Is Medium Format the best for Film Scanners under $1K?

I'm sure some scanners can dig a lot more information out of a negative than the Pakon. It's bit depth and max density certainly aren't it's selling points. The thing is though...what the heck are you doing shooting 135 if your photography is all about creating the absolute finest detail in a print? A medium format negative scanned on a crappy 2nd hand flatbed will be more detailed than any 35mm negative, whatever you scan it with. It's like putting a scratched charity shop record on a £20,000 audiophile turntable: you may be extracting maximum detail, but it will still sound a bit cruddy.
 
FujiLove said:
I'm sure some scanners can dig a lot more information out of a negative than the Pakon. It's bit depth and max density certainly aren't it's selling points. The thing is though...what the heck are you doing shooting 135 if your photography is all about creating the absolute finest detail in a print? A medium format negative scanned on a crappy 2nd hand flatbed will be more detailed than any 35mm negative, whatever you scan it with. It's like putting a scratched charity shop record on a £20,000 audiophile turntable: you may be extracting maximum detail, but it will still sound a bit cruddy.
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I love this question actually!

Yes, I just like 35mm sometimes. I have a Pentax 67 and a Rolleiflex AND a Pacific Image PF120 for those. But, for 35mm I have an F100 and a Leica M4. This is RFF, shooting with a Leica is a whole lot of fun. I can do things with an RF that I can't or wouldn't do with other cameras. Plus when traveling, shooting all chromes is a wonderful thing when you see them on a light table.

It's not about trying to get more out of 35mm than what it's capable of, it's about getting that which 35mm is actually capable. I hated scanning with my V700 because I knew that my images weren't soft and mushy. I have printed in B&W and color darkrooms and made sharp, detailed prints. I just want to replicate that experience with the hybrid workflow.
 
SaveKodak said:
I love this question actually!

Yes, I just like 35mm sometimes. I have a Pentax 67 and a Rolleiflex AND a Pacific Image PF120 for those. But, for 35mm I have an F100 and a Leica M4. This is RFF, shooting with a Leica is a whole lot of fun. I can do things with an RF that I can't or wouldn't do with other cameras. Plus when traveling, shooting all chromes is a wonderful thing when you see them on a light table.

It's not about trying to get more out of 35mm than what it's capable of, it's about getting that which 35mm is actually capable. I hated scanning with my V700 because I knew that my images weren't soft and mushy. I have printed in B&W and color darkrooms and made sharp, detailed prints. I just want to replicate that experience with the hybrid workflow.
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You sound exactly like me. P67, Rolleiflex, Hasselblad...but I still love my M3 and M2. I think my problem is I find scanning utter tedium so speed wins over all else. I'd simply rather spend five hours in the darkroom on one print than two hours on Photoshop and an entire roll. This is what comes of working on the computer all day: it's the last thing you want to do in the evening (says me...while I type this in the evening on the iPad. Sigh.)

I'd still really like to see those detailed crops of the scans side by side if you have time to post them. I'll bet other people will find them useful too when they're searching for info on here.
 
I'll get to work tonight!

I think I don't mind the scannign so much because 1. I no longer have darkroom access, and just consider it 'part of the process'. And 2. For some scans, I do multi-exposure and multi-pass and dust/scratch removal, at 5k PPI. It's a process. I start it up and do something else. In the color darkroom, it'd be making countless color test strips and running each through the processor. It's own kind of weirdly satisfying PITA.
 
SaveKodak said:
The color differences are not what I'm trying to illustrate here. There is significantly more information available in the PIXA scans, which is visible in the highlights and shadows of each image. Also the lab scanners crop a fair amount, which is visible at the edges of the images. If I was using a frontier myself I would certainly scan the images to my personal taste, but it's not going to make up for the fact that it's upsampling after 8" and generating a ton of noise, while also missing a lot of information in the highlights and shadows. There is no multi-exposure, or multi-sampling. Plus IIRC the Pakon can't scan E6 natively.
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It appears you're making a lot of assumptions here about the Frontier based on this particular output. There are many pro labs that differentiate themselves in the marketplace entirely based on their scanning services, and they use Frontiers (as well as high end Noritsus) and know all the ins and outs and capabilities of such equipment. If they were short in these areas (i.e., 'a ton of noise') they likely wouldn't be using them...

