how do i convert from film to digital each step of the way?

February 9, 2006 9:08 PM

i am a photo student/aspiring photographer attempting to convert to digital. i have several questions: *what is the best dSLR out there today for under $2000? *what is the best way to get my film negatives converted to digital files? **is it worth it to buy a good scanner? which kinds are recommended? **or is it better to pay to have them scanned? which companies are recommended? *for gallery quality prints what are the best printing options? website, store, or buy printer? *what is the best photo management software for macs besides iphoto?
posted by slowtree to media & arts (23 comments total)

I converted from film to digital and then back to film so I'll leave the pure digi questions to others.

best way to convert film negs is to buy a good scanner

35mm: the minolta film scanners are excellent value

MF: the epson flatbeds or the Microtek ones.

LF: diitto MF

gallery prints: either one of the bigger Epson printers or go to your local lab and see what they will do. The Epson 2xxx series are excellent.

mac photo management: iView multimedia or the Adobe Lightworks beta.
posted by unSane at 9:12 PM on February 9, 2006

*what is the best dSLR out there today for under $2000?

Nikon or Canon (you can probably pick up a used 10d or Rebel pretty cheap, ebay is your friend), take your pick. Lenses are pretty expensive, so don't forget to take that into account.

*what is the best way to get my film negatives converted to digital files?

Probably a slide scanner, you may be able get this done from a service cheaper than buying one (I've never done it). Flatbed scanners are less than optimal for scanning a negative.

*for gallery quality prints what are the best printing options? website, store, or buy printer?

Buy a printer and learn how to calibrate your monitor and how to use color management software.


*what is the best photo management software for macs besides iphoto?

(full frontal disclosure: I work for Adobe) Have you tried Lightroom, the beta is out and it's free? Otherwise I don't actually know ( I use Bridge which comes with Photoshop).
posted by doctor_negative at 9:20 PM on February 9, 2006

Under $2k? The Nikon D200, hands down.

If you're willing to spend 3k then you should get the Canon 5D.

Although if you have an investment in lenses already then you should just get a dSLR that will work with your existing system.
posted by bshort at 9:23 PM on February 9, 2006

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned Aperture yet. I've heard nothing but great things from several semi-professional friends of mine, especially if you prefer working with RAW files.
posted by charmston at 10:26 PM on February 9, 2006

When Aperture's raw conversion is as good as Adobe's, or basically anyone else's, instead of being the worst of the bunch, you'll probably see more people mentioning it...
posted by kindall at 10:36 PM on February 9, 2006

Supposedly Canon's announcing a new DSLR real soon - the 35d or 30d or something. I'd wait to at least see what that is before buying anything, unless you can afford the $3k for the 5d, which is a camera I adore.

If you do go with a Canon camera with a APS sensor, I would recommend you consider very strongly that you may eventually upgrade to a full frame sensor when you do your lens shopping, and avoid EF-S lenses which will never work with 35mm sensors or film cameras.

As for gallery quality prints, I have a Canon i9900 which I like a lot, but I'm sure that there is a similar size/quality printer made by most other manufacturers. I would suggest if you print yourself, which I think makes sense for reasons of convenience, you use Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. Paper can make more of a difference than the printer with inkjet printing!
posted by aubilenon at 11:50 PM on February 9, 2006

Also, whatever camera you go with, shoot in raw. Eventually you'll wish you had, if you're making gallery prints.
posted by aubilenon at 11:50 PM on February 9, 2006

For film scanning, I really like my Epson 4870, using VueScan to drive it.
posted by hades at 12:12 AM on February 10, 2006

Don't go entirely digital immediately - pick up an older, cheap dSLR.

I use a Canon EOS D30 from about 5 years ago - the first to use CMOS technology IIRC, and has 3MP. Really easy to get to grips with, and gives outstanding results (considering that it's not state of the art, anyway!)

Once you realise how amazingly amazing it all is, then go out and pick up something like the EOS 20D or 5D (not sure of what the USD price is for these; the 5D is a "full frame" sensor, and thus is considered to be somewhat better quality).

Software wise I'm not much help. I'm happy (on the whole) with iPhoto. Any simple retouching/straightening can be done there and then, and for anything more complicated - removal of background objects, etc. - and I'll use the Gimp.

