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Another nail in the film coffin (1 Viewer)

nigelblake said:
Looks like Canon are considering that they will be discontinuing film camera development production.


http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...8_RTRUKOC_0_US-JAPAN-CANON.xml&archived=False

Hi Nigel

Just received a package from Birdwatch magazine returning some of my 35mm slides, the accompanying letter stated as follows.

Quote:
"Birdwatch Magazine:
Following a major reorganisation of our in-house picture library, and in view of the increasing number of digital image submissions, we have decided to return a large number of transparencies currently held in stock. This is not for reasons of quality: with modern production processes it is simply much easier for us to work with digital images for publication in the magazine.
Therefore, enclosed with this letter you will rind a selection of your slides, returned with thanks. It may well be that we have retained other material from you on file for possible future use, as a small number of transparencies are still published in each issue. But for further submissions to the magazine, we now require high-resolution digital images: these should be saved as Windows-friendly TIFF or JPEG files at 300dpi, with a minimum image width of 1500 pixels (preferably larger). Please do not submit scans of transparencies or prints, unless they have been generated by professional drum-scanning processes."

Looks like the writings on the wall for film, it can't be long before all the other glossy magazines and publishing companies follow suit. It's so much easier for them to go digital, no massive storage libraries, everything easily accessed via the computer. Software publishing packages can do it all, access the database, select the photo, size and position it to fit the article. End result, lower overheads, fewer skilled operatives to do the work, more profit!

I find it a bit alarming that they are not prepared to accept quality scans from slides, I personally have invested quite heavily in scanning equipment which is more than capable of producing the high quality scans necessary, especially when you compare them to some of the low quality digital reproductions this particular magazine uses.

nirofo.
 
This dosn't surprise me at all, in fact most magazines outside of the birding arena stopped using slides and scans from slides some time ago.
In the main I think that reproductions from slides look 'dirty', as a result of the scanned grain, compared the the cleanness of digital images, although sometimes digital files don't come up to good, sadly though that is down to the ability of the printers concerned. I find it pretty galling when you see what you know is a "shot hit" image badly reproduced, cos most people blame the person that pressed the shutter, and not the sloppy printing.
 
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johnrobinson said:
I don't scan any slides - I copy them on a set up I made for the camera, and quite a few have been used (published). If you don't say they often don't know! The Hawfinch pic (at the nest) on Surfbirds "Blast from the past" was one of my camera copies. Not perfect but they often good enough.
John Robinson.


They do now John!!!! :t:
 
We write a garden column for the local newspaper and for various garden magazines. We have used only digital photos for the last 2 years. The newspaper will accept slides but they are less likely to be used. The editor of the section of the newspaper we write for has advised only to submit slides as a last resort and they will proces them. It's just human nature for the newspaper to use an instant 'drop in' format and save fiddling around time.

Re quality of scanned slides: our not-too-expensive scanner reproduces slides with excellent quality for magazine use. Perhaps some negative opinions were formed by poor results with earlier technology. The first slide scanner ($900 model) we borrowed a few years back was 'okay' in quality, wheras our own newer $115 model is excellent.
 
cayoncreekman said:
The first slide scanner ($900 model) we borrowed a few years back was 'okay' in quality, wheras our own newer $115 model is excellent.
Yowza, what make/model is this newer one, if you don't mind saying?
 
Katy Penland said:
Yowza, what make/model is this newer one, if you don't mind saying?

HP Scanjet 4850. Purchased at Staples about 6 months ago. The first generation flatbed scanners were terrible at slide scanning...the dedicated slide scanner ($900 one mentioned above) was much better but not nearly as good as the HP 4850.

A great reason to submit digital images of slides to a publisher is doing your own editing of the photo. We can sharpen, crop, etc. to emphasize what we want from a slide before submission and not leave it up to whoever is doing it for the publication.
 
I use a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED, this particular scanner is more than capable of producing the reproduction quality used by the majority of the publishing companies, in fact I would say it far exceeds the reproduction quality of the birdie magazines by a significant margin, it has a dynamic range of 4.8D. This scanner easily produces scans capable of the highest quality competition prints larger than A3, assuming a quality A3 printer such as the Epson R2400. I can understand the reluctance of publishers accepting scans from flatbed scanners with built in slide scanner, these don't produce results anywhere near the quality of a dedicated film scanner such as the Nikon Coolscan range.

nirofo.
 
I would have thought that a file of the required format, subject matter & quality was all that mattered. The process used to generate that file does not seem relevant.
Chris
 
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