What do you use for scanning your negs?

[benno]

How much dMax is enough, guys?

I'm in the market for a new scanner, and tossing up between the Nikon 5000ED and the V. 4.8 vs 4.2 dMax.

Hmmm.

 

[dfoo]

What do you want to scan? Slides? C-41 neg film? B&W silver film?

 

[benno]

All of the above. I shoot a small amount of Velvia, a fair bit of Reala/Portra and plenty of Neopan.

 

[nrb]

Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV x 2. 16 bit PSD.

 

[sahe69]

How much dMax is enough, guys?

I'm in the market for a new scanner, and tossing up between the Nikon 5000ED and the V. 4.8 vs 4.2 dMax.

Hmmm.

As far as dMax is concerned, that's not really an issue between the V and 5000. Those figures (4.8 vs. 4.2) are theoretical anyway.

With the 5000 the real advantage is effeciency. That is, slightly better speed and the possibility to use the roll film adapter SA-30 to scan a complete roll in one go.

 

[benno]

As far as dMax is concerned, that's not really an issue between the V and 5000. Those figures (4.8 vs. 4.2) are theoretical anyway.

With the 5000 the real advantage is effeciency. That is, slightly better speed and the possibility to use the roll film adapter SA-30 to scan a complete roll in one go.

Ah, thankyou. Efficiency doesn't bother me - you've just saved me a pile of $ 😀

 

[sahe69]

Ah, thankyou. Efficiency doesn't bother me - you've just saved me a pile of $ 😀

You're welcome. But eventually you may start to lust after the effeciency. I had a V, but if i would buy again a 35 mm only scanner it would definitely be the 5000ED. Doing the actual scanning is not much fun if you intend to scan complete rolls or anything more than a few frames every now and then.

 

[benno]

Ah but I'm sure it's a huge step up from a dysfunctional Epson V350 though!

Also, I'm not a hugely prolific shooter and have tended to adjust each scan individually so far.

 

[dfoo]

The bigger problem is where you intend to get the V ED? I cannot find one in stock, and furthermore the prices for used ones are ridiculous (might as well buy a new 5000!)

 

[benno]

Saw one in a local shop - Australia's a decade behind the rest of the world you know ;-)

 

[venchka]

On the other hand........

On the other hand........

I don't have a storage limit, but the tiffs do slow my computer way down when processing, editing them. It just frustrates me, and I can't visually see the difference in the tiff quality vs. the jpeg. Just makes things run quicker, and also won't fill up my ipod which I use for an additional backup.

I get along fine with my 25Mb 35mm, 60+Mb 6x7 and 130+Mb 4x5 16-bit TIFF files with Lightroom. I don't and won't trust JEPG files.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[dfoo]

If you process the TIFF to a DNG, you can reduce the TIFF size by a third, and not lose any data 🙂

 

[Tuolumne]

with my Epson 4990 I scan at 4800ppi and then immediately downsample to 2400...

How do you do this?

/T

 

[venchka]

OK, how?

OK, how?

If you process the TIFF to a DNG, you can reduce the TIFF size by a third, and not lose any data 🙂

How do I do that?

 

[dfoo]

venchka, select the photos, then select Library/Convert Photos to DNG. When the dialog pops deselect [X] Only convert raw files. Then press Ok. Wait a bit, and you've just got some disk space back!

 

[venchka]

OK, which software program does that?

 

[dfoo]

OK, which software program does that?

and...

I get along fine with my 25Mb 35mm, 60+Mb 6x7 and 130+Mb 4x5 16-bit TIFF files with Lightroom. I don't and won't trust JEPG files.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Lightroom does that 🙂

 

[lewis44]

If you want to convert image files to DNG, Adobe provides the software free.
Here's the link:
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/index.html

 

[dfoo]

Without further adobe software to process the DNG its a pretty useless though.

 

[venchka]

Thanks!

DUH! I found it in Lightroom. A 68Mb TIFF file becomes a 48Mb DNG file. That will be a quick and easy way to reduce the file size slightly and preserve my original TIFF files.