On the other hand, it *IS* fair to say that what you get from a generic lab might not be to one's creative preference, this is a great example of it; that is, after all, the entire point behind doing the work oneself. 🙂 (In fact, many of the specialist scan labs will work with their clients to set up a repeatable 'look', so they do match the client's creative preference.)

Curious, what lab did these scans?


It's not about how fast the scanner is, it's about how it forces you to approach the scan. And we're not living in a world where there is a 3x faster PIXA scanner, obviously faster is great. But faster at the expense of quality is not great. I owned a Pakon for a year, I know what it can do. It has decent color SooC, but so does my PIXA most of the time. I'm doing LR adjustments on both. You're overstating the advantage there, or just aren't picky enough about your images.
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I'm not overstating anything, I'm just illustrating that your comments have nothing to do with speed; it is your choice that you "don't rescan for higher quality," that's a choice, not the fault of the Pakon, and it wouldn't be the fault of the PIXA either.
 
FujiLove said:
I think my problem is I find scanning utter tedium so speed wins over all else. I'd simply rather spend five hours in the darkroom on one print than two hours on Photoshop and an entire roll. This is what comes of working on the computer all day: it's the last thing you want to do in the evening
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Yes, and one will eventually reach the point of limited return, spending lots of additional time to eke out a very *slightly* better product.

Sure, it's possible to create an image from a scan that is superior (to the output of any particular scanner, once properly set up.) Doesn't matter what scanner one starts with, this can be done with ALL of them.

It's just a matter of time. If someone wants to spend that time, more power to them! If not, there are speedier options that can provide truly excellent quality.
 
splitimageview said:
It appears you're making a lot of assumptions here about the Frontier based on this particular output. There are many pro labs that differentiate themselves in the marketplace entirely based on their scanning services, and they use Frontiers (as well as high end Noritsus) and know all the ins and outs and capabilities of such equipment. If they were short in these areas (i.e., 'a ton of noise') they likely wouldn't be using them...

On the other hand, it *IS* fair to say that what you get from a generic lab might not be to one's creative preference, this is a great example of it; that is, after all, the entire point behind doing the work oneself. 🙂 (In fact, many of the specialist scan labs will work with their clients to set up a repeatable 'look', so they do match the client's creative preference.)

Curious, what lab did these scans?




I'm not overstating anything, I'm just illustrating that your comments have nothing to do with speed; it is your choice that you "don't rescan for higher quality," that's a choice, not the fault of the Pakon, and it wouldn't be the fault of the PIXA either.
Click to expand...

These were from The FIND Lab, who I use for some of my client work when I do need speed. I'll have samples later to better explain myself.
 
I've never personally operated a Frontier scanner but the Noritsu is a VERY capable scanner in the right hands. I think you will find that it easily outperforms most consumer and semi-professional scanners. I own a drum scanner and the Noritsu scans, while not quite as good, greatly impressed me nontheless.
 
Ok, Frontier and PIXA again. Literally just scanned the image tonight.

This is a challenging one because there is a lot of fine detail. The colors don't perfectly match but that's sort of challenging with two different scanners. I think they're both acceptable color pallets. I didn't really dust the PIXA image, since it's just a test.

PIXA

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Frontier

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Side by side at 100%

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Details

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA detail view

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

It's pretty subtle! But I think on the PIXA images you're seeing more grain, much higher resolution generally, and most importantly, cleaner details. The Frontier images look smoothed out to me, they just have a "digital" look to them which I find unnatural to film. My advice would be to navigate through to flickr to see them at 100%.
 
SaveKodak said:
The Pakon is just throwing away tonal information by the bucket. Look at the taxi and the street. So many more midtones present in the PIXA image.
Click to expand...

But if you choose a different tonal area, the dark coat for instance, you could say the opposite: that the PIXA is throwing information away by the bucket load. And honestly, to my eyes, the Pakon image just looks better straight out of the box. That's just personal taste though, but I guess it's one of the reasons the Pakon appeals to me, as do scans that come out of the Frontier.

You didn't mention the settings you use, but by default the Pakon settings are quite high contrast - I assume it's because the files would normally go straight to the RA4 printer and it's designed for those papers. You get much better scans if you tone the contrast right down and tweak as you see fit later. If my scan looked like the above, I'd certainly think I'd forgotten to turn the global contrast right down.

Having said that, I agree that the PIXA is pulling more information out than the Pakon, as you would expect from a scanner with over triple the resolution. It's certainly an impressive and capable machine.

Thanks for taking the time to post these here. I appreciate how long these things take.
 
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