On Pakon film scanner

Been film scanner operator for ~20 years, I tried many Minoltas, Nikons, Epsons ugly ducklings. I settled on Epson V700 photo for preview and Nikon Coolscan V for the final scans. Using this combo for a few years now, I scanned several hundred rolls and finally got tired of the slowness and the buzzzzzz.

Recently I started looking into the operatorless scanning of a whole roll of B&W 35mm film (I shoot black and white film only, no color). I checked what's available new on the market and >>tested<< Prime Film XA, also known as Reflecta ProScan 10T/10M in Europe. The PrimeFilm XA in theory could scan the whole roll, but in my case it did not work very well. Yes, when positioned right and the stars are perfectly aligned it could produce very nice scans; it also had some intrinsic deficiencies making the process very long, involved and tedious. I returned the PrimeFilm promptly.

Last week I tested Kodak Pakon F135 scanner; this is a pro scanner intended for the photolab market; it hit the shelves a decade ago and use to cost a wopping $12000 new; I acquired a well-used specimen for ~$300.

After some testing I liked the little ugly beast and it stays. Here is what I found out, in a few words:

Pacific Image scanners

I recently tested these two scanners from Pacific Image:



Prime Film XE and Prime Film XA are also known as Reflecta ProScan 10T and Reflecta RPS 10M, respectively.
Resolution-wise, they both can produce scan at 4K+ dpi. The units I received both had problems:
- XA (the one at bottom) had inherent issues with its film transporting mechanism and it was a pain to align the frame properly.
- XE produced vertical stripes in the midst of the frame on some photos.
I only used them with 35mm Tri-X which is black and white film, slightly curled when recently developed.
I suspect they both will work better with modern C41 films, but I have not tested that as I have no desire to use this type of film.
I returned both.
Oh well..I will stay with my Nikon V, Minolta Multi, Minolta Scan Speed and Epson V700 Photo :D

Printing in dark room vs film-to-digital workflow

I started in darkroom in my early teens, somewhere in 68 or 69. Back then, everything was simple: not too many graded papers available, one developer, water from the tap, fixer and free time, which I had aplenty. I did not use any advanced techniques. Masking with my fingers for dodging and burning was the farthest it went. Because of this, there were negatives I could print easily and some I did not know how to print, the negatives too dark or too contrasty...when I had one, I just skipped it. Here is one of the prints from the time: some TASMA film pushed to 500 ISO, some old paper my father gave me:


(View from my darkroom AKA attic room. Yelabuga, 1973)

ORWO N74 Plus in TMax

ORWO is a trade name for a range of film products from Germany, from the company named Filmotec. I the 70s, I use to shoot ORWO slide film (UT 18). Recently, in my search for an affordable B&W 400 ISO film to replace Arista (aka cheap Tri-X) I came across ORWO NP74 plus, a movie stock said to be around 400 ISO. I bought one 100ft can of it from http://orwona.com and tried it in my daily shooting. Here are my findings:

Street Photographer In His Element

I rarely shoot digital/color, but yesterday at Leica Store Miami event I tried the new Leica M-E with 28mm lens and liked it since it has the same feeling and in many ways similar to my Leica M2 circa 1962. Unfortunately, the new camera died after few clicks; I put the lens on my M2 and continued shooting B&W film. I figured Buddha does not want me to shoot either digital or color. So be it.

Allessandra Sanguinetti and Bruce Gilden in Miami next week

Two events next week at Leica in Miami worth going: http://www.facebook.com/events/447465865327800/ (Bruce Gilden) http://www.facebook.com/events/497831660252912/ (Allessandra Sanguinetti)

Kill it before it lays eggs

I bought this can of Kodak 35mm cine version of Tri-X film from late 50s in a hope to find it exposed, but it turned out to be not. So I used the opportunity to check my old film development process on it. First, I put it in my FED-2 rangefinder camera and exposed at 50 E.I. (originally it was 320 ASA but 50 ASA is my best guess of what's left of it), I also bracketed with +1 and +2. Then, I used my standard process for developing fresh Tri-X (4.5 min @ 75F/24C in TMax 1:4) and it turned out to be heavily fogged, barely printable/scannable. Then I developed it in 10% HC-110 at 50F/10C for 2.5 minutes (the time had been calculated based on test). It came out ok. Here is how it looked after the development:

