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

[SaveKodak]

The first question people always ask is "does it scan full rolls?" The reason why I argue against needing that feature is because, what's the point in the end? When I had my XA scan full rolls I was less likely to rescan my culled images for better quality. So even though I could see all my images relatively quickly, the work suffered in the end. The Pakon is the same way, quick and easy, but you give up a lot for quick and easy. IMO it's just as easy to simply look at your negs in a print file, like we did in the old days. If you want to use 3-5 images from a given roll right away, you do some scanning. Easy!

I shoot film because it's not digital. I don't want to treat my rolls like a less convenient SD card. It's a personal workflow choice, and anyone can do whatever they want, that's fine. But people advocate for workflows all the time so that's all I'm doing here. I just treat scanning pretty much the same way I treated working in the darkroom. A slow, considered process, with an effort to produce the best quality 'enlargements (scans)' that I can make. It's the opposite of dropping my film off at the drug store and flipping thru 4x6 prints and saying, "good enough". I'm not trying to tell you what to do here or anything, it's just how I see it.

 

[FujiLove]

Pakon is also awesome as a proofing scanner so you can really check out images in detail for higher resolution scanning.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

It's also great as a substitute for wet printing a contact sheet. Ten minutes and you have a list of everything that's worth printing in the darkroom.

 

[SaveKodak]

It's also great as a substitute for wet printing a contact sheet. Ten minutes and you have a list of everything that's worth printing in the darkroom.

If they were as cheap as they once were, I would agree. As it is now, they're a $7-800 dollar proofing machine. Just too much money for something that isn't capable of a fine-art scan.

 

[splitimageview]

What exactly is a 'fine art scan?'

Why bother with scanning at all, if you have a darkroom and can print?

 

[splitimageview]

The first question people always ask is "does it scan full rolls?" The reason why I argue against needing that feature is because, what's the point in the end? When I had my XA scan full rolls I was less likely to rescan my culled images for better quality. So even though I could see all my images relatively quickly, the work suffered in the end. The Pakon is the same way, quick and easy, but you give up a lot for quick and easy. IMO it's just as easy to simply look at your negs in a print file, like we did in the old days. If you want to use 3-5 images from a given roll right away, you do some scanning. Easy!

I shoot film because it's not digital. I don't want to treat my rolls like a less convenient SD card. It's a personal workflow choice, and anyone can do whatever they want, that's fine. But people advocate for workflows all the time so that's all I'm doing here. I just treat scanning pretty much the same way I treated working in the darkroom. A slow, considered process, with an effort to produce the best quality 'enlargements (scans)' that I can make. It's the opposite of dropping my film off at the drug store and flipping thru 4x6 prints and saying, "good enough". I'm not trying to tell you what to do here or anything, it's just how I see it.

This has nothing to do with the hardware, it's just your personal choice, and there is nothing wrong with this choice at all. You can be just as slow and deliberate with the processing of Pakon scans, too. It's possible to skimp with any scanner, and say 'good enough.' This has nothing to do with hardware scanning speed.

Scanning the entire roll gives me a 'contact sheet' in far less time than it takes to do a contact sheet, and far less time than looking at negs with a loupe on a light table and imagining what they might look like as positives. And once they are scanned, they can be tweaked very quickly (which often isn't even required.)

To each his own!

 

[Prest_400]

I'm a bit over the place when it comes down to scanning. Thinking about it, I haven't settled.

120 I do myself on a V550, which at 8EXP 6x9 doesn't become too tedious. I've got to get a better grasp at color because at times it can deviate quite a bit. I've gotten many nice straight scans though. In that case, 120 is often entretaining. I do occasionally hate it though. 😱

35mm I send out to have scans while developed. The V550 is a PITA for HiRes scans of 135 (too little, too late; aka, tight on resolution and slow).

It's that "fine art thing", sometimes it is nice to feel like maximizing and getting the best out of gear.

When I look at Pakon, Noritsu, Frontier scans of 35mm now, I just see the surface noise that covers up all the grain. You get jaggy edges from the baked in sharpening, and it throws out detail in the highlights and shadows. Sure, maybe these lab scanners get reasonably close to decent color faster than a desktop unit, but for me the difference is night and day. I haven't had an issue color balancing my scans personally.

