All roads lead somewhere.
If not your destination,
Then some other place.

#senryu

This shot was not processed in any way. Only cropped, all processing was done during the scan in SilverFast suite and luckily this particular frame had zero dust (!?), which is rare. Given the 400 speed of this stock, you can clearly see that prominent film grain in the sky.

I have not been capable of shooting as much film as I would have liked to. My chemistry, developing supplies, and gear are put away in storage for the time being. This includes my flatbed scanner. So, I’ve not been able to scan my negatives either. I think there are half a dozen developed rolls in the freezer. I’ll ship them to Indie Film Labs and figure out the scanning part later.

My Epson V600 flatbed gives decent images and good resolution. When paired with SilverFast software, there is a great deal of flexibility in fixing tonality, so no problem there. The real issue is the process itself. It’s sooooo s..l..o..w..! The Epson’s film holder is flimsy and can scan only two 5-frame strips at a time. At maximum resolution, that can easily take 10 minutes. Multiply that by three for the whole film roll. You have easily taken 45 minutes to an hour scanning just one roll of film and that doesn’t include post-processing.

I’ve been wanting the Valoi Easy35 scanning system for a while now. I was waiting for them to release a 120 version for medium format film. They did!
And the price floored me. For $600, you get the whole system, but…. You still need to buy an adapter for 35mm film. You also need dust brushes. I understand that the lightbox is a special piece of kit, but the rest??? They are just 3D printed plastic extension tubes! This should cost half the price. I already have a DSLR. I also have a great macro lens to put this rig on. However, I can’t stomach that astronomical price.
One really huge benefit of the Valoi system is this: you get the speed of DSLR scan. There is no clunky mounting system. You can scan the whole roll of film before it is cut, all 36 exposures at once. The speed is far superior to a flatbed scanner flow. And minimal to no dust.

Will have to figure something out soon.
I really miss doing film…