Any news on the new Plustek 120 scanner?

mdruziak said:
There is something strange about the OpticFilm 120 scan on the German site. The resolution is 1767 dpi which explains why it looks like the V500 scan.
Click to expand...

That number means nothing. It's totally down to the interpretation of the software used to resize/crop the scan. I bet that other scans will display equally nonsensical values.

Scans are in line with previous 100% crops from Plustek 120 at 5300dpi. I've shown here in this thread a few months ago what a 5400dpi scan looks like. Plustek 120 wasn't anywhere near that back then and it sadly isn't now.

This scanner needs a glass holder with hight adjustment so users can find the best position for individual unit to get consistent and fair results, I'm afraid.
 
Darn, I was hoping this thing would give a 9000 a run for it's money to keep analog afloat....and I own the 9000ED with all the goodies. I do think that this is going to take more time to prove it self, but yes, focus on the grain of the film is critical for any good scan, it's common sense that Plustek has to not only know about but have worked on this.

On a separate note, about two weeks ago, I had a 120 neg I wanted to get the best scan I could from for a large usage. I did a ANR glass holder scan of it on my 9000ED then sent it out to be Tango drum scanned. The resulting file from the drum scan was only 800 pixels larger than the 9000ED, had a bit more reach into the D-Max and slightly smoother grain than the 9000ED. In short, I was not unhappy with the Nikon scan and having the drum to compare to made me realize why.

Short of a X1 or X5, the 9000ED is still a much better choice than anything thus far for film scans.
 
kanzlr said:
The samples over here look nice:

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00ZpLQ?start=210
Click to expand...

What is interesting about his opinion is he is using the scanner.

Resolution: Exceeds my expectations; in fact superb
Compared to Epson V750: I've rated the Epson highly and have used it for the past couple of years. For me it gave three problems: poor film holders, mediocre quality for 35mm and dust on the glass. Try as I might I never managed to get rid of it. All these things are much better with the Opticfilm. Epson quality has always been acceptable for me on 120 format but this is in a different league.
Is it worth the money? For me definitely.

.
 
bigeye said:
What is interesting about his opinion is he is using the scanner.

Resolution: Exceeds my expectations; in fact superb
Compared to Epson V750: I've rated the Epson highly and have used it for the past couple of years. For me it gave three problems: poor film holders, mediocre quality for 35mm and dust on the glass. Try as I might I never managed to get rid of it. All these things are much better with the Opticfilm. Epson quality has always been acceptable for me on 120 format but this is in a different league.
Is it worth the money? For me definitely.

.
Click to expand...

That is an excellent point.
 
Well, this is no good. We really need to see a sample where the grain is clearly in focus.
I wonder how the light source is handled on the Plustek 120? The 9000ED uses a very hard light. Maybe the Plustek is very diffused. This can have a great effect on the grain is rendered. Basically it's similar to the difference we used to see between a condenser and diffusion enlarger.

Here would be an interesting test. Scan the Plustek at its max resolution (5300?) and then downsample to 4000 dpi. I would like to compare that to the output of the 9000ED.
 
bigeye said:
What is interesting about his opinion is he is using the scanner.

Resolution: Exceeds my expectations; in fact superb
Compared to Epson V750: I've rated the Epson highly and have used it for the past couple of years. For me it gave three problems: poor film holders, mediocre quality for 35mm and dust on the glass. Try as I might I never managed to get rid of it. All these things are much better with the Opticfilm. Epson quality has always been acceptable for me on 120 format but this is in a different league.
Is it worth the money? For me definitely.

.
Click to expand...

Imagine how fast the Internet would be if people only offered opinion on scanners/cameras/screwdrivers/cars/widgets/whatever that they've actually used........
 
scottyb70 said:
Did anyone ever compare the Flextight 343 to the Nikon?
Click to expand...

I've never used the Nikon but had a 343 for several years and sold it to get a Fuji Lanovia Quattro. For those not familiar with the Fuji it's at the top of the scale of professional flat bed scanners. It's equal or better than the Eversmart Supreme. The Fuji new was nearly $40k to put it into perspective.

The 343 did not have focus adjustment where the Fuji did. The 343 had a very fine Rodenstock lens where the Fuji had 4 apo process lenses. The Fuji selected the proper lens for the magnification desired and then optimized focus and position for the location of the film on the platen. The Fuji used XY axis scanning so every position on the platen was in the sweet spot. The Fuji had slightly better Dmax.

