as a former film digitization expert, I have always wanted to scan this film. the images are stunning and the film stocks were custom made for the Apollo 8 through 17 missions, mostly Kodak colour slide film but some B&W as well.

according to chat they were scanned with an old CCD/CMOS scanning station made by Leica called the DSW700V. this points to either a 29MP CCD or 50MP CMOS sensor, both of which were great for the time and lackluster by today's digital sensor standards. also inferior to the tonality and realism of a drum scan.

the images are so haunting and beautiful though, they deserve better.

I remain pretty convinced that Apollo program Hasselblad photography remains a civilizational high water mark re: vibes / accidental art. And the lesser known ones are in some ways greater. https://t.co/XXkTaqifRL

Grant Tremblay

as a former film digitization expert, I have always wanted to scan this film. the images are stunning and the film stocks were custom made for the Apollo 8 through 17 missions, mostly Kodak colour slide film but some B&W as well.

according to chat they were scanned with an old CCD/CMOS scanning station made by Leica called the DSW700V. this points to either a 29MP CCD or 50MP CMOS sensor, both of which were great for the time and lackluster by today's digital sensor standards. also inferior to the tonality and realism of a drum scan.

the images are so haunting and beautiful though, they deserve better.

https://x.com/astrogrant/status/1921385581612777669

even though you absolutely require the linear scans for archival purposes, personally I would expect images prepared for distribution to have some basic levels set. or at the least, give viewers the option between unedited and corrected images.

the other qualities of high-quality scans—namely tonality, depth and realism, detail retrieval—can only be achieved at the beginning of the acquisition process and cannot be retrieved later. in other words, you need to acquire as much information at the highest quality possible prior to working with the images. you can't retrieve what does not exist.

some quick visual comparisons between unedited and "corrected":

Farcaster-native research: https://paragraph.xyz/@matthewb | prev. Juicebox, Nouns, RAW DAO | casting about coffee, hi-fi, and other rabbit holes

some quick visual comparisons between unedited and "corrected":
https://farcaster.xyz/matthewb/0xc23ea395

It's simple to correct but the results are impressive.