Film from Digital (Part 2)
A couple of weeks ago I began to re-explore getting film negatives from a digital file. The motivation was to take some of my newer digital images and print them in black and white in the darkroom. I explored two different vendors Bayeux in London UK and Gammatech in Albuquerque, NM. I outlined the difference in offerings according to the information on their websites and some correspondence via email.
By the time I wrote the post I had given up on Bayeux as the gentleman there never responded to the file I sent. I thought perhaps I had offended him with some of my comments or questions. However he got back to me a couple of days ago to say that the film was done and he wanted to know where to ship it to. They had had some problems with the Kodak LVT machine and had to call in a technician to repair it.
Meanwhile, Gammatech was immediately responsive and printed and developed the film in a couple of days.
Today I received a parcel from Gammatech and inside were three sheets TMAX 100 film exposed as I wished. On first examination the emulsion looks a little thin. The highlights seem a little thin and the shadows are completely clear. I will reserve judgement until I get in the darkroom however. The shadows are pretty black in the submitted images.
I did some rough and ready scans here as I must wait till I return to the UK to get in the darkroom. I placed the sheets of film in their sleeves on my iPad as a light table and photographed them with my Fuji GFX. The results give a sense of the quality of the negatives. However because they are on an LCD screen one can see the LCD pixels through the film and this in turn aliases with the camera pixels so there can be a moire pattern.
 | |
|
 | |
|
The above images shows deep shadow where nothing will probably be recovered. That is OK and I expect that normal darkroom will be able to bring out the highlights and improve overall contrast.
Finally, I have the multi-image I made with nearly full resolution Xpan crop images (65:24) where I could arrange 8 image on one sheet for ultimate economy. Each image is 8,192 pixels across where the original image was 8,256 pixels across so very little scaling was needed. (The full size 4:3 image above was scaled up almost 2x for 16,384 pixels vs a a true full 2x scale of 16,512 pixels.)
 |
| Multi-exposure Sheet |
These will be interesting to print in the darkroom. I can chuck the sheet into my 4x5 enlarger as a single sheet and mask the desired image on the easel. However since the image area of the film is 4 1/2 inches wide that makes each image 2 1/4" wide which corresponds to the width of a 6x6 (cm) negative. This means I could use my small 6x6 enlarger. The issue will be if I can place the full sheet in the negative holder without damaging the negative and then accessing each image in my negative holder. I could cut pairs of images apart with some careful cutting as there is a small space between rows and this would certainly work.
The same arrangement with full frame 4:3 images could create an array of four 6 x 4.5 images.
The next installment should cover my experience in the darkroom but I expect that could take well over month at this point to be tested.
Meanwhile I have discovered a company called Griffin Editions in NYC that uses a Kodak LVT printer to print 4x5 or 8x10 TMax 100 film at 120 dots per mm or about 3000 dpi. This looks like an intriguing alternative. It also raised the question as to why the Bayeux offering is such low resolution. Griffen should be contacted for prices. It turns out of you Google Kodak LVT you will get a few references to companies still offering these services.
More on Kodak LVT History
This was some equipment developed by Kodak in perhaps the early 1990s and subsequently sold it to the Italian enlarger company Durst in 1999 who sold and upgraded it under the Rhino brand. From what I can infer LVT means Light Valve Technology and it works as a reverse drum scanner 'writing' with lasers and later laser diodes onto normal photographic film. It seems there are three resolution modes RES40, RES80, and RES 120 which corresponds to number of pixels per mm or 1016 dpi, 2032 dpi, or 3048 dpi respectively. For instance Bayeux mentioned above seems to only offer RES 40 for some reason. This may be the generation of equipment they use.
To give one an idea of the age of this technology I found the original LVTs used DEC VAX VMS equipment. Those old enough will remember Digital Equipment Corporation as a dominant player in the mini-computer market before PCs were available. (I wrote an Ethernet driver and protocol translator on VAX VMS in my first job out of college in the 80s.) Kodak transitioned to the DEC Alpha which was DEC's first and last attempt at a microprocessor, before transitioning to an Intel-based PC.
On Photrio the LVT equipment seems to get high praise for the quality of negatives produced. Some claims are made it is virtually impossible to tell the image is digitally generated under magnification.
I found this article about an early use in promoting digital photography at Northeastern University.
By and large film recording equipment occupied a transient role when the advent of digital photography did not have trusted means of creating quality output. Film recorders could create color or black and white negatives for creation of prints from the nascent digital imaging technology and early photo editing software. The ability to create slides was important to those making audio visual presentations using slide projectors. Eventually digital printer of both color and black and white silver-halide technology and inkjet printers supplanted the film recorders until we are left with a niche much like I am exploring. Where the desire for a traditional silver gelatin print from a digital image remains.
Comments