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Shooting Film Digitally
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Annotation: This article talks about shooting color print film and converting it to digital in an hour at Costco.

For serious photography, I use Fuji Velvia 50 slide flick, and accept it candy and scanned to digital at NCPS, who too does post order. NCPS also develops 120, 4x5" and larger slide (East-6) and traditional blackness-and-white film, while Costco only develops 35mm color print (C-41) movie. NCPS costs a little more than than Costco, but can give even amend results. Retrieve, almost of this article is well-nigh complimentary, but if you're willing to crush out a few extra dollars, get for NCPS if y'all adopt.

Shooting Fuji Velvia 50 and having the scans made at NCPS gives the same results as shooting an $8,000 Nikon D3X with 24MP.

July 2013 Ameliorate Pictures Nikon Canon Fuji LEICA All Reviews

How to Shoot Picture

Now that people are unloading their old, unused gear on me, and that I'm ownership it because it's so darn inexpensive, I've discovered that digital minilab engineering has made shooting film much, much easier than it was when normal people stopped shooting it in 2003.

Today I tin drop a curl of colour print flick at my local Toll Society (chosen Costco outside of San Diego), and go to dejeuner. Past the time I return, I have a aureate archival CD loaded with high-resolution digital images and a set of great 5x7" prints for less than what they charge just to make those same prints from other digital files.

Here'southward the breakout: a 24 exposure roll of excellent Fuji 400 film sells, with a coupon, for a dollar a roll in six-packs. No coupon? And so it'southward a whopping $one.33.

The processing is $1.59, the prints are 15¢ each and the CD with the scans is $2.99, or a total of $8.eighteen. Costco has a coupon for $1.50 running through nigh of September, and then that ways the consummate price for processing, printing and scanning is only $six.68. Add the cost of film and yous're into it for only $7.68, or 32¢ a impress, including film, processing, printing and scanning. I ordinarily get 25 frames, which at only an extra 15¢ a print lowers the average price to 31¢ a print. If I was a big spender and shot rolls of 36, it would be even less.

You walk away with your images archived three and a half ways: digital files, negatives, archival Fuji Crystal Archive prints, and an index print. The prints alone from digital files toll 39¢ for a 5x7," and usually run a dollar if you lot notwithstanding use dedicated photograph labs.

They practise this for u.s.a. while we store or have tiffin. Do you have any idea how long it would have me to do all that scanning and archiving myself?

The CDs are very squeamish. They are now imprinted with thumbnails of all the images.

CD with JPG files and imprinted thumbnails.

How Good Is It?

The CD is great. At that place are various bogus files on information technology, which for all I know include editing software. I ignore them. All I do is copy the JPGs from the QSS_CD > DCIM > 100NORIT binder to my reckoner. It's not similar the quondam Kodak Photo CD which used baroque file formats; these are universal high-quality JPGs.

The files are iv.5MB JPGs at 3,089 ten 2,048 pixels. File size will vary with the detail of the paradigm.

How skilful are the scans? I was amazed when I compared the scans from a $5 Olympus Trip-35 I got at a thrift store to files from my Canon 5D and L series lens. The $v photographic camera was sharper in the corners, and the images only toll me 58¢ a piece, including the camera! See my report on the Olympus Trip-35 to see the examples.

Ryan Rockwell

Ryan Rockwell, photographed with the Konica Hexar on Fuji 400.

Information technology looks great to me. This is every bit shot and every bit scanned, no exposure or color tweaks. I shot the Hexar at around f/ii.eight, so the groundwork is completely out of focus. Digital compacts can't practise this. Here is the original 4.5MB JPG from Costco.

Pic is grainier than files from a digital SLR, simply near the same as files from a compact digital. These picture scans are really much cleaner than compact digital camera files, since they don't have the excessive racket reduction that smudges over textures in compact cameras. I like my Grain Surgery plug-in for cleaning up grainy motion picture similar this. I ran the plugin at 33% on the full size browse, and and then cropped, resized and resharpened it above. The original 4.5MB JPG is untouched.

So far my results have been contrastier than I prefer, with somewhat redder skin tones. I'm unsure if this is the way my Costco is calibrated, or more than likely, simply my pick of film. I practise need to try some Reala. I love the saturation.

