Toronto Photography Meetup Group

hi guys, i'm shooting some medium format photographs for my final gr 12 photo project this year. it's actually my first time shooting with 120 film so i'm taking a bit of a risk here. just wondering if anybody would be willing to assist me in scanning my 120 negs with their personal scanner ie. epson v700 etc.. once i get them back as i don't have the money to pay whatever ridiculous price the pro labs are asking for these days.

thanks in advance

- miguel

Hi Miguel,

Unfortunately i don't have a scanner, so I can't help you, but a less expensive alternative (to paying the lab to scan) would be to rent a scanner at one of the labs (ie. Pitko/Toronto Image Works) - at TIW if you book and pre-pay in advance, you also get a discounted rate (and as a student you should get a discounted rate as well).

Why are you scanning the negatives for the project? Are you planning to print them or are you submitting them in electronic form?

Good luck!

-J

Miguel, feel free to call me. I'm sure we can arrange something in order to get your scans done.
416-645-1202
Gerardo

Downtown Camera does scanning for $5 per roll on top of the normal development fee (You have to develop them there), they may even give you a student discount. The resolution is a bit low if you want to print from the scan.

J, i'll definitely look into renting one...and thanks for telling me about the student discount rate. the thing is i've never used a scanner before so i might run into a bit of trouble trying to do it myself lol. the reason why i'm scanning the negs is because my yashicamat's light meter is broken and i've sorta been guessing what aperture/shutter speed to use. i figure most of the pictures will turn out underexposed or over exposed and i'll probably need a photoshop intervention which i'm not particularly keen on because i'm a somewhat of purist. i'll then color correct whatever scans need to be corrected and i'll take the digital files to costco to get them enlarged (assuming printing digital will be cheaper) for my school's photo exhibition.

thanks for offering to help gerardo, i'll definitely look to give you a call sometime soon if you're not too busy. the deadling for my photos is the 27th so i'll be looking to finish shooting by the 23rd-ish and then getting the pictures developed at DT camera on that same day. looking forward to meeting up with you.

- miguel

yea the price is enticing at DT camera but i'm glad you mentioned that the resolution might be a bit low because i was considering getting them scanned there. would the resolution on a scanner like the epson v700 be better than what DT camera offers because i'll probably be looking to print from digital files at costco, and i want my prints to be pretty big. say 18x18? i don't know if they even offer that there lol.

Costco does 12x12 max in square aspect I think

http://costco.pnimedia.com/help_panel/h ... Price.aspx

Why not buy a cheap light meter or use another camera to meter with? Photoshop can only go so far in fixing exposure errors. Trying to save a severely underexposed frame can get really ugly. If you're really overexposed then you'll lose detail on skin/faces.

i just phoned costco and they said they can do 24x24 but i would have to crop of the excess paper myself...but i think it's something like $15-30 a print.

i asked her how much 12x12 would be and she said $3.99 a print. i dunno, seemed kinda expensive to me. do u know of any other cheaper places for scans. i want to print at least 15x15's but i don't want to be spending 10+ a print.

hey jonah,

i took your advise and used my 35mm slr as a light meter. worked great i think. u can check those new pictures out on my flickr page. i have a little photo exhibition coming up at my high school and i want to make some large prints off of my digital medium format scans. i'm estimating 20-25 pictures at at least 15x15. u think i can pull that off with a budget of about $50 somewhere?

That's a lot of prints for $50. I don't think it's really doable. But you could talk to a minilab (ie in a costco, sdm etc) and see what they can do. Any camera store of pro lab you're looking at only a few prints with that budget.

Happy the metering worked. I also found keeping level horizons to be tricky with a waist level finder.