Shooting film is a great exercise in taking your time and getting the shot you want the first time. But what to do with the negatives afterwards?

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article (read it here, I’ll wait)  about my experience shooting film for the first time in nearly 30 years.  Today, I thought I would talk a bit about the challenges I’ve found in having to deal with the finished product – film negatives.  Sure, I could just have the processing center I use to develop the film make prints and scan the negatives onto a CD, but what is the fun in that?  Heck, if I ever get brave enough, I will probably buy a home developing kit and do everything myself from start to finish.  And I will probably ruin far more film than I successfully get final images out of.  But for me, film isn’t about producing an amazing image.  I have an expensive full frame DSLR and several lenses for that.  Of course, getting amazing images would be nice, but it isn’t why I shoot film.  It isn’t why I bought a cheap old SLR (the one in my previous article was a loaner) and why I intend to put a few rolls of film through my grandfather’s old cameras when they arrive.  I do it for the exercise.  It is a great way to slow down and focus on getting the shot right the first time, every time.  But the only way to really know if I got the shot right is to develop, scan and process the photos.  That is what I will be talking about here.  For those who aren’t interested in that, there will also be lots of photos processed from the film negatives.  So feel free to skip the rest of the text and just check out the pictures.

Gladiolus flowers shot of film. Getting the exposure and composition right is one thing. Getting the negative onto the computer in good quality is another.

An old temple not far from where I live. The image looks like it was shot decades ago rather than last month.

When I got back my first set of good negatives, I thought getting them onto the computer would be easy enough.  I have a Canon full frame DSLR, 20 megapixels to work with, and a 100mm macro lens.  Put a good light behind the negatives and shoot tight enough to fill the frame with each negative.  It isn’t quite that simple.

The inner courtyard and main hall of an old temple near my apartment in Yamato, Japan.

The gate to an old temple near my apartment. Getting the light and color right when using a homemade rig and a DSLR to scan the negatives can be difficult.

First off, the light behind the negative has to be even and not pixelated.  Otherwise, the light in the final photo will be uneven and more difficult to process.  It also can’t be too bright or too dim.  You also need a way to hold the film and camera steady at the right distance to make sure the negative cell fills the frame on the camera.  Lastly, it all has to be held very steady, so the shot can be taken at the lowest ISO possible.  I attempted to build a rig for this out of cardboard and a small LED lamp, and the results you can see here.

Of course, once you have the negatives on the computer, then I had to invert the colors and process them in Lightroom.  With the colors and lights/darks inverted, it sets all the controls backwards.  Film negatives also scratch easily and collect dust quickly, so I also had to use the heal tool as well.  This added an extra challenge to the processing.  In the end though, I think I got them to come out well enough to know how well I shot, and that is all I was after.

Of course, Amazon also has cheap 24mp devoted film negative scanners that automatically process photos and export finished jpegs.  I may have to get one of these and try it out.  If I do, I might do a part three to this series.