These are all from the Primefilm XA, set to batch scan full rolls (which I no longer do because I agree with Brennan, full roll scanning is workflow mistake when compared to just culling and doing a more hands-on scan of single images), with multi exposure. http://sperryphoto.com/an-american-mill The color was very close SooS, I did only basic edits in LR to get these right.

You got fantastic color in there.

The Pakon I have tested with a small batch I sent to a minilab/store who scanned with it. I'm not an extensive Kodak Ektar user but that roll I got scanned there had the seemingly most correct results. Even neutral in some conditions (early on people complained about the casts it can get).

Frontiers and Noritsus are down to lab/operator. I've gotten really nice results from the former and I used the latter for some 120 when I wanted "the look".
I switched lab (ironically to overseas and lower rates -- sorry, still in student budget) and there was something lackluster in the former compared to the newer one, which had more sparkle. It was the compression ratio, heavier files much better for grainy consumer C41.
Then Noritsu I've gotten more grainy due to sharpening results.

As a last Note, the prevailing airy look of 400 C41 can be nice in some situations such as the Mediterranean summer which suits a pastel palette. But, at first it kept me away of the new wave of labs. And indeed the highlights tend to border the whiteness, probably due to curving it up.

I'm looking forward to quejai's scanner concept. Drumscanner in a small box through tiling scan.

EDIT: As of the OP title question. Well, yes because of the classic issue of needing less magnification. My V550 supposedly resolves real 1600ppi which can be fair in 35mm but quite decent on 6x9.

 

[SaveKodak]

What exactly is a 'fine art scan?'

Why bother with scanning at all, if you have a darkroom and can print?

I don't have a darkroom, that's why I scan. I used to print a lot when I had access to various darkrooms. Not possible for me currently in NYC. Plus I think that with color film the right choice for me is scan to pigment print via an Epson. The R3000 is a really amazing printer and the papers we have now are much better than a standard RA-4 Endura or Fuji Crystal Archive.

A fine-art scan is a term I heard or more or less invented, so do with that what you will, but IMO it's a scan where you see the grain, not noise, and can access most of the latitude available in the film. The lab scanners are just noisy. This is somewhat hidden by the low resolution but once you look at them side by side it's night and day. When I scanned with a Coolscan, and now with my XA, my scans are super close to what I achieved in the color or B&W darkroom. Lab scanners (with 35mm) have never given me that detail that I know is there in the negative. The scanner just leaves a layer of noise that resembles grain but isn't quite what you would see if you printed it optically. A fine-art scan is simply the best possible reproduction that you can make.

 

[SaveKodak]

I'm a bit over the place when it comes down to scanning. Thinking about it, I haven't settled.

120 I do myself on a V550, which at 8EXP 6x9 doesn't become too tedious. I've got to get a better grasp at color because at times it can deviate quite a bit. I've gotten many nice straight scans though. In that case, 120 is often entretaining. I do occasionally hate it though. 😱

35mm I send out to have scans while developed. The V550 is a PITA for HiRes scans of 135 (too little, too late; aka, tight on resolution and slow).

It's that "fine art thing", sometimes it is nice to feel like maximizing and getting the best out of gear.


You got fantastic color in there.

The Pakon I have tested with a small batch I sent to a minilab/store who scanned with it. I'm not an extensive Kodak Ektar user but that roll I got scanned there had the seemingly most correct results. Even neutral in some conditions (early on people complained about the casts it can get).

Frontiers and Noritsus are down to lab/operator. I've gotten really nice results from the former and I used the latter for some 120 when I wanted "the look".
I switched lab (ironically to overseas and lower rates -- sorry, still in student budget) and there was something lackluster in the former compared to the newer one, which had more sparkle. It was the compression ratio, heavier files much better for grainy consumer C41.
Then Noritsu I've gotten more grainy due to sharpening results.

As a last Note, the prevailing airy look of 400 C41 can be nice in some situations such as the Mediterranean summer which suits a pastel palette. But, at first it kept me away of the new wave of labs. And indeed the highlights tend to border the whiteness, probably due to curving it up.

I'm looking forward to quejai's scanner concept. Drumscanner in a small box through tiling scan.

EDIT: As of the OP title question. Well, yes because of the classic issue of needing less magnification. My V550 supposedly resolves real 1600ppi which can be fair in 35mm but quite decent on 6x9.

Yeah that light and airy look is everywhere. When working with clients and a lot of film I still use The FIND lab and their frontier scanners. That's all about volume. I'm just talking about home scanning where one can take their time.

