Apple Picking

These are scanned by yours truly using the state of the art crappy Epson Perfection V500 Photo running the iScan software on a AMD64 Ubuntu 11.04 machine.

220 FUJI RDP III PROVIA 100F.  I should have bought more of these.
Notice all the dust.  Scanning film is a pain.  And I am such a masochist.

Veterans Day

The top and bottom ones have better white balance.  The middle and bottom ones come from the same frame, just different scans.

Technical details:  The negative (bottom) curves so much so that it presses against the glass in the middle.

Times Square

Kodak 160VC, Canon New F-1, Canon FD 28mm f/2.8, and yes with the ridiculously heavy motor drive too.

Sometimes I wish I were shooting with a 24mm on a real 35mm camera.  But other times, I was like oh the 24mm is just too "wide" for that shot.  You know I am just hopelessly good at coming up with lame excuses.

I got this roll of 135mm film developed some lab closeby.  It wasn't a good experience.  The fact that I used that lab knowing full well they kind of don't give a fuck of the negative is testimony to how lack of principle I am.  This was my third roll of film done there and might very well be my last roll.  In theory, any mini-lab can do a decent C41 development, that's if they take pride in what they do.  In practice, it's like nobody gives a fuck even some so called pro lab.  I got my film ripped and they had the ball to deny it.  Again, you got what you paid for if you are lucky.

I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous but I really find digital images too clean to look almost dull and lifeless.  I cannot believe I said that.  At the same time I hate to scan the images knowing it's really hit or miss to get a clean scan with no dust at all.  ICE is not 100% and plus there is no ICE with the software that I use.  So it's a pain to scan.

UPDATE 11/5/2010
I have received tons of emails regarding how I scanned what I scanned.  If it's a good scan, it's because of me and myself.  Nobody helped me in that department.  OKAY there is some online who selflessly shares his knowledge and thoughts on scanning.  And one of them is Mr. Wayne Fulton who operates a website called very humbly Scanning Basics 101 or www.scantips.com which I find to be most helpful though I don't understand most of them but it got me started.  I shall take all the blames for all the ugliness you see here, it's absolutely not a reflection of Mr. Fulton's fine website.  No guilty by association.

UPDATE 11/5/2010
I don't know how the heck I removed the picture hyperlink.  Crap.

Horsey

School

Kodak 160VC shot using a Canon F-1, 28mm f/2.8. Scanned at 2400dpi.

LaGuardia Airport

Twin Polaroids scanned by Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner.  Wow!  You just can't remove all the dust.  Scanning at home is an exercise in frustration and futility.

EPSON PERFECTION V500 Photo Ubuntu 10.04

It's really easy.
The negative is atrocious.  It must be the negative, the processing, never my photographic skill of course.

All 64 bit install is as easy as 32 bit, there is no difference in the process at all.  Epson rocks in this department.  With my quad core and 4GB RAM, the scan is almost painless at 2400 dpi.

update:
11/23/2011
In case you are wondering and Googling, Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit works just as well.

Ubuntu 10.04 and Epson V500 Photo

The above award winning beautifully taken picture is originally in Kodak positive.  It was scanned by scan master me and myself using sucky Epson 500 Photo and Image Scan! for Linux running on Ubuntu 10.04.  Auto color "corrected" in GIMP.  The Kodak slide is of unknown expiration date.

Shot in Bryant Park, NYC.

Ubuntu 10.04 has been pretty stable.  My wireless configuration is still funky and finicky.  But for the most part it works though there is no way to know to get it work consistently, but as long as it works I am not going to touch it.  Switching between users still hit and miss.  Searching and installing new software doesn't seem to be as good as before.

Anyway.

I was able to hook up my Epson V500 god awful scanner.  It wasn't exactly plug and play.  But it isn't too hard either.  If I can do it, you can too.

Go to Epson website or simply Google it, search for Epson V500 Photo and go to support
Go to download driver.
You will be prompted to go to outside Epson, that's go to avasys for the files.  You need to pick your scanner and platform.
Here's how to get Image Scan! for Linux to work:-
Download the deb data, core and plug-in packages, at present 32bit versions are called iscan-data_1.0.1-1_all.deb, iscan_2.25.0-l.ltdl7_i386.deb, iscan-plugin-gt-x770_2.1.1-2_i386.deb.  Install them in that order by simply double-clicking them.  Wow, don't even need to do command line.  I know you're going to miss that.
For me I need a reboot for it to recognize the scanner.  Image Scan! for Linux is pretty straight forward and has a clean interface that I like.  For the kind of scan I do, the simpler the better.  Download the Image Scan! for Linux pdf guide userg_revL_e.pdf for more details.

update 9/25/2010
The 64 bit install works just as well.

Merry-Go-Round

Canon P Rangefinder.  Canon RF 50mm f1.8.  HC-110 diluted at 1:49 for 8 minutes.

Summer 2007

Another 35mm Scan

The film is Kodak 400-2TMY, not developed by me.  Scanned using Epson V500, 2400dpi, 16-bit grayscale, USM at medium, Dust Removal medium.  I don't know if that's the optimum especially USM.  I probably should have turned it off all together and just use dust removal.

A Tree On 42nd Street

Scanning film (on the Epson V500) is an exercise in frustration. Somehow I think scanning at 2400dpi and with all adjustments off except dust removal set at medium gives me the best look for black and white.

I can never really save any settings. Even I turned off the Unsharp Mask, it would creep back in automatically. So that's weird and buggy. You can't really name your setting it's automatically named like setting 1, 2 and 3 and so on. But it doesn't work anyway. After Preview, I have to uncheck the adjustment that automatically added by itself but I have to select all before doing that, otherwise, it would only apply on the selected image instead of what I really want which is all the images. I found the software buggy and annoying.

Yashica Mat 124-G

Here's what a graduated neutral density filter would help to give the sky a darker shade of blue.

update: 7/8/2010
GUYS:  Click on the related labels below for more Yashica Mat 124-G.  You have come a long way.