Hold your rotten tomatoes, I'm asking a scanner question.

[venchka]

I just relaized that we are East Texas neighbors! Howdy! We need to get all the East Texas RF, MF & LF folks together sometime. You and I subscribe to all of the bad habits it seems. I also have too much 35mm SLR gear.

I wish I knew what all the fussing is about when it comes to using a flatbed scanner for 35mm film. Sure, in a perfect world, I suppose we should all have a scanner for each format. The world ain't perfect. State of the possible often trumps state of the art. I think you might be better off to get a decent flatbed scanner first. you will love what they do for 4x5 and MF. Get the holders from Betterscanning. Try ANR glass with your negatives. If you still really hate the output from 35mm, then get a film scanner for 35mm.

In the meantime, I'll be scanning all of my negatives on my old Epson scanner and grinning. Blissful in my ignorance.

 

[dfoo]

It depends what you want to do with the output of the scans. If you want to post on the web, and do 6x4 prints then the output is fine. For more than that, IMO, the output is just not good enough. For me buying the V700 was wasteful. I ended up hating the output, and getting 5000 ED. For the money I spent on both scanners I could have gotten the 9000 ED.

 

[cwatgo1970]

Greetings Wayne, You know how we East Texans are noted... junkers! Camera collecting, as I'm sure you'll agree, is almost as much of a curse as it seems a blessing. It can make for the "Jack of all and master of none." complex.

Please don't think I'm discounting a flatbed scanner based on performance. Many of you have eased my concerns about them and I look forward to eventually getting one. It might be for the very reasons I stated above that I find myself wanting to get a 35mm dedicated scanner first. I wan't to make more use of my Leica, and not bounce between other cameras too often as I've done in the past. Maybe a format limitation in scanning will keep me in 35mm realm.

 

[maddoc]

I wish I knew what all the fussing is about when it comes to using a flatbed scanner for 35mm film. Sure, in a perfect world, I suppose we should all have a scanner for each format. The world ain't perfect. State of the possible often trumps state of the art. I think you might be better off to get a decent flatbed scanner first. you will love what they do for 4x5 and MF. Get the holders from Betterscanning. Try ANR glass with your negatives. If you still really hate the output from 35mm, then get a film scanner for 35mm.

In the meantime, I'll be scanning all of my negatives on my old Epson scanner and grinning. Blissful in my ignorance.

Absolutely agree. I have seen enough very good scans (135 film) from much cheaper flatbeds than the Epson V700, good enough for printing up to A3 size. The Nikon film scanner are only superior when either scanning absolutely flat (laboratory processed and dried) film or with one of the optional film holders (FH-3 or glass inserts) and in multi-pass mode (which costs lot of time). I have dumped my Nikon V ED in favor of an Epson V700 and never looked back.

Cheers,

Gabor

 

[dfoo]

... The Nikon film scanner are only superior when either scanning absolutely flat (laboratory processed and dried) film or with one of the optional film holders (FH-3 or glass inserts) and in multi-pass mode (which costs lot of time). I have dumped my Nikon V ED in favor of an Epson V700 and never looked back.

Cheers,

Gabor

In my experience nothing could be further from the truth. 95% of my film is black and white film developed by my own hand. The Nikon 5000 ED is superior in all respects for my film (apart from the dust and scratches it readily shows). Perhaps there was something wrong with your scanner, but multi-pass mode is also not slow (especially when compared with the glacial V700). A base scan is very fast (2-3 seconds without Ice). Each additional pass takes the same as the base time.

 

[maddoc]

100 % crop from a Nikon V ED:

and Epson V ED (4x multipass):

I see a difference in contrast but not very much in details.

 

[venchka]

If..........

Your OCD is showing...

If you are an obsessed grain sniffer...

If you routinely pick nits...

By all means get the scanner that works best for YOU!

I do none of the above. I routinely process my own B&W in 3 formats. I have neither the space nor the funds for 2 scanners. I am blissfully happy with one scanner that will batch scan 6 6x7 or 4 4x5 negatives while I am driving to work. That is a huge plus in time savings. The fact that the scans are useful for printing is a huge bonus.

If/when I find a negative that requires a big print I will spring for a proper high resolution scan or wet print.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Svitantti]

V700 achieves a (real) resolution around 2000 dpi, maybe a bit more. Flatbeds (so far) also make the grain blurred and you have to sharpen quite a lot to make the images look good.

If you want your film photo look like film on a print or , you need a good resolution and distinction of the grain. Sure you can sharpen but it is not the same. You probably want the grain look like grain, not something else.

Of course many people these days dont even know what "real film photograph" looks, because people mostly scan their films or even get Wal-Mart do that for them. Then they upload them to Flickr and browse photos from there. So a little blurred flatbed scan sharpened enough will be just great. And this is of course OK for web use only.

IF you however want quality prints from your films, you probably want a good scanner with good resolution...

 

[Svitantti]

Oh yeah, I got a test scan too. Epson V700 vs. Minolta Scan Dual IV:

The optimal holder height was tested for the V700 and it was used on 3200 dpi resolution. 6400 did not improve the result too much, just a bit. Minolta used 3200 dpi and autofocus.

The film scanned is Kodachrome 64.

 

[dfoo]

I'll post some scans later which show the real differences. The 5000 ED has higher dynamic range, and much higher sharpness than the v700, and the scans are much more "repeatable" than the v700.

