Minolta Dual Scan IV samples?

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dfoo

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In reference to this thread http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68163
someone mentioned the dual scan IV. I've managed to find a new one for sale, however, I want to ensure that it really will given better quality scans than my v700. I'm only really interested in real silver black and white (Tx400 is my main film). Does anyone have some 100% crops of some black and white scans they can share?
 
Thanks alot! These are much better than the v700. Are these unsharpened scans? Are these the scanners best DPI? The biggest size available is 3930x2620 on the flickr images. The scanner is supposed to be 3200 DPI which would result in a scan around 4400 pixels.
 
I'll post some later, but I'm sure a good film scanner like this, will easily beat a flatbed, no doubt. I would say it is next best after the Nikon, but might even have some advantages compared to it...
 
dfoo said:
Thanks alot! These are much better than the v700. Are these unsharpened scans? Are these the scanners best DPI? The biggest size available is 3930x2620 on the flickr images. The scanner is supposed to be 3200 DPI which would result in a scan around 4400 pixels.
Click to expand...

These are sharpened. And that's as big as they get, all in, that's everything. Regardless of marketing, it does not make a scan with 4400 pixels on a side, at least not for me.

I am not going to claim they are better than the V700, as I've never used the V700. They are better - marginally - than the scans I get from my Epson 4490.
 
A few full-size scans of Neopan 1600 on a Dual Scan IV:

1

2

3

P.S. You'll note that these are 4480 on the long side. Your scanner's holding out on you, Bill!
 
Andrew, are those sharpened? Bill, I looked at few images on your flickr page and they are more like 4400 on the long side. I'll post a couple of V700 images on my flickr page for comparison. Of course, its hard to directly compare since the negs are not the same, but these pictures viewed through a loupe are very sharp.
 
As you can probably tell from those pictures, I do very little PS work on my scans. Just a bit of levels adjustment. I can't say for certain, but I would be surprised if I had sharpened those pictures before I uploaded them to Flickr.
 
dfoo said:
Here are a couple of test scans I just did with v700.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3180278618/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnewhook/3179443419/

Full sized (4400 on the long side) are available. The film was Fuji Reala 100. The camera was an evil Nikon FE2 with 50mm/24mm lens. The scans had no processing applied except a resize and an auto-level in photoshop. No sharpening was applied.
Click to expand...

Look really nice. I don't know, yours look more detailed than mine. Hard to say, but I'd guess they were pretty close. Biggest difference might be in DMAX, dedicated scanners can usually pull out more detail than flatbeds. But I could be wrong on that too.
 
All the film shots on my flickr (link below) were done on a konica minolta scan dual IV. it's very good in terms of IQ for value, but it can be a little cumbersome to use. Just a little slow/noisy etc.
 
Actually, I'm very surprised about how good the color scans referenced above were from my v700. If I add some sharpening, that shot is very sharp. It makes me think that I'm doing something wrong with the black and white, because in comparison they are just mush. What can be the difference? Is it the film? The color was fuji reala 100, and my typical black and white is TriX 400. The camera and the lenses are the same. I tried a black and white scan with 48 bit color (the same settings as I scanned the color shot with), and it is equally crappy.
 
dfoo said:
Actually, I'm very surprised about how good the color scans referenced above were from my v700. If I add some sharpening, that shot is very sharp. It makes me think that I'm doing something wrong with the black and white, because in comparison they are just mush. What can be the difference? Is it the film? The color was fuji reala 100, and my typical black and white is TriX 400. The camera and the lenses are the same. I tried a black and white scan with 48 bit color (the same settings as I scanned the color shot with), and it is equally crappy.
Click to expand...

I do not know, but the thought occurs to me that perhaps your exposure and/or development are making it tough for the scanner to 'see' through.

I don't personally do this, but some people have told me that they scan B&W film as if it were slide film (in other words, they lie to the scanner software) and then they invert the colors in post-processing.

Others have said that they scan B&W film as if it were color film and then they desaturate it back to B&W in post-processing.

And the only other thing I could think of is whether or not you might be trying to scan your B&W film with scratch detection (Digital ICE) turned on. It won't work on B&W film (I heard that there is a new version of Digital ICE that will work on B&W film, but I dunno). That might do it.

Anyway, just some thoughts.
 
For all of the desktop 35mm film scanners (I've had both earlier Nikons and the Dual IV), they seem to exaggerate the grain of B&W silver film and do a better job with C-41 or E6 films. I don't know if there is an "ultimate" solution to scanning 35mm B&W since I am loath to spend the money to get drum scans and even then I am not convinced that most drum scanner operators know what to do with a 35mm B&W negative anyway.

I don't have a wet darkroom but scanning a lower-contrast silver print with "lots of information" is probably the best way to get 35mm B&W into digital form.

Or shoot C-41 and convert or use the B&W C-41 films (my latest compromise).

Other than that, the Dual IV is a good value for occasional but high quality scanning if you get it for under $300. I wouldn't pay more and sometimes a proven working one is better than a "new" shelf model since the warranty is worthless and you can't get them repaired.

I use VueScan and batch scan strips, so I can just walk away for 15 minutes and let the scanner grind away. It's plastic and noisy and slow but the scans are as good as the Nikon CoolScan V imho.
 
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