Costco Towels

Embankment Towels at Costco, as shot and as scanned by Costco. (Hexar, Fuji 400)

The colors in this towel shot are about scary. This is exactly as it came off the CD. I love it!

last Light

Last Low-cal. (Hexar, Fuji 400) 6.6MB original

Last light looks smashing. I see none of the atrocious hue-shifted highlights then easy to go on digital cameras. Desire to meet detail from the old Hexar and the cheap film and scans? Have a look at Costco'southward original 6.6MB scan. The paradigm above is besides exactly as it came from Costco, except for resizing.

These negative scans appear to take meliorate highlight blow-out handling than digital cameras.

Contrast

Within-outside shot with harsh subject contrast.

I'm not making this up. Here'due south a shot I made with and without fill up flash. This is every bit information technology came off the CD, no twiddling with levels or color. This shot, without fill, looks perfectly natural. The make full-flash shot, not shown here, looked forced. Heck, I doubt I could have gotten this on a digital camera, although I didn't call up to try. Side by side time I will.

These scans employ excellent auto white balance and exposure correction. Shooting negatives and dropping them off is like shooting raw and having the lab exercise all the color, WB and exposure corrections for you for gratis. Today'southward minilabs exercise some very clever things to alter dissimilarity and color, so depending on where you go, yous may be able to get a look you can't get any other way.

And then far I oasis't been geeky enough to run whatsoever serious tests. I've just been having a ball annoying my married woman shooting with the Konica Hexar, which she hates considering it looks old to her.

Film Types

I take not tried this with better, slower film.

I've only used the ISO 400 Fuji film I got at Costco.

If I got serious most this, I'd attempt my favorite color negative film, Fuji ISO 100 Reala.

Filing Digital Files

I re-create the files from the CD into my computer and annal them in the same folders every bit my traditional digital photographic camera shots. It makes no deviation to me. I ingest them and they are treated the same way. If anything, it's easier to pop in a CD than to plug in a photographic camera.

If I had no estimator, I'd utilise the alphabetize prints included to sort, and then print from the CD at Costco's Kiosks.

I have a ball every time I guild prints at Costco. Their kiosks make it easy to get exact crops to fit the prints to the paper sizes. I don't accept to use a estimator to become perfect crops and rotations.

Your Local Costco

I go unlike results depending on the Costco I endeavor. Some gave lower resolution CDs depending on the original impress sizes I ordered. At some Costcos you lot may need to ask specifically for High-Rez scans.

If y'all're non happy with what yous go, enquire, and if they're not making you happy, try another Costco or another lab. Just like everything in analog and film, everything matters. I'd try Wal-Mart, besides, if I was most i.

I found that the Costco down the street from Nikon USA's headquarters in Melville, Long Isle, NY also offers print sizes I can't become at my store in California. They offer 12 ten 24" and 12 x 36" panoramic prints for $3.99 and $4.99. All the stores offer 12 x xviii" prints for $2.99, my favorite impress size.

Slides

Sadly, Costco doesn't run Eastward-vi, so my Velvia goes to a real lab.

Costco will scan my slides for 29¢ a slide, with no charge for the CD.

Unfortunately, the colors were great, only the resolution was sloppy. The images were iii,000 ten 2,000 pixels, but appeared to exist nearest-neighbor (blocky) upsampled to that size. This is a great fashion to scan for the web, but not for the serious stuff for which we shoot slides.

So where's the free part?

This system of having Costco process my film and scan information technology costs less per print than the cost of the prints alone. That'due south less than gratuitous!

Want a top-level professional camera? I'd suggest a used Nikon F4, which you can get for less than I paid for my concluding CF card, just a couple of hundred dollars. If all you've ever used are mid-level digital cameras like the D200, the no-holds-barred professional person F4 makes my D200 feel similar a toy.

Desire a lightweight take-forth? Become a used Nikon N75, or any of the great movie classics. I got my mom a used N55.

Today the used prices of all movie cameras are so cheap that it doesn't cost much more than to own a professional person flagship Nikon like the F, F2, F3, F4 or even F5 than it does to buy one of the dinky North-series film cameras. Just the F6 still costs real coin as of 2008.

I've been shooting this motion picture in an old classic Konica Hexar which is here at The Ranch, total report coming.

