Costco's Film Developing / Scanning

Stereodude

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I finally decided to put a roll of film through my EOS-3 to make sure it's working correctly. I took it to a local Costco and had it developed and decided to get their $2.99 Pictures on CD along with my prints. I had read online about the great 6MP scans people got back from Costco. Of course, I didn't get 6MP scans. I got craptacular 1940 x 1287 pixel JPEG files back with my prints. :rant:

I guess there's some special password you have to use to get good and higher res scans. The 5x7 prints I got look decent, but I guess the moral to the story is that if you want good film scans you have to do them yourself.
 

Chewy509

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I did that similar last-time I developed film, and while the images were 6MP, the encoding used (eg max compression), made the images look awful. (avg JPEG file size was 150KB-200KB).

Since then, I moved to solely digital, so never really bothered to see if they are pulling the same crap these days. My only complaint these days, is that most in-store kiosks and print shops only support JPEG. Even some places where you can buy top line $20K+ DLSRs, only support JPEG as the format to print your images. But that's fine, I just do a RAW conversion to JPEG, and set to 100% quality to get around it.

PS. That was at K-Mart (Australia) using Kodak equipment, going back approx 3yrs.
 

LunarMist

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See if you can find something nice used like a Nikon 4000ED. I had two of those back in the early 2000s before the 8000ED. Which films are you using?
 

Stereodude

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Surprisingly film scanners go for serious money on ebay. Some of them sell for more used than they did new.

I just shot some cheapo Kodak Ultramax 400 to test out the camera.
 

Stereodude

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It's crazy that the last generation of film/slide scanners that were made, before being discontinued, now cost more used then they did new. The Coolscan 5000 ED has not been discontinued yet, so it's slightly less effected by the apparent rampant stupidity.
 

Stereodude

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So, here's a quick difference comparison between a Costco Scan and the Nikon Coolscan 5000ED image. No adjustments have been made to either image. Both have only been re-sized and sharpened slightly.



I'm pretty sure you all can figure out which is which. :silent:
 

Stereodude

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Here are 100% crops of two Nikon scans. The left one is a 4x multisample scan with nothing else done to it. The right one is a 4x multisample scan with ICE4 Advanced set to "Fine" and nothing else done to it. In case you're not aware ICE4 uses an IR scan to remove dust and scratches.



FWIW, the film is Kodak Ultramax 400.

There's clearly a lot of detail in a 35mm film negative as a 20MP scan shows.
 

LunarMist

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Welcome to c. 2001 "digital photography." At least the computers are much faster now. By 2002 the 120MP 16-bit 6x9 scans were killing me. :(
 

Stereodude

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I only have 35mm stuff, so that's at least not a problem. :p

I plan to get back into shooting and developing B&W film, so the scanner made sense for me.
 

LunarMist

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No. I recall there being far fewer choices back then, either small sensors with limited IQ or very expensive, slow backs for medium format. Nikon and Canon did not have any DSLR bodies of interest, so I was shooting film - 35mm for tele and general work, and 6x7 for quality.

The 1Ds was the first 35mm-style DSLR that produced truly high quality images and just happened to utilize the full range of lenses. That changed everything for me and many others.
 

Stereodude

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Whoops, I need to take that back. I bought a 10D when it first came out which was in early 2003. Somehow I had the dates confused.
 

LunarMist

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Sure, we were using the 1Ds by then. :) I almost bought a D60 in 2002 to learn with, but they were always out of stock.
 

Stereodude

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The joys of multiple exposures, film, & B&W.

B&W_idea_01.jpg


B&W_idea_02.jpg


These pictures have to be close to 12-15 years old that I took in HS.
 

Stereodude

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Sweet! :cheers:

I can convert the SA-21 film feeder (6 frame max) that came with the Nikon Coolscan 5000ED into the optional and $$$ SA-30 film feeder (40 frame max). link

Obviously I wont have the roll catcher on the back, but that's not real important IMHO.
 

Handruin

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I'm sure it was a low risk to them. You may be a low 5% of the people who went through with the process to convert it. It's a win for you, but probably not worth them spending a lot more in making it more difficult to do.
 

Stereodude

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Well I did the mod on my SA-21, and the software now sees it as a SA-30. :D

I don't have any longer strips of film around to actually test a frame past #6, but I have the option to pick 'em up to 40 whereas I didn't before. And, most importantly the scanner and feeder still works! :aok:
 

udaman

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The joys of multiple exposures, film, & B&W.



These pictures have to be close to 12-15 years old that I took in HS.

did you cutNpaste those images in from a photosharing site? Can't right click (ctrl key, click for Mac) to see any link from where they came?

Reason I hate harsh lighting, all the foliage in the images looks like it's covered with snow! Not really a fan of B&W unless it's sheet film/super fine grain/grainless, natural lighting.

They did still have Konica ASA3200 @that time 12-15yrs ago?

I shot all my high school yearbook photos with Vericolor Pro II, had by fresh stock cause the donated stock the yearbook/photog teacher got for free from a sponsor retail shop was either past the expiration date (why it was free) or not stored in temp controlled environ. 1st roll came out all friggin orange tinted and I said F*** this cheap chit, went and spent my own money to get some proper refrigerated fresh film.

Still have a cut down thumbnail print of my favorite h/s cuttie, that made it into the y/b montage of mine, she who always was falling for the wrong guy(s) (IMO, wasn't me :p ), color has not faded or changed at bit in over 30yrs, room temp storage, aver. humidity. Amazing, all the more recent (decade or so older) fast processed film I've had done w/the cheap/fast 4x6 size prints, are all faded/discolored. Never bothered with Fuji Velia(sp?) and the exagerated colors that Ken R. likes so much, or Cibachrome prints, too expensive for me :(. Faded memories of years gone by :)
 

Stereodude

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did you cutNpaste those images in from a photosharing site? Can't right click (ctrl key, click for Mac) to see any link from where they came?
No, they're not on a photo sharing site.
Reason I hate harsh lighting, all the foliage in the images looks like it's covered with snow! Not really a fan of B&W unless it's sheet film/super fine grain/grainless, natural lighting.
It's from the flash firing for each exposure and the foliage being close to the camera. In case you couldn't tell the pictures were taken at night.
They did still have Konica ASA3200 @that time 12-15yrs ago?
Not sure I did shoot some T-MAX P3200 back then, but those scans are from T-MAX 400.
 

Stereodude

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Well, I batch scanned 2 36 exposure rolls over the weekend. With the settings I chose (16bit, B&W, max res, 4x multisample) it look about an hour per roll. And you get ~1.2GB of TIFF files. But the key is that the SA-21 to SA-30 mod definitely worked on my SA-21 auto feeder. :D
 
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