 

[splitimageview]

It's really all in the way the hardware and software is used. In the hands of someone that knows what they are doing, one can achieve quality scans in terms of latitude and grain/noise with a lab scanner or home scanner, doesn't matter. If the lab has a tech that isn't properly trained, then results are hit or miss (mostly miss.) if you want full control over the final image then you'll need to do it yourself, this is no different today than it was back in the darkroom days. That said, there are some specialty labs that have properly trained techs that can provide excellent results (although that result still might not match the shooter's creative preference.)

 

[FujiLove]

If they were as cheap as they once were, I would agree. As it is now, they're a $7-800 dollar proofing machine. Just too much money for something that isn't capable of a fine-art scan.

Nah...there are plus models on the Facebook group for about $600, so you should be able to pick up the non-plus for around $400 with a bit of patience.

Not sure what your definition of 'fine art' is, but I've made 12" prints from Pakon scans and they don't look a whole lot different from prints shot on medium format and pro scanned with a Fuji Frontier. Obviously, they do if you pixel peep or look at the print under a loupe, but under normal viewing conditions, hanging on a wall, they are very similar.

 

[SaveKodak]

I think I have some comparisons on my Mac at home, I'll try to post some to better illustrate what I'm talking about.

 

[SaveKodak]

Both of these were shot with Portra 160 +1 (beach daylight) or Fuji 160NS (cabin) in an M6 with the Zeiss 50mm C Sonnar (cabin) or 21mm Color-Skopar (beach)

Frontier:

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA:

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Frontier:

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA:
Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Then here are two from Provia 100F where I don't have the Frontier scan. With chrome film the quality possible is just incredible.

PIXA - Leica M6 - Zeiss 35mm 1.4 Distagon

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA - Leica M6 - Zeiss 28mm 2.8 Biogon

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

It may be hard to tell on the web or on your monitor but I see cleaner detail, not just more detail. Low noise, more color depth, deeper blacks. The capability of this scanner is just incredible. So for me PERSONALLY, the idea of spending much more for the convenience of a full roll scan, and the expense of the kind of quality I'm seeing here, isn't worth it. I'd rather just cull on a light table, and do the best scan possible. Even if you do scan every frame, then pick a winning image...where do you go from there? If my exposure was off or something else needs to be changed I can do multi exposure and multi-sampling to create incredibly low-noise files even from a dense chrome. With the Pakon, it just is what it is save for what you can do in LR.

 

[splitimageview]

A fair comparison would be a scans where the operator intimately knows both types of hardware and software. I'm assuming the Frontier scans above were done by someone other than yourself.

In the old days I was always frustrated shooting color negatives, because I'd take the film to the lab and the tech would either (a) not know what they were doing and just use the automatic settings which often washed out otherwise good negatives (for example) or (b) the tech, even a knowledgeable/skilled one, would have an entirely different vision of how the print should look, than what I envisioned when I shot the photo.

Either way resulted in disappointment, unless the entire roll was nothing but flash photos of people, for example. The auto settings generally got that correct.

As a result, the vast majority of the time I shot transparencies as that completely removed the outside variable. I either got the shot the way I wanted in the camera, or I didn't; and if it were the latter, it was entirely my fault, not some faceless lab tech at the photo shop.

This applied to the "pro labs" as much as it did to the "quick labs."

The beauty of the Pakon is that the vast majority of the time "it is what it is" is either exactly, or very close, to the desired result, so there is no need to "go from there."

It's not faultless, like all other scanners, of course. It's just a tool that requires some degree of knowledge to get the best results. It makes shooting film much more enjoyable. And if one wants to further tweak a particular frame that's always an option, like it is with any other scanner.

The argument that "the Pakon is fast therefore I am less likely to rescan my culled images for better quality" can hardly be a fault of the Pakon. If the PIXA were 3 times faster, would that be a bad thing? 😉

 

[FujiLove]

Both of these were shot with Portra 160 +1 (beach daylight) or Fuji 160NS (cabin) in an M6 with the Zeiss 50mm C Sonnar (cabin) or 21mm Color-Skopar (beach)

Frontier:

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA:

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Frontier:

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA:
Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

Then here are two from Provia 100F where I don't have the Frontier scan. With chrome film the quality possible is just incredible.

