Plustek Opticfilm 120 chops off parts of the frame

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Use this support link to contact them with the issue, they respond very quickly!

http://plustek.com/usa/support/technical-support-form.html

 

[Bille]

I recently received a Plustek Opticfilm 120. It's a brand new unit, never been used. I am using Windows 8.1 x64 with the latest Plustek driver and Silverfast Ai Studio 8.5r3 (latest).

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver and Silvferfast. And also reset all Silverfast settings, and powered off and on the scanner.

The scanner seems to chop off some of the top and bottom of my 35mm frames. The film is inserted 100% correct, and I've tried with several different film types, and everything, but this still happens, and unless I'm able to solve it the scanner is being returned, even though it is sharp. It doesn't matter how sharp it is when it makes 3:2 35mm images look like 4:3 aspect images due to the top and bottom cropping.

Here's two examples

Epson V850 <----> Plustek Opticfilm 120
View attachment 102001 View attachment 102002

To my eyes, the aspect ratio of the Epson scan looks correct for 35mm, while the Plustek scan looks more like 4:3 (popular in P&S and Olympus 4/3 and micro 4/3 cameras).

Does anyone know how to fix this, or is this normal with this scanner?

Show me one scanner that does not suck.

From what I see the Epson shows about 1/50th more of the frame. But isn´t that within tolerance?

If you want full control over the frame, there are better options today.

 

[MartinN]

To my eyes, the aspect ratio of the Epson scan looks correct for 35mm, while the Plustek scan looks more like 4:3 (popular in P&S and Olympus 4/3 and micro 4/3 cameras).

Does anyone know how to fix this, or is this normal with this scanner?

I have had the OF120 since first official release and I accept that the scanner defines initial cropping and that only possibly 99% of the frame is scanned. To my eye the comparison of the frames from V850 and OF120 look very similar, I would not complain, that is only how OF120 works. A scanner that moves a rail holder is very different from a flatbed scanner. I am happy with my OF120 for 35mm and 120 film and have a backup EpsonV700 for LF film. To my eye the OF120 scans are a lot more detailed than V700 which I feel softens the detail to a resolution of about 3000-3200dpi. I have measured resolution of the OF120 with a SF USAF-1951 chart and has confirmed that I could get about 4000-4300dpi from the scanner. The problem is that all the films I use have inherently a LOT LESS resolution. I have recently scanned about 5 rolls of Elitechrome 400 and Elitechrome 200 and is this film so soft !

 

[MartinN]

BTW what I ment was that the V700 looks very soft at 6400dpi which is present when downscaling to 3200dpi. My measurement with the USAF1951 chart shows that I can never get more than 3000-3200dpi out of the finest lith film using my V700. If I want more area and better resolution I use bigger film and that's what makes image quality higher in my opinion. If I want a grainless image from OF120 I can always run heavy NR in Lightroom or Neat image.

 

[SharonLiao]

SilverFast latest update version 8.5.0r5, date (2015-05-22), has increased the length of 35mm film strip scanning for Plustek OpticFilm 120. This fix could solve the problem.

Ref: http://www.silverfast.com/versions-history/en.html

Version 8.5.0r5 (2015-05-22)
Feature:◦
◦Plustek OpticFilm 120: Increasing maximum scan area for 35 mm film strip scanning.

 

[Bisakok]

What Sharon said. I don't know what the OP does with his scans and whether/how big he wants to print, but for me it would be pure folly to get rid of my Plustek 120 and use a flatbed instead. Perhaps Silverfast software has its frustrations for some, but issues such as the one identified do seem to get addressed promptly; that's good. The scanner is as good (probably better) than my now defunct Flextight 323, and I don't spend an evening removing dust spots from 6x12 slides... install the new software and play some more. Hopefully it works out.

 

[V-12]

Anybody using Vuescan with their Plustek 120 has never encountered these problems, so it is a shame the scanner itself gets the blame as the knee jerk reaction.

V