what is the ideal scanning of 6x9 slide for equal a 35mm digital full frame RAW similar a Canon 5d mark II 21 megas ?
What scanner for medium format film model is your recommendation?
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what is the ideal scanning of 6x9 slide for equal a 35mm digital full frame RAW similar a Canon 5d mark II 21 megas ?
What scanner for medium format film model is your recommendation?
Find a used Nikon LS-8000ED or LS-9000ED. The 8000 will be cheaper, but it will be just as good. Both use the same holders. The 8000 requires a Firewire interface so you may need to get a Firewire card for your computer (less than $20). You'll need Vuescan (www.hamrick.com) to operate it--the Nikon software will work on Windows XP but not Windows 7.Quote:
Originally Posted by joseprfoto
These scanners operate at 4000 spi and will scan up to 6x9 in one go. They support ICE, an infrared cleaning channel, manual focus, single-pass multi-scanning, and other features, except for wet mounting. The price on these has been going up lately, because Nikon has discontinued them. They are more expensive than a consumer flatbed (though perhaps not by that much), but much less expensive than an Imacon.
I am able to make 16x20 prints from 6x7 that look better than 16x20 prints from a Canon 5D (Mk I) going and coming (the limitation on the 5D is not pixel density but rather lens quality--and I have good lenses).
There are other vintage film scanners of the same type as the Nikon, including the Minolta Multi Pro, the Polaroid Sprintscan 120, and a few others. But to my eye the Nikon was the best of these, and the easiest to keep in operation, closely followed by the Minolta (except that the Minolta software is dreadful--use Vuescan). There is nothing currently made that is as good in that price range.
I don't think a scan of 6x9 in a consumer flatbed will be any better than what you might get from a 5D. I use an Epson V750 with 4x5, and have experimented with 6x12, but the 6x12 results were such that I do all my scans of that format with the Nikon in two passes and then stitch.
If you have more to spend than $1500-2000, an Imacon is the next step up (not a huge step in results, in my opinion). The next (bigger) step up from there is a PMT drum scan.
Rick "maybe some high-end flatbeds fill in one of those gaps, but not cheaply" Denney
My only experience with comparing large reproductions of medium format film and digital was a Fuji GX680 (Nikon scanner) and a Nikon D3. No contest at 60 by 80 inches. We (my wife's project) ended up going that route thanks to advice from this forum.
I thought that Nikon scan software could work on Windows 7 with some trickery. It runs well on my Vista machine and I use it more often than Vuescan.
i agree with the above and have tested it too death. 6x9 with a Epson 750 scan-give me a 5D II file and good lenses. 6x9 with a Nikon 9000 or drum scan-give me the 6x9 file.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rdenney
The Nikon software works nicely with Win7 32bit. What it does not do is install in 64bit Vista or 7 - but there are patches about on the net that fix that issue with a generic driver. Once that hurdle has been taken, it does work perfectly well even in 64bit Win7...
Probably first test of new 120 film Reflecta MF5000 scanner (Pacific Image PrimeFilm 120):
http://blog.livedoor.jp/deepstop/arc...at_141403.html
Plustek is going to show its new 120 scanner this year too.
For best results scanning a 6X9 cm slide you need a drum scan at 4000 dpi or more. Neither Imacon nor LS-8000 or LS-9000 can get the shadow detail that a good drum scan will give you. Epson V700/V750 won't come close to a drum scanner in either resolution or shadow detail, and loses to the Imacon in resolution (though not by as much as price differential would suggest).
Sandy
I'm with Sandy on this one. I scan my 6x7's at 8,000 ppi on my drum scanner. Images are razor sharp. It will far exceed what digital can do.... That's the ideal, as you put it...
Lenny
I don't think the OP defined "ideal" the way you and Sandy do. Nobody would argue with your conclusions, of course, but they are based on the definition of "ideal" as "state of the art". The OP defined "ideal" as "achieving quality better than from a Canon 5DII."Quote:
Originally Posted by Lenny Eiger
This matters. He might choose the Canon if the only way he can do better using 6x9 film is with drum scans that cost a pile of dollars for each image. On the other hand, if he can better the Canon with a $1500 scanner, then he might go that direction. He certainly won't achieve his standard ("better than 5DII") with an Epson.
As to shadow detail, a color transparency is the biggest challenge there is for a scanner, it seems to me. But I just don't think I'm missing much shadow detail in my Nikon scans of Velvia. Those scans are certainly not as crisp as drum scans, and the drum scan might get a bit more out of the shadows, but it's just not a problem I've noticed. Color negatives are less of a problem--they compress a greater subject brightness range into a narrower density range.
It certainly does him no harm to know that he can do still better, though, for those images where the Nikon doesn't provide all he needs.
Rick "not seeing much on the light table that can't be seen on the Nikon scan" Denney
6x9 is a curious animal. Considering how the question was framed there's no simple answer. A Nikon Coolscan 8000/9000 has a fixed pitch 4000 dpi sensor array that delivers not more than 67 lp/mm resolution throughput with optical losses. I don't know of any 6x9 image-circle lenses that greatly trounce the 67 lp/mm number of the Coolscan (though there might be some), so 6x9 is probably the sweet spot for that scanner if one was to match it to a format. (Leaving aside that some legacy film types may tend to grain-alias at this 4000 dpi pitch, e.g. old Portra or Fujicolor NC.)
However, certain Mamiya, Rollei Planars, and Zeiss lenses test out at well over 100 lp/mm on film (Perez, Thalmann et al) and I expect that I've got a 645 lens that does, too, as well as several 35mm ones. It takes aproximately a 6000 dpi scan to hit the Nyquist 2X sampling rate for 110 lp/mm resolution on film.
Do the resulting hybrid film-to-digital Coolscan files look better than a printer-RIP interpolated files from a 24MP 5D Mark II? Hard to say without knowing the post-processing skills of the operator. I do have an idea which one is going to be cheaper and easier to do (or have done). I also know that one can print relatively huge from even a modest 12MP DSLR and have it look quite good in a 6' print, better than any wholly optical print I've ever seen from 35mm by at least a format jump.
I also know that higher resolving than 5K drum scanners are probably cheaper to buy used just now than Coolscans, and they'll do substantially better at digitizing legacy images from smaller format sizes than just 6x9 cm.