I bought myself a flatbed scanner with a negative-scanning attachment - an Epson 8300F IIRC (can't remember properly! Will need to check when I get home...) - which works well for my requirements, although it would probably be a bit of a pain if you've got a lot of negs to get through...

HTH!
posted by Chunder at 1:56 AM on February 10, 2006

First off, I'm a currently a Nikon guy. That said:

Buy the camera that best fits your hands and has controls that match your way of thinking (easiest to use for you.)

I harp on this to all my friends who see my kit and want to get something similar. Don't buy what I have. What I have I chose because it works for ME.

The differences in high-end DSLR cameras are really infinitesimal in terms of feature sets. There is not a single comparable camera between Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc. that cannot give you the same results as another, even if one has to go about it in a different manner.

Caveat #2: More megapixels is not necessarily better.. The difference between 6 and 8 megapixels is very small, since it takes approximately four times the megapixel count to become noticeable at the size of an 8x10 print. Doubling the linear resolution equates to quadrupling the pixel count since we're talking about an x dimension AND a y dimension on the sensor.

You are talking about spending a fairly sizable hunk of your hard-earned cash. It's worth your time to go to a good camera store and actually handle the brands you are considering. It's annoying to lose a shot because your fingers had to fumble around looking for the right button or you couldn't remember which button/where the damn thing was for whatever function you wanted. It's also annoying to have holding the camera become a chore because it was designed by or for a person with really small hands and you have hams for fists, or vice versa. Or maybe you have longer fingers than average. Or your glovemaker has nicknamed you "Stubby". Whatever.

I went to several store where I could handle the cameras I was looking at (The RebelXT, D50, and D70s). I tried each one for fit, and tried to do several common operations on each (change aperture, shutter speed, ISO, White Balance)

I tried the autofocus modes, and then looked at the menu systems to see if they were easy to use/made sense to me.

The Canon fell out of the race early on because it was just uncomfortable to hold for an extended period of time with my largish hands. The "feel" of the camera in my hands also left something to be desired. To me, it felt cheap and "plastic-ey".

That left the D50 and D70. The D70 is a nice camera, and felt solid. The aperture wheel on the front is a nice touch. The difference was that it felt a little "chunky" in my hands.

I fell in love with the feel of the D50 the first moment I held it. It was just.... right, like a fine glove. I decided that I could live with the control limitations because most of my photography is not action-oriented, but more of a studio-landscape-contemplative style.

A camera is a tool, but the camera you choose and use is a personal thing and has an intimate human-machine interface dynamic about it. Use that to your advantage, and I don't think you'll ever regret it.
posted by pjern at 3:27 AM on February 10, 2006 [1 favorite]

For scanning in your film negatives, look for a used Nikon Coolscan or a Minolta Dimage scanner on ebay. It'll be expensive, but when you are done scanning you can turn around and sell the scanner on ebay for what you paid for it.

This option gives you more control then paying a lab to do it, is cost effective, and you get to use a really really nice scanner .
posted by voidcontext at 5:43 AM on February 10, 2006

Solopsist has it right on. I'm willing to put up with the quirkiness of my old Oly DSLR because it has wonderful ergonomics and it just works well with my brain. User experience is still just as important as technology.
posted by selfnoise at 6:04 AM on February 10, 2006

Another to think about is that it's not going end at just "going digital".... along with the photo equipment you need to have decent hardware (computer, monitor etc.) to be able to do the digital work.

You're talking about gellery size printing, if you're going to be doing the prep work then you're already talking about large files to work on so a computer that will let you handle large files easily is important. (as opposed to an older computer which might make you want to pull out your hair bec it's slow).

I would try to pick up an older camera system as suggested, maybe a nikon d70 with a lens and use that for a while. If you're just getting started in the field then you probably don't need to worry about having gallery prints made just yet, you're thinking too far ahead. Just concentrate on getting your technique down and mastering the new medium (digital) and go from there.
posted by eatcake at 6:25 AM on February 10, 2006

First off, with any good camera advice, buy it cheap or used. Throw all your money into high quality lenses. I recommend Canon but I am biased and haven't used equivalent Nikon equipment.

