As analog photography experiences a resurgence, a new generation of photographers is enjoying shooting film and conducting fun experiments, including answering the question: What happens if you scan film using film?
YouTube creator Max Adams, who has made some fun analog photography-themed videos before including trying super-cheap film off AliExpress, testing Temu’s cheap waterproof film camera, and trying to make the grainiest film photograph possible, wanted to see what would happen if he used a film camera to scan his negatives instead of the typical digital camera.
“So the other day, I was scanning film with my camera, and I thought ‘What if I scan this film onto more film?’” Adams asks. “Would there be crazy color shifts? Would that negative then become a positive? Would there be crazy grain?”
In trying to answer these questions, Adams stumbled upon a classic analog workflow technique that has generally fallen out of favor in the digital age: Film duplication. As Analog Café explains, in the pre-digital era, when all movies where shot and shown on film, getting film onto more film was necessary for distribution. After all, if movies were shown worldwide simultaneously, there would need to be many copies of the film.
Through his humorous attempts to see what would happen if he scanned film with film, Adams inadvertently created an internegative, a longtime workhorse of the film industry. Of course, before digital imaging, creating copies and scans of film required the use of film cameras.
In the case of filmmaking, there are specialized films for creating internegatives, such as these made by Kodak, but in Adams’ case, he sticks with regular film, including Ektar 100 and Portra 400. And unlike normal film duplication, which might comprise three or four (highly specialized, controlled) duplicates, Adams goes much further.
As for the original questions, including whether two negatives make a positive or if scanning film with film creates “crazy color shifts,” the answers vary, but generally “Yes” covers it. The results look interesting, to say the least.
“So can you scan film onto film? Yeah,” Adams concludes. “Is this a viable way to scan your photos? F**k no.”
Image credits: Featured image by Max Adams