MorseBlog

 Introduction My recent set of 4x5 color images have shown up some inattention I have had in my color scanning workflow. I first noticed it when I had a print made from Peak Imaging. The print looked noticeably darker with more muted color than the screen image.  I had asked the lab not to correct the image where a technician will try and remove color casts and get good contrast and color balance. I wanted to try and have more control over the print. (The lab corrected images in the past I have been pleased with.) The next thing I noticed was the same image posted to this blog and to Flickr did not reflect the same quality I saw on the same monitor when rendered on the PC. In other words the image rendered through a browser appeared differently than the image when rendered on the PC either in the photo viewing application or Photoshop Elements etc.   Here is an example of the the screen grab of two images that are in all ways identical expect one. The image on the ri...

A subsequent visit to Holme Fen yielded a couple of good photos. I am working through my assigned Autumn Ritual to put me in touch with the season for my Woodlands project.  Again I found myself out before sunrise. A promise of some fog and I headed again to Holme Fen. I am trying to figure out for myself when and where to capture the woodlands when the Autumn color arrives. This means I have dusted off my 4x5 large format camera and loaded the film holders with mostly color film. This in turn means I need to recall the muscle-memory of operating the beast. So I always plan to take a few photos even if the conditions are not promising. All this to make errors early as I relearn the camera for this season.  On this particular morning there were patches of fog as I descended into the fen lowlands. I disembarked and headed out to the eastern edge of the wood. The fog as I found on the earlier visit did not penetrate the woodland well which means that aspect of the morning wasn't...

Recently I have started to take color photos again. This is tied up with a renewed interest in may MPP MKII large format camera and recent purchase of a Fuji G617 panorama camera. I also find that the excitement of black and white can fade with me as well.  Large format film is very expensive new and so I had pruchased some time back a box of slightly expired Kodak Portra 400 film to experiment with. Scanning this I found the usual frustration I have with negative film. I cannot get the colors to look right consistently without a lot of effort. This is true with non-expired film for me and I actually don’t think the expired nature of the film impacts this situation next. On my Epson V500 scanner I use Vuescan software and when I scan Fuji Velvia reversal film I find some simple corrections of levels gets me quick good results. There is nearly always a shift of the red channel histogram that is offset towards brighter compared to the other colors. Getting this realigned on the b...

Introduction I wanted to make some notes and comments on scanning of film. I have been mostly self taught since I started in 2009 with my brother's archive that I wanted to create a book from. I had a basic scanner for 35mm film and slides and used the included SW and Photoshop Elements 6. I could not and still cannot justify in my own mind a full-blown Photoshop license. I got reasonably good results. I learned the importance of cleaning dust before scanning as this saves a lot of time touching them up in Photoshop. (Some of his slides were filthy.) I scanned as TIFF files as these don't suffer losses from compression like JPG. I also tried scanning at a high resolution like 4000 DPI. I thought of myself as making archival scans as a result. The idea being to scan to capture all the information and then make modifications from that in Photoshop. What I did not understand was the degree to which the scanner SW was making changes to make the scan 'better'. Eventual...

Since the purchase of ColorPerfect/ColorNeg I have had to revise (and improve) my scanning work flow. I have also purchased and read Alex Burke' book Film in a Digital Age . It is a good book and at 180 pages worth the $20.00 if you practice a hybrid film digital work flow. Lots of practical tips. Alex's photos I think speak for themselves. Interestingly the two scanning flows are somewhat different and I wanted to compare them. I normally use Vuescan which can be unclear sometimes but has lots of controls. For instance I have scanned for 48-bit color for a very long time. It was only after using ColorNeg that I discovered all my scans were saved as 24-bit files. This is because there are separate scanning and saving options. The tutorials with ColorNeg straightened all this out. These experiments relate to color negative flow. Alex on the other hand uses EpsonScan and then Photoshop. Reading his scanning flow I decided to see what differences there might be. The recommende...

I finally got delivery of my Fuji GSW690 6x9 camera with 65mm f5.6 lens. The so called Texas Leica medium format rangefinder camera. It is a beast and but for the rangefinder aspect suits my preferences for cameras. Manual, simple, and medium format. The only time I have shot 6x9 is when I take out my Zeiss Ikonta from the 1930s. Bought very cheaply the Ikonta works surprisingly well. Fuji GSW690iii I loaded up some Ilford FP4+ so I could have the result when I got home. (I had tested the shutter speeds using a fast frame rate video camera at home and they all seemed accurate.) I then headed out to the Fen Drayton RSPB refuge near where I live. This is a close-by place that allows some good scenery and is relatively quiet so I can get on with photography without a lot of distraction. It was a warm and very cloudy day and it made for a pleasant few hours out. I took my meter, tripod, and 67mm yellow filter along with the beast. I wanted to test a few different shutter speeds and s...

Vicki and I traveled to the North Norfolk coast during a rare sunny weekend. I took along my Fuji G617 monster camera complete with rollbars as she calls them. The thing really is ridiculously huge. Fuji G617 (6x17mm negatives) The Norfolk coast is lovely but we have really been there only once before when we first moved to Cambridgeshire. This time again we headed for Wells-Next-The-Sea but detoured to Little Walsingham on a lark. It is known as a very popular medieval pilgrimage destination until Henry VIII had it torn down and sold in 1538 along with most Catholic monasteries of the time. It is a beautiful little village and the shrines and religious sites have benefited from an early 20th century revival.  Many still come for pilgrimage and religious contemplation. We were blessed with a lovely day and a very uncrowded village. This was probably because in the good weather Wells and the surrounding beaches absorbed most of the hordes.  We counted ourselves lucky an...