I’m jumping back in time a little today with a photo from 2017. The main reason being that I decided yesterday to re-scan this roll of negs. My original scans were performed on my Epson V550 flatbed using the Epson Scan software, which is what I used to use for all my scans, but is now only really used for black and white medium format stuff.

All my B&W 35mm negatives are now scanned with my Plustek scanner, which gives far superior results, while I send all my colour films off to a pro lab for dev and scan (mostly because I know the colours will look how I would expect them to). I still scan medium format slides on the V550 though – mostly because it will cost me an arm and a leg to get lab scans (the place that processes and scans my C41 film for a very reasonable price don’t process E6 unfortunately). The Epson doesn’t fare too badly with medium format scans, although that’s only really down to the fact that the larger image size means that any loss in scanning quality is less easy to spot on screen – comparing like-with-like with a 35mm scan shows the quality is exactly the same.

So, while all my C41 film has been lab scanned over the past year, I still have a lot of stuff that has only ever been scanned on the Epson (both colour AND B&W), so every now and then I’ll re-scan those rolls on the Plustek to get better results. Today’s photo is from one such roll – shot during a trip to Camden in London that my wife and I took a couple of years ago. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the Portra 160 colours that the Plustek and Silverfast have given me, they’re a whole heap better than the slightly muddy, greenish cast scans that I had from my Epson Scan attempts. The resloution is light-years ahead too, with details now much more finely resolved than before.

Today’s photo is one that has really benefited from the re-scan I think.

Pentax P30T, Rikenon 50mm f/2 & Kodak Portra 160.

Taken on 9 September 2017