Maryland Zoo at Baltimore

Blurmore

Actually when these were taken it was the Baltimore Zoo, it is still a zoo to pass on. I had a membership a few years ago, the best thing about the membership was that I could get into the Phila. zoo for free.

These are scans from 35mm Tri-x Pan and 35mm Ektachrome 1600 (a 400 speed slide film DX coded at 1600 and push processed 2 stops) shot with a Canon T90 and scanned on an Epson 3170. Some are with a 400 f5.6 mirror lens with a 2x converter so a 800 mm f8. The bokeh is donut shaped, and my telephoto skill was in its infancy. Between that and manual focus I'm suprised I got anything half sharp. But the colors and the grain are killer.



















Zoo animals always look so sad, except for that ostrich, and they are only happy because most of their brain is devoted to launching them in random directions in response to various stimuli.

Steve Cavigliano

I agree, the colors and grain don't add anything to these Too bad too, cuz some of them look like they would be pretty decent otherwise. I do like the looks on some of the animals faces But it also looks like you had some pretty harsh lighting to deal with. So lots of right-on-the-edge exposures.

Do you think it was the quality of the scan, or just old negatives that caused these issues (color and grain)?

Steve

Blurmore

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

I agree, the colors and grain don't add anything to these Too bad too, cuz some of them look like they would be pretty decent otherwise. I do like the looks on some of the animals faces But it also looks like you had some pretty harsh lighting to deal with. So lots of right-on-the-edge exposures.

Do you think it was the quality of the scan, or just old negatives that caused these issues (color and grain)?

Steve

I have 4base frontier scans of both of these and they are both grainy if somewhat sharper. 400 speed tri-x is a fairly grainy film, 400 speed ektachrome is pretty grainy too, let alone pushed 2 stops. These are 2400 dpi scans, I think this is approaching the real resolution limit of 35mm format scan on a flatbed type scanner. I like the 3170 more for my medium format scans, where 1000 dpi scans make nice huge sharp images. I'm really only trying to archive these digitally, I don't think the shots were winners or at optimal sharpness to begin with. I still like the 'look' of the grain as this can not without careful PS work be produced in digital with such an organic look.

Steve Cavigliano

You know, I really don't mind the grain either. The biggest detractors for me are the color (those pore flamingos...lol) and even more bothersome was the strange bokeh in the first and 4th shots You weren't using a mirror lens perchance? Those little doughnuts in the flamingo pic, look like what you get using a mirror lenses.

Steve