goo0h
Well-known
It seems as if the more I search on here and elsewhere on the web, the more conflicted I become. I'd like to buy a scanner for somewhere around $500US. Presently, this would only be for 35mm film. It would be used for both web stuff and printing. (I like the option of wet printing, but to be honest, do not want to spend a lot of time doing wet printing. It's something I've tended to find a bit tedious.)
In the (somewhat distant) past I shot almost exclusively black and white. With the Bessa R3A I bought this past Spring that trend has continued. Furthermore, I have tended to gravitate towards higher ASA... er, ISO... film. In fact I have a couple of rolls of Neopan 1600 that I shot @ 1600 and have some Xtol I'm fixin' to mix up soon. In the past I also liked shooting TMAX 3200 @ 1600, but forgot what it was developed in. At any rate, the issue of grain, while not something I overly obsess about, is something I want to be mindful of when it comes to purchasing a scanner.
Another issue with scanning is that I really do not want to spend gobs of time fiddling with things in Photoshop, which I don't current have. Since it seems pretty competent, or so I've gathered, I'll probably buy Vuescan for whatever unit I get. I don't mind doing a bit of tweaking when scanning, but I work at a computer all day, so don't want to fiddle with Photoshop all night.
A couple of options I've considered so far are: the KM Dual Scan IV and the Nikon Coolscan V. The KM is more affordable, but at least compared to the upper-end Coolscans, apparently has more noise with higher ISO films. Does that also apply with the Coolscan V? I notice on eBay the Coolscan V is almost as much as buying new, especially if one hunts around thoroughly, so not sure if there's much of an advantage to buying it used. At least they seem to hold their value well. I've also seen some Coolscan 4000's come up for about as much as the V. If the bulk feeding is not used, is there any advantage to using a 4000 over the V?
In the end, I'll probably go with the Coolscan V wherever it can be had. Since I do use a Mac, eventually universal binaries will be an issue and I just don't see that happening with the KM units. A part of me is wondering if it would be better to wait until after Photokina, but I'm somewhat doubtful that a new film scanner is waiting on the wings to be announced.
In the (somewhat distant) past I shot almost exclusively black and white. With the Bessa R3A I bought this past Spring that trend has continued. Furthermore, I have tended to gravitate towards higher ASA... er, ISO... film. In fact I have a couple of rolls of Neopan 1600 that I shot @ 1600 and have some Xtol I'm fixin' to mix up soon. In the past I also liked shooting TMAX 3200 @ 1600, but forgot what it was developed in. At any rate, the issue of grain, while not something I overly obsess about, is something I want to be mindful of when it comes to purchasing a scanner.
Another issue with scanning is that I really do not want to spend gobs of time fiddling with things in Photoshop, which I don't current have. Since it seems pretty competent, or so I've gathered, I'll probably buy Vuescan for whatever unit I get. I don't mind doing a bit of tweaking when scanning, but I work at a computer all day, so don't want to fiddle with Photoshop all night.
A couple of options I've considered so far are: the KM Dual Scan IV and the Nikon Coolscan V. The KM is more affordable, but at least compared to the upper-end Coolscans, apparently has more noise with higher ISO films. Does that also apply with the Coolscan V? I notice on eBay the Coolscan V is almost as much as buying new, especially if one hunts around thoroughly, so not sure if there's much of an advantage to buying it used. At least they seem to hold their value well. I've also seen some Coolscan 4000's come up for about as much as the V. If the bulk feeding is not used, is there any advantage to using a 4000 over the V?
In the end, I'll probably go with the Coolscan V wherever it can be had. Since I do use a Mac, eventually universal binaries will be an issue and I just don't see that happening with the KM units. A part of me is wondering if it would be better to wait until after Photokina, but I'm somewhat doubtful that a new film scanner is waiting on the wings to be announced.
ffttklackdedeng
Registered User
It won't hurt to wait until Photokina, I think. If it's just not be be too nervous after the buy Afair the sudden appearing of the Coolscan V was also surprising to me back than. Btw. I bought one.
It really exagerates grain, especially when compared to flatbeds (but then, I can only compare to the 3170 which I guess at around 1250 dpi while the V should really come close to the 4000). And the 'grain' of it's scans doesn't look like grain, more like noise.. Since I was disappointed by this, I was doing some tests in the past regarding defocussing and multi-pass. The results were waaay better than the default result (and really looking like real film grain I remembered from wet dark room), I think I will do some tests in the next time again since I started using it again (with 400 ISO film developed in Rodinal, which is known for graininess).
An advantage of the 4000 might be Firewire? The V has the better ICE if you care about this.
I don't understand your point about the universal binaries, if you'll be using Vuescan there should be no difference between KM and CS (did I miss something?) I'm using Vuescan on Mac, too btw
Robert
Afair the sudden appearing of the Coolscan V was also surprising to me back than. Btw. I bought one.It really exagerates grain, especially when compared to flatbeds (but then, I can only compare to the 3170 which I guess at around 1250 dpi while the V should really come close to the 4000). And the 'grain' of it's scans doesn't look like grain, more like noise.. Since I was disappointed by this, I was doing some tests in the past regarding defocussing and multi-pass. The results were waaay better than the default result (and really looking like real film grain I remembered from wet dark room), I think I will do some tests in the next time again since I started using it again (with 400 ISO film developed in Rodinal, which is known for graininess).
An advantage of the 4000 might be Firewire? The V has the better ICE if you care about this.
I don't understand your point about the universal binaries, if you'll be using Vuescan there should be no difference between KM and CS (did I miss something?) I'm using Vuescan on Mac, too btw
Robert
goo0h
Well-known
Yeah. I've waited this long, a bit longer wouldn't hurt.ffttklackdedeng said:
That's been some of my concern. I've read various things about the grain issue. It may be in the end I'll just have to take the pluge and find out for myself. I know I've seen some scans from the V and 5000 that looked pretty impressive....ffttklackdedeng said:
Hmm.. Firewire. Since I mainly do B&W, not sure how crucial ICE is. Oh, does ICE work with C41 B&W film? There's been discussions about C41 B&W film lately, but don't recall that coming up. Will have to search some more.ffttklackdedeng said:
Duh. You're right. Thanks for pointing that out.ffttklackdedeng said:
jano
Evil Bokeh
All those are good scanners. Make sure you try vuescan before buying it, though. Many are turned off by the interface.. it took me several months of using it before I decided to buy it, and even now, I still curse and yell at the dogone interface (it's very poor.. but does what I want). I have the CS V, but looking to upgrade to a MF capable scanner to replace it. *shrug*
Jano
Jano