The world needs a really good affordable film scanner

For those who don't want to spend more money

If you have:

1) DSLR
2) macro lens
3) lightbox

then you have all the film scanner you need
 
I sold my Coolscan LS4000 two weeks ago. Haven´t used for a couple of months. For B&W the wet-print on FB-paper rules. For color, which i hardly ever do, digital rules.
 
These threads always make me feel that I must have silly low standards.
Perhaps I've not seen a really, really good scan and that's the problem. I guess I could send a negative out and pay $$$ for a drum scan, just to show myself how inadequate my current set up is (4990). On the other hand, clearly, ignorance is bliss...'cause I'm happy now.
 
tedwin, the thing I don't understand is how you manage to make the colors come out right. When I tried this, taking away the cyan cast in photoshop introduced all kinds of digital noise.
 
Took me a while to get there.
Shoot in RAW.
Convert to DNG using the Adobe converter. Settings. 'Convert to linear image'

This gives you proper raw sensor data.

Open in photoshop, Set sharpening to off in ACR. Do not color manage, this gives you full available gamut. (tick the discard profile - do not color manage box for example)

So you have got raw data without any attached profile sitting open in photoshop.

Do your stuff (invert, curves, usual thing for color correction)

Convert to a suitable profile. Done.

Takes some practice and some images / film bases are harder than others. But you get good at it quite quickly.
 
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I agree in terms of getting darn good scans out of the 4490's, 4990's, etc. And even the 3200's. I scanned a MF 6x6 on a 3200 at 1200dpi and printed it at 3'x4' - that's feet, not inches. BIG print. Looked great. But that image was a long exposure of a fountain, so it had relatively smooth tones, etc. Not like a landscape where one is expecting individual blades of grass to resolve.

I have also sent out 6x7 slides for drum scans (I forget the model, but it wasn't tango or heidelberg - only 1 lab, in denver, ran this scanner) for wall-sized prints. And they looked amazing (the job paid bank).

But that's wall-sized. Even at 3x4, how many could you put up in your home or mount for sale? At 11x14 my 4490 has done very well, and has generated a reasonable amount of income on images that I am more than proud to be selling.

allan

dazedgonebye said:
These threads always make me feel that I must have silly low standards.
Perhaps I've not seen a really, really good scan and that's the problem. I guess I could send a negative out and pay $$$ for a drum scan, just to show myself how inadequate my current set up is (4990). On the other hand, clearly, ignorance is bliss...'cause I'm happy now.
Click to expand...
 
sevo said:
A even bigger problem is that film scanners have hit the technical limits of cheap improvements to the electronics. Any further improvement with significant impact on the scan results would have to be in the expensive field of lenses and precision mechanics - which reduces the chances of significantly new scanners in the wide gap between the bottom line OEM stuff and professional gear.
Click to expand...

how about just making them fast, like a digital camera with a slide copy attachment
 
For those who don't want to spend more money

If you have:

1) DSLR
2) macro lens
3) lightbox

then you have all the film scanner you need
Click to expand...

I'm all for low-buck solutions to problems, but this solution sounds pretty silly when a Scan-Dual II can be had for less than the cost of a macro lens.

You pay money for a tool not only for quality of results, but also ease of use and repeatability. I changed the clutch in my VW once using firewood as a transmission jack. It was an absolute pain in the ass, but it got the job done. If I had to use firewood as a transmission jack every day, I think I'd give up swapping my own clutch. 😀
 
I posted many times repeating the same concept.
Good scanners can be found at 35K (Cezanne) and up.
Below that and perhaps Imacons too (whose price is pure nonsense) the are all very crappy.
Look: do not talk of posting a photo. Talk of serious and large printing. Any scanner is good for posting.
It is a crying shame for me. If they get in trouble they deserve it more than GM
Now in between the price of an Epson and an Imakon there is a lot of space to improve, incorporate autofocus, holders that guarantee planeity etc.
No interest? then why Epson keeps proposing new models? They do business out of scanning. Why not proposing a less crappy machine in the 1000-2000 bracket?
Cheers
 
It's amazing what a useful tool firewood can be. I've used it for so many things--as a stool, or a doorstop, or holding a window open, or for pounding other pieces of firewood that don't quite fit in the woodstove.
 
Just my two cents about Epson scanners:
I discovered lately that my 4990 is not equally sharp, depending on the place of the neg on the glass. did lots of experiments, went to Epson service, they did some more experiments and Yok, nada, rien. Same same. the scans at the edges of the scanning areas are NOT sharp.

I did the same with another scanner, a 4870, guess what? same problem, but now, it is the whole side of the area that goes fuzzy. I'm not talking about light softness, I mean fuzzy!
The only way to get consistent sharp results was to take the slide out of any frame or film holder, straight to the glass, with something to straighten it up.

My conclusion is that Epson could do a lot better simply by improving their holder + QC or design on the glass position.

That being said, I'll stick with this solution:bang: (flatbed) since it's incredibelly convenient to batch scan.
 
This is not at all surprising - the Epsons have a history of depth of field issues. But that's why I would never consider an epson scanner with a holder from betterscanning.com. you can adjust at multiple locations the height of the holder.



sanmich said:
Just my two cents about Epson scanners:
I discovered lately that my 4990 is not equally sharp, depending on the place of the neg on the glass. did lots of experiments, went to Epson service, they did some more experiments and Yok, nada, rien. Same same. the scans at the edges of the scanning areas are NOT sharp.

I did the same with another scanner, a 4870, guess what? same problem, but now, it is the whole side of the area that goes fuzzy. I'm not talking about light softness, I mean fuzzy!
The only way to get consistent sharp results was to take the slide out of any frame or film holder, straight to the glass, with something to straighten it up.

My conclusion is that Epson could do a lot better simply by improving their holder + QC or design on the glass position.

That being said, I'll stick with this solution:bang: (flatbed) since it's incredibelly convenient to batch scan.
Click to expand...
 
Pistach said:
No interest? then why Epson keeps proposing new models? They do business out of scanning. Why not proposing a less crappy machine in the 1000-2000 bracket?
Cheers
Click to expand...

Not sure I get this. Epson doesn't make any scanners in the 1000-2000 bracket. And the electronics in the 750 are pretty good...and with the betterscanning holder and esp. with fluid mounting you're talking about $700-$800 and a pretty good scan.

Need more detail? Shoot a larger neg. Same argument as in the past. You can only resolve so much out of a 35mm neg.
 
Tuolumne said:
Do use a special jig to hold things in alignment?
Click to expand...

I should have added a tripod and a level as #s 4 and 5 on my list. I used to use a slightly more complicated setup, but I've found that using a level on the camera and surface works very well. I shoot w/ MLU at around F8. I made a thick black cardboard cutout about the size of a 35mm frame to place on top of the lightbox to help cut down on unwanted light.

tedwin said:
Took me a while to get there.
Shoot in RAW.
Convert to DNG using the Adobe converter. Settings. 'Convert to linear image'

This gives you proper raw sensor data.

Open in photoshop, Set sharpening to off in ACR. Do not color manage, this gives you full available gamut. (tick the discard profile - do not color manage box for example)

So you have got raw data without any attached profile sitting open in photoshop.

Do your stuff (invert, curves, usual thing for color correction)

Convert to a suitable profile. Done.

Takes some practice and some images / film bases are harder than others. But you get good at it quite quickly.
Click to expand...

Excellent tips. I usually do B+W or slide film but I'll have to try some color negatives using your method.
 
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