TOY WORLD by Victor Ginzburg

I published this book of photographs for my friend Victor Ginzburg.
He is an avid photographer; this is the book he was working on since 2005 and it is very unusual piece, at least for the modern photography book: all film, all square, all color. So, what is it, this book? Well, it has 82 pages and 72 photographs and almost no text in it, and it is clearly an art book, but can it be narrowed to more specific genre or school of photography? Asking myself this question, I had to admit that while I love this book immensely, I do not have the ready answer, at least not the verbal one. It is easier to limit the field by saying what this book is not: while many photographs in the book will qualify as a street photography, the book itself is not. Likewise, while author has traveled the world and many photographs where taken far from New England where he lives, is not about travel. Also it isn't a book about his family and friends despite the fact that many of the photographs are picturing his family and his friends.
So yes, I do not have the full and complete answer...still, I can point to the few clues:

- the color is very important for the book. As a black and white, it would not exist.
- the photography as art often has something of painting's legacy. This one has a lot of it.
- it is centered around humans and sure qualify as human-interest photography.

All in all, it is beautiful piece of art and I happy to have my copy.
The book is not expensive and can be had for ~$20 shipped to US location, see here:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/502656

To help you decide, here are the few pages from the book:

Kentmere 400 film vs Tri-X in Diafine

I have not recently reviewed any film/developer combinations in this blog. There is a reason for this: film is well known thing, why bother with the reviews anyway? Well, if it is Tri-X of HP5+ then it's true, they have been around for a while, along with Diafine 2-bath developer I'm using here, but Kentmere 400 is all new animal, at least for me. So I bought 100ft roll for $29.95 from Adorama and tried it, along with Tri-X, in the same Leica M2 with 50mm f/2 Planar lens from Zeiss. It is not very scientific comparison per se; I just needed some feeling of it. I exposed Tri-X at E.I.1200-1600 and Kentmere at E.I.640-800, as recommended for Diafine. I looked at the resulting film strips on the light table and scanned them.
Looking at the negatives: Kentmere is drying flat, which is good. My version of Tri-X (Arista Premium 400 from Freestyle Photo) is not. The Kentmere is a bit "flatter" in terms of tonal gradations, compared to Tri-X. The Tri-X grain is bigger but I also like it more, the dense grain of Kentmere has not impressed me much (see the fragments below). On the night shots, Kentmere has denser blacks with less details in them. Ok, here are the shots, face to face --

Books I published in IPAD format

I converted all books I published on Blurb to Ipad format.
The download is free, here are the links:

"Selected" series:

Victor Ginzburg, "Selected Photographs" --
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/345444-selected-photographs

Mike Steinberg, "Selected Photographs" --
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/345429-selected-photographs

Alexander Slyusarev, "Selected Photographs" and "Selected Color"--
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/345417-selected-photographs
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/345401-selected-color

Emir Shabashvili, "Selected Photographs" --
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/345449-selected-photographs

My street potrfolio circa 2007:
"La Machine a Habiter"
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/345382-la-machine-a-habiter

Books based on my Russian blog :

Day by day 2006-2008 (Russian)
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/340531-

Day by day 2008-2009 (Russian)
http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/343005-

Happy reading!

"Nash Chelovek v Maimi"

"Nash Chelovek v Miami" can be translated from Russian as "Our Man in Miami".
It is a heading of an article on my photography and other things just published in "Kazan" magazine. "Kazan" is a paper publication on art and culture; it is based in my native town of Kazan, Russia (Tatarstan province). Here is the link to the web version of the article:

http://kazan-journal.ru/pages/item/391-nash-chelovek-v-mayami-ob-emire-shabashvili

and here is the pdf:

http://emirco.net/photo/projects/Kazan/kazan.pdf

The photographs below are the few published in the issue

Happy reading!

Miami Street Photography Festival: see you there in December!

Miami Street Photography Festival is coming. The deadline for submitting the images is October, 15 and it is close! So if you are planning to take part in this great event, hurry up! The festival will include an exhibition, evening with magnum photographer Alex Webb, guided photo shoot in Little Havana, Alex and Rebecca with conduct a workshop. Check it out --

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