Why don't I just shut my big yapper??

nealjpage · Feb 26, 2008

I live in Grants Pass, Oregon, a small community of about 30,000 souls nestled in the Rogue Valley and surrounded by mountains. We've changed quite a bit over the years, with the timber and lumber industries fading out and being replaced by service style industries. The population has also grown quite a bit over the past ten years, but mainly with retired people from California moving here to die.

In the midst of this lies the Economic Development Coordinator that works for the city. (Full disclosure: I also work for the city.) He's got an idea of making up some calenders to plug the city as a place for new businesses and industries to locate. Since I've mentioned that I like to do photography, naturally he asked me to do the shots for the calender. :er:

I know I'll have to be ordering film and all that stuff for this. I shoot 35mm, medium format, and 4x5. What's the SOP for getting images to a publisher? I'm not sure that I'll be wild about letting my slides or negatives out of my sight, but I also don't have the capabilities to turn these into high-quality scans.

What do you guys do?

Helen B · Feb 27, 2008

The cheapest, easiest and highest quality method of producing duplicate slides is to shoot more than one frame or sheet.

Best,
Helen

Christie Photo · Feb 27, 2008

Well.... SOMEBODY will have to make the scans... either the printer or a pro color lab.

http://www.kkcolorlab.com/services/digitalcatalog.php

One advantage of letting the printer do the scans is they have no one else to blame if the printing is poor.

Good luck!

-Pete

Hertz van Rental · Feb 27, 2008

Alternatively you have to become less precious about your work.
When I used to shoot professionally the trannies always went off to the Ad agency and I never saw them again.
Didn't bother me at all. It was all part of the game.

nealjpage · Feb 29, 2008

Is the standard transparencies or negatives? Or is either fine?

Christie Photo · Feb 29, 2008

nealjpage said:
Is the standard transparencies or negatives? Or is either fine?

Well... the standard is digital capture.

But if you shoot film, it's transparency.

-Pete

Helen B · Feb 29, 2008

I'm not convinced that digital capture is the standard for large format work yet, but that's not a big issue - both are fine. Even when shooting film I send corrected scans these days, so it's my choice between negative and reversal. I use negative film now for landscape and architecture because of its greater dynamic range and its suitability for my style. Studio work, where you don't need great dynamic range, is a different matter.

As Pete says, if you want to leave the colour up to someone else reversal is the way to go, and there's still high-end commercial LF work done that way.

Best
Helen