Film for Scanning Suggestions?

[TechIV]

I was wondering what combination of film and scanning you all have found to be useful. In the past I have used transparency (Velvia or Provia for) exclusively, but I'm somewhat attracted to the exposure lattitude and D-range of Color Negative film.

1. It would seem that contrast, color saturation, or b/w conversion could always be manipulated post process?

2. Have any of you had any success in scanning/conversion of Color Neg 4x5 to digital?

3. As far as transparency film goes, do any of you shoot Astia (or the like) and then just manipulate to get the look of higher contrast/saturation films later?

Note: I'm on a budget and already have an Epson 4990 which I will use for first batch work... those few images judged worthy will be drum scanned elsewhere. I don't have the money to own every film in quickloads or traditional holders for every situation.

Sorry for the long-winded question and Thanks in advance.

 

[Lars]

Hi and welcome

For positive film I prefer E100G - like Astia it has extremely fine grain and low saturation. Great for post-processing. I prefer the color palette of E100G over Astia for dawn/dusk landscape shoots, whereas Astia might be considered slightly more neutral and unbiased.

The challenge with color negative film is that the reversal to positive becomes an interpretation - there is no absolute reference point. OTOH as you point out the wide latitude of neg film is worth a lot, especially when film and development cost puts a strain on your budget.

Re neg conversion, it really bugs me that I have to do the conversion in the scanner software - it would make more sense to saved the raw scan, just like you would do with a digital raw file, so you can revisit the neg conversion step at a later time.

Not sure if my reply is of much help as I primarily shoot slide film, but you seem to have most things figured out.

Lars