The net result was the Fuji had ever so slightly better edge sharpness on 120 film. It not by much. The Dmax under extreme cases was slightly better on the Fuji. In the end there wasn't much difference except in extreme cases.

I had the Fuji for six years and Sold it then bought a refurbished Imacon 848 from Hasselblad. I'm no longer scanning large film so the 848 fit my needs and took up much less space. In comparison with the Fuji I would say the Imacon 848 is equal in every respect as to image quality. The Fuji was slightly faster but at a price of $, size and weight plus the Fuji no longer has support from Fuji and only runs on older OS.

I'd love to know how the Nikon compares to the 343 and later Imacon / Hasselblad machines.

I failed to mention the 848 autofocuses.
 
kanzlr said:
chances are the scanner in the German forum is broken, as the colleague over there noted that it starts making strange noises...hm.

edit: another nice scan where you can CLEARLY see the grain structure in detail:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_df/8384219447/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Click to expand...

There is one other possibility. This appears to be a 35mm format image. Some of the early OpticFilm 120's were shipped with 35mm holders that were manufactured incorrectly. 35mm film was clearly softer than 120 when scanned but looked similar to an Epson flatbed or OpticFilm 8xxx scanner scanned around 2000 dpi.

In the US we have been opening up every OpticFilm 120 to make sure they have the new 35mm film holders and doing a resolution test on each scanner to be absolutely certain the scanner is functioning properly. We did have to replace a few film holders but we expected that.
 
Something I should make note of, I was searching for a 35mm scanner for easy and fast scans with good quality. I purchased one of the Plustek machines and tried it for about two weeks. While it made decent scans it took some effort to get a good scan and the scans were harsh / hard looking than the Fuji (didn't have the Imacon at this time). The reason was mostly the light source. The Fuji and Imacon use a cold cathode fluorescent and the Plustek uses LED lights as does the Nikon. As mentioned before its like a point source condensor enlarger vs a diffusion. The end result is the LED makes a very sharp looking image but is granier and harder looking where as the cold cathode give a smooth less grainy image with more information in the extreme ends of the contrast scale. With the cold cathode as in diffusion enlargers dust is not as big a problem.
 
mdruziak said:
In the US we have been opening up every OpticFilm 120 to make sure they have the new 35mm film holders and doing a resolution test on each scanner to be absolutely certain the scanner is functioning properly. We did have to replace a few film holders but we expected that.
Click to expand...
Since Plustek claims that the Opticfilm 120 reaches 5300dpi by USAF-1951 standards, would it be possible for Plustek to make a full-resolution raw scan of an USAF-1951 target available for download, just like they did with their other sample pictures?

I think this would give us would-be early adopters some much needed reassurance, especially since we are seeing such varying user reports at this early stage of distribution.
 
x-ray said:
Something I should make note of, I was searching for a 35mm scanner for easy and fast scans with good quality. I purchased one of the Plustek machines and tried it for about two weeks. While it made decent scans it took some effort to get a good scan and the scans were harsh / hard looking than the Fuji (didn't have the Imacon at this time). The reason was mostly the light source. The Fuji and Imacon use a cold cathode fluorescent and the Plustek uses LED lights as does the Nikon. As mentioned before its like a point source condensor enlarger vs a diffusion. The end result is the LED makes a very sharp looking image but is granier and harder looking where as the cold cathode give a smooth less grainy image with more information in the extreme ends of the contrast scale. With the cold cathode as in diffusion enlargers dust is not as big a problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is why I still use my Konica Minolta DiMage 5400 (original model). The second model used LEDs, the original uses a cold cathode tube.

The DiMage 5400 scanner has the ability to focus automatically or manually, but I wish the film holders would hold the film a bit flatter in the first place.

And, of course, it only scans 135-size film. There was the Konica Minolta Multi and Multi Pro scanners that did 120 film too, but they must be rare, as they very rarely are seen for sale.
 
edge100 said:
Imagine how fast the Internet would be if people only offered opinion on scanners/cameras/screwdrivers/cars/widgets/whatever that they've actually used........
Click to expand...

pretty amazing how this scanner was written off before it was released, and also now, before anyone on this thread has actually used one. tough crowd.
 
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