Over the years we have worked with many people taking their historic images and moving those into the digital era. Pretty much all of those have taken up digital cameras for their current work. Lately we've seen a few photographers who have taken up traditional photography having secured a grounding in the digital method. So we have received photo scanning orders for negatives and slides taken in the last days and weeks, some on almost antique 35mm or medium format cameras.
It's been a very different experience. Mostly it's gone pretty well but for two clients negative scanning and slide scanning has thrown up issues in their technique. In essence they are questions over exposure. I've found myself scratching my head trying to remember what I used to do to get a reasonable image. One problematic negative prompted a memory of me, in student days, standing one winter morning by the side of the river in Lancaster, taking shots of the sun rising over the town. A keen photographer cycled past and with a cheery wave shouted "Don't forget to allow for the sun!"
Sage words, but allow what? More light? Less light? How much either way? We have a large format negative sent in taken in similar circumstances. A broad expanse of beach with a brilliant texture, against a sun low in the sky. So we scanned it as it was shot. No adjustment in the scanner, just matching the scanner range to what was on the original. Immediately you could see rather than a smooth tapering of values at the far right of the histogram there was a truncated effect. The original was over exposed. To cut a long story short the photographer was disappointed, so we did further scans and I think we now have an image which better captures what he wanted.
The loop of getting what the client wanted has raised a couple of important points. First, if a client sends and over or under exposed image the scan will be as accurately as we can, reflect that. We can't tell whether that was the effect the photographer wanted or not. If we're told otherwise we can do something but our standard approach is to scan what is on the original as faithfully as possible.
Second, with any camera to get an optimal result you need to know how the system (lens, camera, film or digital file) works together to create an image. The two key variables are shutter speed and aperture. In a modern camera that can safely be left on auto and for most images you'll never feel let down. But if you're trying to capture a challenging scene an adjustment to a setting will give you a much better result.
