Film Border Scans – Kodak TMAX 400 – Canon A2E

At this point in my film photography experience, I am coming up on my 50th roll of film shot. I’m sure that is nothing compared to others but it’s a pretty solid milestone for me.

Up until my 15th roll shot, I used to have the local lab that develops my film also scan and send me Jpegs in a Dropbox link.

At that point I was never really happy with how they looked, mostly because they would do what I assume is a bulk conversion from negatives to positives and the colors/exposures were never consistent per picture.

Canon A2E – Kodak TMAX 400

Over the last 30+ rolls I have scanned myself I have always been tweaking and experimenting with my scanning process, part of it being, how do I get rid of all the dust and hair in may scan.

Canon A2E – Kodak TMAX 400

I have multiple pets in the house and it’s nearly impossible to get a clean scan at home, so I will always need to clean them up in photoshop by painting out the hair and specs of dust.

Literally what I get paid to do for a living except I’m doing it on 24 frames per second working as a VFX artist in video production.

Canon A2E – Kodak TMAX 400

This gets very cumbersome after just one or two photos and it really hinders me from wanting to work on a whole roll.

I shot this roll and sat on it for a couple months, just from getting busy with other things.

My wife and I recently took 4 rolls in 3 of hers and this was the one of mine. As I was getting ready to scan these in I wanted to try something different.

Instead of using a film strip holder, I took a piece of glass from a picture frame and used that to flatten them down on the scanner, I think this help significantly with dust and hair as I did little to no cleanup on these.

Canon A2E – Kodak TMAX 400

A photographer I came across while browsing the analog subreddit I found a photo I loved so much I keep it saved for inspiration.

First of all I love everything about this image, the focal length, the subject, the colors of the room really compliment the Cinestill 800T film used. All of it.
Everyday_Renegades has an amazing style and something I love about their photos is that they leave the film strip boarder in.

I like that aesthetic of it and I think it helps the photo stand out better.

So as I scanned in my 49th roll of film, I desided to scan the whole film strip in and I really enjoy them.

I’m not sure I’ll do this on all my future rolls but I’m glad I did it to this one.

Leave a comment below and tell me what photo you think is the best.

2 Comments

  1. Love that you ventured into scanning your own film. I think my favorite is frame 3 with the water and the contrast of the “dark” water on the left side and the white water on the right side. Also really like frame 13–the abandoned wheelchair. Nice images and scan work!

    • Austin

      August 23, 2022 at 10:53 am

      The dark and white water shot was one of my favorites too, I think my most favorite on this roll was the kids playing on the sign. It felt like the most street photography -ish photo I have taken.

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