PIXA - Leica M6 - Zeiss 35mm 1.4 Distagon

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

PIXA - Leica M6 - Zeiss 28mm 2.8 Biogon

Untitled by Mark A. Sperry, on Flickr

It may be hard to tell on the web or on your monitor but I see cleaner detail, not just more detail. Low noise, more color depth, deeper blacks. The capability of this scanner is just incredible. So for me PERSONALLY, the idea of spending much more for the convenience of a full roll scan, and the expense of the kind of quality I'm seeing here, isn't worth it. I'd rather just cull on a light table, and do the best scan possible. Even if you do scan every frame, then pick a winning image...where do you go from there? If my exposure was off or something else needs to be changed I can do multi exposure and multi-sampling to create incredibly low-noise files even from a dense chrome. With the Pakon, it just is what it is save for what you can do in LR.

I much prefer the Frontier scans. The examples that you have marked as being from the PIXA seem to have a significant magenta cast. You'd be unlikely to have that problem using a Pakon.

 

[splitimageview]

significant magenta cast

I wasn't sure about this but have now viewed on multiple monitors and concur.

 

[SaveKodak]

I much prefer the Frontier scans. The examples that you have marked as being from the PIXA seem to have a significant magenta cast. You'd be unlikely to have that problem using a Pakon.

Well I balanced the chromes by referencing them on a light table, so they're extremely close to the film itself. As for the comparison images, to each their own I guess. The beach shot from the frontier has a tone that I like, but it still has too much noise at the detail level and the PIXA scan has much more color depth. As for the cabin image, there is very little that I like about the Frontier scan. It's cold, and way too much highlight information was thrown out. The PIXA pulled in way more cloud information, and far more of the subtle tones that were taking place in twilight. It's magenta cast is accurate to my memory of the scene, and also my preference generally.

 

[splitimageview]

Again, the only way such as comparison is relevant is if the same operator did both sets and was trying to reach identical results, and, of course, knows the hardware and software of both systems equally well.

Who did the Frontier scans?

They are *all* good scans, of course. Color is an individual preference, it's not an absolute.

 

[SaveKodak]

A fair comparison would be a scans where the operator intimately knows both types of hardware and software. I'm assuming the Frontier scans above were done by someone other than yourself.

In the old days I was always frustrated shooting color negatives, because I'd take the film to the lab and the tech would either (a) not know what they were doing and just use the automatic settings which often washed out otherwise good negatives (for example) or (b) the tech, even a knowledgeable/skilled one, would have an entirely different vision of how the print should look, than what I envisioned when I shot the photo.

Either way resulted in disappointment, unless the entire roll was nothing but flash photos of people, for example. The auto settings generally got that correct.

As a result, the vast majority of the time I shot transparencies as that completely removed the outside variable. I either got the shot the way I wanted in the camera, or I didn't; and if it were the latter, it was entirely my fault, not some faceless lab tech at the photo shop.

This applied to the "pro labs" as much as it did to the "quick labs."

The beauty of the Pakon is that the vast majority of the time "it is what it is" is either exactly, or very close, to the desired result, so there is no need to "go from there."

It's not faultless, like all other scanners, of course. It's just a tool that requires some degree of knowledge to get the best results. It makes shooting film much more enjoyable. And if one wants to further tweak a particular frame that's always an option, like it is with any other scanner.

The argument that "the Pakon is fast therefore I am less likely to rescan my culled images for better quality" can hardly be a fault of the Pakon. If the PIXA were 3 times faster, would that be a bad thing? 😉

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.

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.

 

[SaveKodak]

I think I might more clearly illustrate the point I'm trying to make if I post 100% crops of both.

Now, some might call this pixel peeping. However, The PIXA outputs 30ish mp at 5000ppi. These translate to roughly a bit larger than 13x19, my largest print capability from home. I do print these images, so having a slightly higher than my available print size is advantage for me in terms of cropping or increasing the DPI of the print. I have a 5k iMac, so it previews the images in HiDPI, giving me a good approximation of what my print will look like. I'll try to put together some good examples tonight. If I'm feeling really ambitious I'll dig up an old Pakon scan and re-scan the neg on my PIXA to show the differences. Though my friend and user of this site brennanphotoguy also made this upgrade recently from a Pakon, and has been showing me his B&W scans. Again, we've seen a huge difference in quality.

 

[brennanphotoguy]

I'll find some 100% b/w crops later tonight if I find time.