Frontier vs Noritsu Scans Comparison

We recently met up with Amanda Hedgepeth and did some portraits with her which you might have seen here.

We took the opportunity with the lab to do a little test so you could see the difference a scanner can make in how your film scans turn out!

This will be an ongoing, unscheduled series of blogs that might help you in your journey if you’re thinking of shooting film.

We’re by no means experts when it comes to SCANNING film – we leave that to the lab – and we know plenty of photographers that could swear by either of the most popular scanners used by big labs – the Noritsu or the Frontier.

We are just sharing what we have learned from our experiences sending film in and getting back scans! 🙂

We also recommend reaching out and building a relationship with the lab you choose to do most of your work with – it will definitely help you in the long run.

Also, these comparisons should not convey the idea that the way the image looks lies solely in the hands of the developer/scanner. How you expose or rate your film determines how the end result will look.

Nor should you interpret this as a review of labs. This is simply sample set of images shot on Portra 800 film, overexposed usually 1-2 stops above box speed, and scanned on both the Frontier and the Noritsu – particularly indoors.

We just wanted to stick to one film stock for this blog to make it less confusing.

left – Noritsu, right – Frontier

left – Noritsu, right – Frontier

For Xi and Wesley’s wedding, we asked to have one roll of Portra 800 scanned in twice by Richard Photo Lab.

Frontier left, Noritsu right for all of these:

Portra 800, all scanned on a Frontier scanner:

Portra 800, all scanned on a Noritsu scanner:

You’ll notice the Frontier scanner tends to naturally add more contrast, but its skin tones usually tend to be cleaner – not as “pink,” a common issue with the Noritsu scanner. Frontier scans involve lengthier turnaround times however and some labs charge more for them than for the Noritsu scans.

A lot of these shots were shot at 1/30th of a second. We tend to lean more towards “erring on the side of overexposure,” because unlike with digital SLRs, film not only forgives overexposing, it usually rewards you with better results! The best way to find the “sweet spot” that’s just right for you is through practice!

Finally, here’s one last look at Noritsu- left, Frontier- right.

We hope you guys enjoyed! We’ll be continuing this in the future in different lighting situations and with different film speeds! 🙂

xoxo Michael and Carina