If you have a large quantity of negatives then buy a scanner, if not then skip it. And by alot I mean many boxes full. I like Minolta and have the Dimage Multi Scan which I love. Unfortunately now that Minolta is dead, I don't recommend investing in one of their scanners because you will have difficulty in getting any service from a dead company if you ever need it. Look at Nikon, Microtek, or Pacific Image.
posted by JJ86 at 6:29 AM on February 10, 2006

Coming in late to the thread.....

Here's a question for you: why go digital now? Are you comfortable with film? If so, you'd be better off to hang with film a little while longer and invest the money you were going to use for a DSLR in a used pro film scanner. Also, the market for film cameras favors the buyer. Have you thought about going medium format?

As you can see from the responses above, converting to digital is about more than buying a camera. There's software, computers, CF cards and depending on the camera you purchase new lenses to buy. Your $2000 purchase is liable to become a $5000 one in short order.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to be contrary but after spending $25k last year to switch to digital I can tell you it's not cheap.

My vote for a camera to buy would be the Canon 5D. Wait a few more months and scrounge up a little more cash and go Canon. The 5D is a much better platform to get you started in digital if you're going to make more than happy snaps of the family.
posted by photoslob at 6:42 AM on February 10, 2006

I agree with the above, I'm a big canon fan, but know very little about them. The only thing I know is i love my 10D (which you could get an all-purpose lens for under 2000) and it takes nice photos. With regards to digital costs, I would like to counter and ask: how much you spend on film and printing?
posted by _zed_ at 6:57 AM on February 10, 2006

I didn't mention this earlier in the thread, but what about getting a non SLR digital camera? DPReview loved this camera in the "super zoom" formfactor (basically 12x optical zoom, and a bit larger then a compact). It's got a huge lens and optical image stabilization. Something you'd pay thousands for in an SLR lens.

It's only about $350, so I'd pick it up and play around with it for a few months to get used to digital, then try moving up to a dSLR.

I'm planning on getting one of these in a few months.
posted by delmoi at 7:14 AM on February 10, 2006

For photo management, PhotoReviewer and Bridge are working very well for me.
posted by dpcoffin at 8:09 AM on February 10, 2006

I'd second Bridge as well and it comes free with Adobe CS2. Photo Mechanic is a must-have for archiving and adding IPTC info. iView is great for building catalogs of your work.

No one addressed the question about sending your stuff out to be scanned. This get's extremely expensive with decent scans (30 mb +) running generally about $20-$25/ scan.
posted by photoslob at 8:53 AM on February 10, 2006

Compact digi point-and-shoots have a few issues that can be deal breakers for pro use. Most must be shot at ISO 100 as higher ISO's tend to produce a ton of digital noise. If the camera features noise reduction it generally adversely affects fine detail. The other big problem is that the sensors are much smaller than DSLR's meaning depth-of-field, or the over abundance of it, becomes a major problem. That's why the Canon 5D is so nice because it features a full-frame sensor so the 35mm equivalent lenses have the correct amount of depth-of-field.

With that said, the 2004 Best of Photojournalism photographer of the year Alex Majoli shot his entire winning folio with Olympus point-and-shoots.
posted by photoslob at 9:10 AM on February 10, 2006

If you're a photo student, then why not use the film/slide scanner(s) that your school should have?

Also, I will echo some previous comments about spending less on the camera and more on the lenses.
posted by BrandonAbell at 6:30 PM on February 10, 2006

also late to the thread. The industry standard for photo management remains PhotoMechanic. Pretty much every pro I know uses it as their main management tool. I'd be remiss if i didn't also mention that PhotoShelter also has some great online based photo management tools.
posted by jba at 2:24 AM on February 11, 2006

thanks for all the advice. i'll be getting either a d70 or rebel xt soon. i'm paying to have the negatives scanned from a lab in chicago. and have a couple months until i have to worry about the prints. im also going to purchase a new mac soon to handle all my editing and archiving (will be checking out all photo management software recommended). thanks again.

by the way, to answer some one's question, i cant use my school equipment bc i am currently on a break, living in a different part of the country. that was big factor in deciding to go digital. no access to darkroom and tired of spending over $100/month on paper and chemicals. i know going digital is very expensive but in the end its worth it.
posted by slowtree at 8:54 PM on February 12, 2006