This makes you coin. You could follow everyone else with all this digital madness of blowing four figures on fifty-fifty the cheapest mid-line amateur digital camera every yr and a one-half, or spend a few hundred dollars on a timeless film classic and be set for a decade. Guess what: when you tire of the camera, your moving-picture show archetype will probably exist worth what you paid for it, while your digital will probably be worth less than the motion-picture show archetype.

Even Cheaper than Gratuitous Solutions

This is cheap enough for me, and I similar to see what I shot at 5x7."

If I was even cheaper, I could have them printed at just 4x6," or probably enquire for no prints at all.

I ask for 5x7" because I prefer them. Depending on your Costco, I've seen scanned files come out smaller when I ordered 4x6" prints instead of 5x7."

The Full-Frame Advantage

You can read my Total-Frame Advantage article, but the real advantages here are for convenience, price, power to use whatever old movie photographic camera, and ultra-wide angle lenses which are not bachelor for DX cameras.

I'm going to exist testing them confronting each other, but a $5,000 Nikon D3 or $2,500 Catechism 5D should give a much cleaner, grain-gratis image than these film scans from Costco. Film isn't as clean as digital; digital sensors of the same size are more than efficient with photons.

Recommendations

Endeavour information technology. If you lot like it, I just saved you $5,000 for a Nikon D3, and a lot more from day-to-mean solar day as you impress.

You do have to buy into being a Costco member for an almanac tab. My wife is a member, so I married her then I could get in for free.

Not that this is the best solution for a serious pro, simply it is a bully solution for normal people who want to capture digital files hands and quickly. Information technology's also a swell thought for people who need handy digital files and want a film camera's flexibility and speed, but don't feel like throwing abroad a yard or more every year or so but to stay current.

There are other advantages, like never missing a new shot while looking at an old one on the dorsum of the camera. No vacation nights wasted piddling on a laptop to download and organize everything. No wasting time with apprentice DSLRs like the D300 and beingness able to step upwardly to a battle-hardened F4 or F5 with their scaldingly fast autofocus and shutter release.

Want to striking the jungle for a year? If I was out where in that location was no electricity to recharge my digital camera batteries, the Konica Hexar (review coming) claims to shoot 200 24-exposure rolls on a single tiny, lightweight $two CR2 throw-away lithium bombardment. I could jam my pockets full of motion picture and a couple of batteries and hit the road for a long time without having to come for air. The landmark Nikon F3 (or its little brother the FE or FE2) runs for a year or more on two tiny A76 watch batteries, which I buy over the Internet for eighty¢ the pair. If I was in the woods, I'd driblet a spare set in my wallet.

These examples are from simply a few trial rolls of film I blew through a Konica Hexar I'm testing. Picking the adept ones to show here, even I'thousand impressed.

I adopt Fuji Velvia for my mural piece of work, but for snapshots or budget digital, give this system a attempt.

I use Costco. Every other lab today offers similar services, although they may not exist as good or as inexpensive. I've e'er been embarrassed when I paid extra for pro labs to process my negatives, and my pals got better results at Costco. Information technology'due south inexpensive, and practiced.

Services for Pros

For slides, and definitely not inexpensive, I've heard from a friend who uses them that The Icon lab in Los Angeles will take your film and exercise everything.

If you're in LA, they'll transport a courier to get your film, procedure it, browse it and put the images for yous to see via the internet. You and so tell them what to do with what: trash them, annal them, print them, drum browse them, or any. They fifty-fifty will take care of my least favorite attribute, storing information technology. They'll store information technology and index your motion-picture show in their vaults for you.

Icon is a premium service not for everyone, but the great news is that even if you're out of LA and mail them your moving picture, you can get the quality of film with the convenience of digital, so long equally you're willing to pay for it.

The funny thing was that my friend who uses them explained it all this simply, but when I phoned them to confirm that I was putting upward the correct link, they didn't quite run across information technology that clearly. You'll haveto ready up accounts and ask a bunch of questions to get it fix this smoothly.

Sunny México

Yous're even ameliorate off in México. A reader from Monterrey writes that the Costco there does this for 29.90MXN (~ii.70USD) including development and price of CD burning, as well all done on Noritsu.

Down there one tin can buy a four pack of Fuji ProPlus 100 for 64MXN, and develop and get a CD with scans for 29.90MXN. The total price per frame is then one.28MXN which is 11¢ United states of america. If yous want 4x6 prints, you could add those for 1MXN per frame.

I wonder if I tin practice it online from the Usa?

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