture, personally.

My aim is usually to do as little as possible within the scanning software itself, while extracting as much information as possible from the film at that stage and then do any heavy lifting in Lightroom as necessary.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same, I have absolutely every auto correction function off including colour restoration. That said it's taken me a good while to be happy with the results manually correcting colour and I understand not everyone really wants to spend that much time fiddling (even though it's usually pretty quick once you get used to it). Colour restoration's probably the least destructive of all the auto functions, I can understand why some people prefer using it.
 
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