Scanner for Medium Format

Scanning is definitely a skill... it's not as simple as pushing a button and out comes a top quality scan.. and it presents it's own set of post processing skills to go with it. I find I get the best scans when I adjust the histogram on the scanner so it looks flat and muddy and use PP to bring back contrast. When I adjust the histogram on the scanner so that the scanner thumbnail looks good I get grainy-ness, aritifacts and muddyness that people describe. If you're getting bad scans, don't blame the scanner. As you can see from my pics posted earlier, good scans are possible... a scanner is just another piece of equipment you have to learn how to use, just like a new camera, lens or film.
 
Disaster_Area said:
I'll post a comparison... I posted this shot earlier in the thread, scanned on my V500, below is a crop from the center. I entered a 36X36 print of this shot in a juried exhibit and made it into the show as one of 30 pieces out of over 500 entrants. Will dedicated/drum scanners do a better job.. yes... but if it's good enough for a gallery print it's probably good enough for a lot of "professional" work as well. Don't discount flatbeds out of hand... I think a lot of the bad results people are getting can be put down to bad scanning technique, it definitely took me quite a while to get the hang of getting the most out of my scanner.
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Fantastic image and the cropped section is jaw dropping. That's good enough quality for me!

Best regards,
RoyM
 
mrisney said:
I have and it's not cheap, at $75.00 a scan per file, and after a few scans that I was less than pleased with, the colors were all wrong, they scanned in the borders of the negative so I have "KODAK" in black and orange on the sides, ugggh. I am thinking that the only way I will be happy, will be to do it myself. So I read theses forums, and everybody chirped up how great the V700/V750 was, so I spent $600, and then another $100 for ANR holders from betterscanning. The results ? muddy, and grainy, loss of detail that I could see with my lupe especially on negative scans, and color management is a real challenge.

When I get a complimentary scan from Citizen Photo in Portland Oregon, they use a Noritsu koki qss-32_33, after they do C-41 process, and I get a CD back of my images, all for $12 - not bad! When I want to take an image out of the batch to the next level, and work with it for print, I really like my Epson R2880 BTW, I need something to do that with, I am thinking the Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED is going to solve that gap, it's not the Epson V700/EpsonV750 I tried that.
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Yeah, but don't forget a Noritsu Koki QSS is a $100k machine so one would expect the scanner to be quite good.

Anyways, if you want to take an image "to the next level" you may also want to see if there's some place near you where you can rent a workstation equipped with a Flextight scanner. In my city there are a few pro stores that have a Flextight X5 in their store that can be rented for the equivalent of $150. I'd expect prices in the US to be much lower than this.
If you have a good workflow it takes about 3 minutes per scan (6x7) so that's 20 frames per hour which is about $7.50 per scan. Not exactly cheap but not bad either for a scan comparable to what a drum scanner can do. So one could say that you can get close to 300 Flextight scans before you reach the price of a Nikon 9000.

Actually, this was the route I initially wanted to go but then I started talking to another photographer about it and he offered to sell me the Nikon 9000 he had stored away in a box which he only used for one project.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
You aren't who my comment was aimed at. There are a lot of guys here who are well off financially, who own multiple Leica bodies and lenses, Hasselblads, etc. and a cheap scanner because they don't want to spend the money for a better one (don't not can't!). Hell I am dirt poor. You'd be shocked to know how little income my son and I get by on, since my sales of my work are the only income I have. There are a lot of guys here making middle class or higher incomes and for them $2000 for a new Nikon 9000 or $1000 for a used 8000 is not a purchase that will cause them to skip meals....they're the ones I keep poking fun at. I'd kill for a job making even 1/4 what some of these dudes make.
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Yeah sure, there are a some people here who can easily afford a $2k scanner but I think you're exaggerating a bit. A decent Hasselblad kit with a couple of backs and three lenses will run you about $2K. Same goes for a Leica M6 with one or two lenses. So for quite a few people who actually own top of the line equipment the purchase of a Nikon 9000 would still be as much as all of their other gear combined.
 
