Problem with scanning film

[venusian]

Hi, I've just started using film. I shot roll the night - mostly in a dark-ish room with a new flash. I just picked it up from bigW (like a walmart) they developed it and scanned it (no prints) and every photo seems like its dusty or snowy. Is it noise from the scanner?

(sorry my friends and i were at a karaoke bar so it's just a little crop from one of the images)

It's Kodak Gold 400, it might be expired a little but I shot a roll from the same box a few weeks back and didn't have these problems.

Can anyone tell me what's causing it?

 

[steveash]

That looks like film grain from an under exposed picture. The people/machine processing this will have had to over-expose/burn it to get it bright enough in the dark areas, which brings out all the imperfections. If the film is old it will probably just add to this. If you scanned the negatives (without using auto levels etc) you will probably find they are very dark and contrasty.

I think we all get used to digital and how great it is in poor light compared with film. To get the best from film indoors you will need a high iso film (400 or 800), a wide aperture lens and as much light as possible.

 

[venusian]

thanks steveash - good to know it's the user that's the problem