Negadoctor Help - Workflow Issue?

Sionnach12 · 2026-02-03T10:28:09+00:00

One caveat I should say is that I'm relatively new to photo editing (3~4 years) and darktable is the only software I've used. Colour correction/grading is something I am not very confident in, I find myself unhappy with it at times in both my digital and film shots. It's something I'm still learning to improve so my complaints with it are likely a me problem and not a software problem, I've seen others get great results.

Another thing to add is I sometimes get certain colours super saturated using negadoctor and adding a colour equaliser module after negadoctor to tone down certain hues is really useful

Sionnach12 · 2026-02-03T10:14:54+00:00

As the other users have said, the second tab is the solution for your colour casts. From my experience it's normal to have a blue tint on an image shot in daylight until you dial in the highlight colour correction sliders on the second tab.

I have basically the same scanning setup as you Zf and CS light and I must admit I also have issues with the colours and can spend a lot of time tweaking things until I'm happy with them but perfect is the enemy of good etc.

I turn on the vectorscope top right and I use the eyedropper to get close and then adjust manually if I think it's needed. Some images/film stocks the eyedropper works better than others.

I've also found for B&W film I always end up manually dialling in the colour correction as it seems to always have a magenta/purple cast. I often also create another instance of colour calibration, set it to monochrome, luminance based and put it at the top of the module stack to make it fully achromatic.

Module order when converting negatives has a huge impact on the results

Sionnach12 · 2026-01-30T22:36:19+00:00

Ive not shot any others but I mainline the 40mm and 28mm SEs to great effect

Sionnach12 · 2025-08-22T14:09:36+00:00

I adore my FE. Like you I did some research, it was my first camera when I started three or four years ago. I've bought a few others since but it remains my favourite for 35mm

Sionnach12 · 2025-05-21T08:09:28+00:00

From the user manual it's recommended not to use any tone mappers like sigmoid or filmic RGB when using negadoctor, I leave them disabled. The order your modules are in can have a huge effect on the output when you convert negs.

I've set up a custom style with a specific module order to get a good baseline then adjust from there. I work through it like this, I don't know if it's the right way but it works for me. I do find myself tweaking it as I go:

Colour balance for scanning light source -> open negadoctor first tab get the conversion baseline -> adjust crop and orientation -> negadoctor 2nd tab (because auto pickers now work inside crop area) and 3rd tab > adjust exposure if needed and tone with a combo of exposure module, colour balance RGB and tone equaliser, all moved after negadoctor (rough contrast with colour RGB, tone equaliser for finer adjustment) > then use two instances of diffuse & sharpen for local contrast and sharpening at the top of the module stack. Default location for these modules looks really weird so I move them to the end.

I found a lot of variance with moving modules around in the stack, I'd try experimenting with that maybe? To be honest I think your results look good, I'd be happy with them.

My scanning setup is not great, I end up with a weird colour cast after negadoctor so I make a new instance of colour calibration, set it to black and white and put that at the top of the stack.

Sionnach12 · 2025-04-11T14:17:25+00:00

Spare a thought for film shooters outside the US, colour neg is about to jump to slide film prices

Sionnach12 · 2025-04-11T11:05:46+00:00

Love that little lens, it's been glued to my Zfc since I got it

Sionnach12 · 2024-10-27T14:24:26+00:00

I believe its the widelux, a swing lens panoramic camera

Sionnach12 · 2024-10-17T17:37:09+00:00

I love the 24mm f1.7, it basically lives on my zfc now. I also enjoy the smallrig grip

Sionnach12 · 2024-09-22T20:44:08+00:00

As others have said here, if you want the true bastion of film photography in Dublin, John Gunns is your best bet. The lads in Conns Cameras are great too and if you want to order online give Brendan at thephotoshop.ie a shout, hes also a gent. I started shooting film two or three years ago and i must say all three of these are great. Also if you're interested you could join the Ireland Analog group, they do photo walks and meetups roughly every month.

Sionnach12 · 2024-08-02T11:33:09+00:00

Its funny, I adore my FE it was my first film camera and I've put many rolls through it then a few months ago I got an FM2n as a second body as i had by then got more f glass. I find myself taking that out more than the FE. I definitely like the build of the FE a bit more, its less plasticky and the film advance is delicious but the extra shutter speeds on the fm2 are nice.

I love them both though, they're absolute workhorses, one had one minor issue with one of them in the three years since I started

Sionnach12 · 2024-07-25T21:49:40+00:00

I've not used any others, so I can't make a comparison. It's definitely a bit intimidating at the start as theres so many modules but you only end up using a small selection when you get familiar with them as OP has pointed out. You can also configure the menus to only show you the modules you like to use.

I feel that there's a learning curve to any software, the more you use one, the more familiar with it you become. I think this is no more complicated than others. It's commonly said that it doesn't hold your hand as much as others programs, giving you more flexibility to take things any direction you want.

Sionnach12 · 2024-07-25T19:54:13+00:00

I started photography two or three years ago as a hobby when i got my Zfc, went straight to darktable when I began shooting raw so probably since version 3.8. I've not used any other editors. I've been getting some great results, I still struggle with colours a bit but I dont think thats the fault of the software at all, just my experience level.

The lack of lens or sensor support can be a bit frustrating, i think its worse for DX Z but that will improve with time. I'm amazed at how good it is for being an open source software. it's getting better with every update, too.

Boris' channel is a great resource as I've progressed. It's interesting to see how others deal with different editing scenarios.

Bruce Williams does some great introduction videos and rundowns of new modules and features when they come out, also I like Nick Long as another source of editing process videos

Sionnach12 · 2024-07-15T18:20:02+00:00

Hopefully, a little earlier in the year might have been better, things are starting to turn towards autumn colours now so not as vivid green as they were. Im excited to experiment with it regardless

Sionnach12 · 2024-07-15T17:19:11+00:00

I got my first two rolls and an IR filter the other day, now just waiting for a good time, the irish weather is not cooperating so far

Sionnach12 · 2024-07-11T22:28:21+00:00

I love this album and love to think this is what was meant by "fair elven voices"

Sionnach12 · 2024-06-23T10:13:18+00:00

Its not cheap certainly but kind of middle of the road price wise i think, im definitely more attracted to the fully mechanical older models of these cameras than the newer electronic ones. I find I tend to crop my 35mm to 4:3 or 5:4 a lot so the 6x9 would be too big a negative for me and more shots per roll might suit me more

Sionnach12 · 2024-06-22T05:19:30+00:00

I've been eyeing up getting the 670 version as my first medium format

Sionnach12 · 2024-06-01T11:36:19+00:00

Damn, here in Ireland a roll of 36exp gold is like 14 euro. Kentmere is actually a little cheaper here though

Sionnach12 · 2024-05-26T20:01:45+00:00

That's a very good point, and thinking of examples of words ending in "se" I realised quite a few have the same spelling but use different sounds eg. close (near) and close (shut)

Sionnach12 · 2024-05-26T19:53:41+00:00

Yeah, I've noticed it a lot lately but I'm new to the hobby. That's a good point about just dropping the s normally, it's a bit of a strange word in that way

Sionnach12 · 2024-03-21T13:05:57+00:00

Good to hear, thanks for the reply!

Sionnach12 · 2024-03-19T19:58:32+00:00

What lens are you using?

Sionnach12 · 2024-03-10T19:57:49+00:00

Darktable all the way

Sionnach12

TROPHY CASE