Solinar said:
MTF stands for modulation transfer function - which in plain English means run like hell.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mtf.htm

http://photo.net/learn/optics/mtf/

http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF.html

I hope the above explanations are some help.
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Right.


I think I get the picture, with regards to that translation :p. Not a clue how to translate that super scientific approach to my 12 year old scanner. Think I'll just go back to the 'scanning just fine for what I need for now' interpretation of my images.

Thanks for educating me, Solinar! Even if in this case, education means 'I don't want to know'.:p
 
If your needs are only to publish pictures over blogs or RFF, a cheap scanner is a good choice. But if you intend to make big enlargements, and print things seriously, there is no choice, you need a drum scan or everything that is top of the line. I've tried Epsons flatbed, it is ridiculous with 35mm, average with MF and above average with 4X5 inch. The neg carriers are awful and needs to be replaced. Coolscan from Nikon are decent, but this is a compromise, grain is more present. I have desperately tried to reach the quality of a genuine analog color RA-4 or Ilfochrome print and compared professionnal prints that were scanned in a flatbed.

So, if you want to make the best possible prints, you have the choice, an Imacon and the full digital lab including the best printers, or analog prints in an enlarger. It seems that people are annoyed in plenty of forums when they read that flatbeds scanners are average. It is just the way it is.

As I have not sufficient money to buy or rent a sufficiently good scanner and printer, I have come back to analog prints and for only a fraction of a digital lab I have at last suceeded in getting images where I can see the quality of the lenses I use.
 
Mael said:
If your needs are only to publish pictures over blogs or RFF, a cheap scanner is a good choice. But if you intend to make big enlargements, and print things seriously, there is no choice, you need a drum scan or everything that is top of the line.
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Again.. I refer you to the post a bit further up of the crop of my staples shot... I've done a 36X36 print with that scan and could have gone bigger... maybe your definition of a big enlargement is different than mine. I refuse to believe that a good flatbed is relegated to doing nothing more than web posts. If you're not getting good scans from a flatbed you're not doing it right. Yes.. if I could afford a dedicated scanner or to get drum scans of all my negatives of course I would, but I think it's miss leading to people just getting into the scanning game to tell them that all hope is lost if you can't afford top of the line.

It's almost enough to make me want to go get a drum scan of that negative to prove that while, yes... it will be better, it's not going to be such a HUGE difference that I'll be chucking my V500 in the trash.

... in fact I think I will if I can get into the lab this week
 
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Disaster_Area said:
Again.. I refer you to the post a bit further up of the crop of my staples shot... I've done a 36X36 print with that scan and could have gone bigger... maybe your definition of a big enlargement is different than mine. I refuse to believe that a decent flatbed is relegated to doing nothing more than web posts. If you're not getting good scans from a flatbed you're not doing it right. Yes.. if I could afford a dedicated scanner or to get drum scans of all my negatives of course I would, but I think it's miss leading to people just getting into the scanning game to tell them that all hope is lost if you can't afford top of the line.

It's almost enough to make me want to go get a drum scan of that negative to prove that while, yes... it will be better, it's not going to be such a HUGE difference that I'll be chucking my V500 in the trash.

... in fact I think I will if I can get into the lab this week
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36X36 you mean in cm ? Nice picture, I like it.

The crop you present is the center of the image (which is not for me the best choice, we can't see if the sharpness is good too in the corners). But I will admit the sharpness is good all across the image. This crop corresponds vaguely to 24X36mm image compared to the full size MF image. I'm not really impressed. I'm sure your negative has much more information to provide. When I wrote Big enlargement, it is the way you enlarge a MF negative with the same ratio you enlarge a 24X36 negative to make a 40X50 print. The result from a 6X6cm neg will be approx.120X120cm print. I think you can print a decent 36X36cm print from a flatbed scanner, I'm sure your print is nice, because the enlargement ratio is very low. Only by 6. But why use medium format and can't get the maximum information and enlargements that format can give you ? a 35mm or a 7MP digital compact will do the same.