 

[Svitantti]

Dunno 'bout 5000, but V700 has more dynamic range than the Minolta according to my humble tests. However, the optics of V700 seem to flare more.

Dynamic range (shadows):
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/espoo_d2.jpg
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/espoo_d3.jpg
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/minolta_d2.jpg
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/minolta_d3.jpg
(Notice: You can see the skateboard 2 times with Epson)

Flare:
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/espoo_fl.jpg
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/minolta_fl.jpg

Original image:
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/minolta.jpg
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/espoo.jpg

The images have been approximately made to look the same, then same kind of "gamma correction" is used to see how the shadow noise acts when the shadows are brought up.
Epson V750 should have coated optics instead of the uncoated ones with V700. Also the Nikon Coolscan V has some flare problems because of uncoated optics in the scanner.

 

[dfoo]

What you are calling "flare" I would call blowing the highlights...

 

[Svitantti]

I guess you can call it whatever, but it is a result of uncoated optics in the scanner. The bright areas indeed are spread over darker ones, which is seen often when there is much contrast (so it is not usually a problem with negatives, more a slide film issue).

 

[maddoc]

You use ANR glass inserts with the Epson V700 to hold the film flat, right ?

The V700 with it's original holder for 135 film doesn't produce anything sharp, when the film is only slightly bent.

Oh yeah, I got a test scan too. Epson V700 vs. Minolta Scan Dual IV:

The optimal holder height was tested for the V700 and it was used on 3200 dpi resolution. 6400 did not improve the result too much, just a bit. Minolta used 3200 dpi and autofocus.

The film scanned is Kodachrome 64.

 

[Svitantti]

I did try also with the ANR glass for medium format, but it didn't help because I didn't have the adjustable betterscanning-holder, only fixed height. I think that holder is too low.

Of course the scanner will produce sharp results also even if the film is a curled, if the film height is inside the depth of field of the scanner.

Im sure the 35mm films stay straight enough for that even without a glass holder. It would be quite a drag to need to fix every 35mm strip to the glass and the glass insert is anyway meant to be used with very curled films rather than every strip "just in case".

As I did some testing for the optimal height of the holder, I found out the DOF of the scanner is about 3-4 times a regular (finnish) masking tape. For my scanner, the correct height is about the Epson holder + 1-4 layers of this tape. It was already quite good at the maximum height of the folder without tape, but got a tiny bit better after adding 1 layer of the tape. After that it did not change so that I could see the difference until 5 layers were added - and that result was a bit less sharp.

Here you can see the difference between the lowest position of the holder and with 2 layers of the tape (Ilford HP5+ scanned at 6400dpi and scaled down to 50%):
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/alin.jpg
http://www.students.tut.fi/~hannine7/teipil.jpg

Compared to a film scanner, this kind of distinction of grain still loses easily. Sharpening helps a little, but any filtering like that will not give any more information to the data, just probably make it look a little better for a quick look.

From my experience, a good film scanner like a Nikon or Minolta will scan the grain of 400 ASA film quite well, almost like it is when viewed with a focus aid in darkroom. A Nikon will do it even for less sensitive films, at least down to 160 ASA, probably less. A Minolta will do it for around 200-400 I guess. The result is still not bad with slower films, but the grain is a bit blurred. With a flatbed, this happens even for the fastest grainy films like Delta 3200 @ 3200...

 

[dfoo]

Here is a test scan I just did of some Provia 100f slide film. The film is perfectly flat. For the v700 I do not have the ANR holders. The v700 holder is positioned at the optimal height. I scanned at 4800 DPI for the V700, and then downsized the image using bicubic sharper to 4000 DPI. Neither image was sharpened.

Ignoring the colors, the 5000 scan is significantly sharper. The face is near the center of the image, the road sign is at the left corner of the image. You can see a full sized version of the image at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3251346899/. The actual slide is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3067572473/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3067685703/.

 

[maddoc]

Thanks for taking the time and posting the example ! I have scanned one film last night, Efke KB400 developed in Diafine. Here is one 100% crop, scanned at 4800 dpi (using the glass ANR glass inserts) with the Epson V700:

 

[Svitantti]

I updated the Epson version of the Kodachrome scan, because I had it first scanned before setting the optimal height for the 35mm holder. Still I think the difference is clear.

Indeed, the Nikon scanners will improve the result clearly, but they cost quite a lot more than a Minolta. Also, the V700 costs (used) about double the price of a Scan Dual IV. Im pretty sure the earlier flatbeds like V500 or Canon models will not fight in the same league with V700.

 

[maddoc]

Here are two crappy snaps from my cell phone to show why I need (or should I say "prefer" ?) the ANR glass inserts for the V700. In winter all the film developed by myself (BW and C41 color) is bent like this (dry air in the apt with a humidity of ~ 20%). BTW, the Nikon V ED was not able to load such bent film using the film strip loader SA-21, the optional FH-3 holder was a must for me.

Film without any holder:

with the ANR glass insert:

 

[dfoo]

This is another direct comparison between V700 and 5000 ED. This time the film is Fuji Reala 100. The V700 shot was scanned at 4800 DPI and resized to 4400 on the longest edge using bicubic sharper (at the time I was comparing with the minolta). The nikon, by comparison, is 6144 on the long edge.

The comparison shot is http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3251404399/

The full sized original 5000 ED scan is http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3252217996/

The v700 scan is http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3180278618/

Neither scan is sharpened.