I don't want to express all hopes are lost with a flatbed. But you can't get all the benefits from a MF negative. All depends on what you intend to do.
 
no.. it was a 36X36 inch print, and assuming the detail is there in the negative, center vs corner sharpness shouldn't be a problem with a flatbed scan as long as the negative is perfectly flat, and I use an ANR glass plate to keep it that way. If I planned on doing a 50"X50" print.. yeah.. I'd probably get a professional scan, but getting a really nice 36X36 inch print is much better than "just good enough for web work".

Glad you like the shot though :) I do plan on getting a drum scan of that neg and I'll post my findings when it's done... I don't doubt for a minute that it will be better... but probably not sooo much better that I'll swear off flatbeds
 
Regarding big prints from scans, I find sharpness is a relative concept here.

I was taught that any picture is best viewed from a distance at least 1.5 times the length of the picture diagonal. Considering a page-sized shot in a magazine, thats about the viewing distance when reading a magazine on a table or on your lap.

When viewing a 36 inch picture, I estimate the diagonal to be approx 50 inches, viewing distance would be at least 75 inches to get a good feel of the image.

If an image is considered 'sharp' from that distance, the scan is sufficient. No matter what it was scanned with.

Effectively, it's no use creating a bigger scan when sharpness is to be evaluated, because the ideal viewing distance would increase accordingly.

Someday soon, I'll put that 12 year old Epson scanner to that test and see if I can get away with it.
 
Disaster_Area said:
Again.. I refer you to the post a bit further up of the crop of my staples shot... I've done a 36X36 print with that scan and could have gone bigger... maybe your definition of a big enlargement is different than mine. I refuse to believe that a good flatbed is relegated to doing nothing more than web posts. If you're not getting good scans from a flatbed you're not doing it right. Yes.. if I could afford a dedicated scanner or to get drum scans of all my negatives of course I would, but I think it's miss leading to people just getting into the scanning game to tell them that all hope is lost if you can't afford top of the line.

It's almost enough to make me want to go get a drum scan of that negative to prove that while, yes... it will be better, it's not going to be such a HUGE difference that I'll be chucking my V500 in the trash.

... in fact I think I will if I can get into the lab this week
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To be fair, that staples shot doesn't show that much resolution, not even in the 100% crop. What it does show is very strong contrast which enhances the appearance of sharpness but there's a lot of subtle detail that seems to be lost. I'm sure you were able to pull off a decent 36x36 print of this shot but you also seem to be going for a "gritty" look which makes the whole matter a bit easier.
 
Fair enough... I'm definitely willing to concede that there's some detail lost... but my point is that if I can get a very nice looking 36"X36" print off a flatbed scan then they're FAR from as useless and hopeless as some here have argued. They're a perfectly viable alternative for those that can't afford a dedicated scanner or drum scans of every neg.

I just don't want people that can't afford the best of the best to completely turned off shooting film because of people saying that if all you can afford is an Epson V500 you'll never do better than forum post quality scans.
 
patrickhh said:
I hope that those people crazy about high-end scanning at least use a tripod all the time. ;)
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You don't need to. For 35mm, which is a format designed for handholding, flatbeds do so poorly that a handheld image still looks better on a real film scanner. If you're going to use a tripod, might as well use medium format.
 
This is an interesting comment:

venchka said:
True. But.

5x7 yields wonderful contact prints. And wonderful inkjet prints via an Epson 4990. GOOGLE Ken Lee. Ken works with 5x7 and an Epson 4990 scanner. It just doesn't get much better. On the other hand, 5x7 is bigger and heavier and generally more expensive.
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From this thread:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84142&page=3

The website is here

http://www.kenleegallery.com/index.html

and his work really looks good

Best regards,

RoyM
 
Recently I purchased a V300 scanner for my daughter, but I thought I would give it a try. I have a lot of prints and no negatives. Same for relatives who have pictures of family long gone. The V300 did pretty well with the prints I have and the colors were very close to a perfect match.

I also own a Coolscan V. I could never get a decent Kodachrome scan with that scanner. Most scans were very underexposed. Colors off. Guess what. The same slides on the V300 came out looking just like the originals did colorwise and exposure was what I saw on the light table--considering. I'm sold on the flatbeds. I have MF negs I want to scan and will pick up a V500 for that. Prices are reasonable, and I'm satisfied with the scans.
 
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