Canon 9950f arrived

[Don Miller]

Ellis -

Printers are Epson 2200 and 7600. The 7600 uses the Atkinson profiles and the 2200 uses at set of free profiles which name escapes me but that are no longer available due to licensing issues. My monitor is profiled by an older version of the Spyder.

The Epson 3200 is profiled by Monaco EZ Color. When Hamrick gets Vuescan working for the 9950f I will use the profiling feature in that program and buy a set of Wolf Faust's inexpensive and good targets. (Targets at http://www.targets.coloraid.de/ or resold in the U.S. by Digital Light & Color). As I said previously the color "out of the box" is good with the Canon but now that someone makes Velvia and Provia targets inexpensively it makes sense to get the color as precise as possible.

I see the 9950f in stock now at internet retailers. I'm looking forward to seeing others opinion of the scanner.

[Craig Schroeder]

I rec'd my 9950F but have had a house full of visitors during the time and have only had a small amount of time to fiddle with it. I am new to film scanning but perhaps that is a good point of reference for some of you who are contemplating this machine.

My first attempts were with medium format B&W. I was quite pleased with the initial results. It seems that the scanner prefers "meatier" negatives for B&W, especially in the few 35mm strips I tested. I took some 35mm shots this weekend at a Madrigal dinner at my son's school, developed to a density (Mytol[Xtol-like] on FP4+) that I'm accustomed to and really struggled to avoid muddy, unsharp scans. Some older, denser negatives were much better. As the UK reviewer has found, the scanner seems much more adept in the world of color. Slides scan well and color negatives seem like good honest scans to my newbie eyes. The holders are well engineered.

I tried to get Vuescan working with it and couldn't get it functioning with the tranparencies but it seemed fine with the reflective insert.

[Kirk Gittings]

So here it is. Some quicky results.

A 4x5 Ilford FP5 negative scanned on the 4870 with both Silverfast AI and Epson Scan software and the 9950f with Canoscan. Each was done at 2400 DPI at 100% in 16 bit, about 188 MP files.
Why the scanning software would make such a difference I do not know. All of these were unsharpened with no auto-anything turned on.

The 4870 with Epsonscan is clearly the sharpest in the highlights with the best highlight separation and the worst shadow separation.

The 9950f with Canoscan is clearly not as sharp, but has the best shadow separation by far.

The 4870 with Silverfast is clearly not a sharp as the Epsonscan but Sharper than the 9950f. It also has the best midtone separation. It also appears to have the least visible grain.

Does anyone have any thoughts to illuminate these results? Some people have comented that the Canon is better with color, but my tests show similar results with color.

The 9950f is also decidedly faster.

I'm on my way out of town for a shoot so I don't have time to post any images.

[paulr]

Kirk, have you experimented with which scanner/software combination gives the best results AFTER doing normal adjustments (curves, sharpness, etc)?

Also, based on what you see, which scanner/software combo would you prefer if you were making relatively small enlargements from your 4x5 negs .. like 11x14 or smaller?

Thanks,
Paul

[Don Miller]

Kirk, the loss of highlight detail may be clipping. What does the histogram look like in photoshop? I haven't found a way to make Canoscan give a good histogram to photoshop. When Vuescan works with the 9950f it should help this situation with its ability to do high quality preview.
I would try a workflow with the Canoscan sharpening set to ON. Generally the advice is to sharpen last, but there is a semi-magical quality to the Canon sharpening that I haven't been able to duplicate with photoshop and focalblade. The best end result is what matters.

I'm going to look at using Kami fluid. My situation is very different than yours-.I'm looking at 70-80 good scans per year. So fluid mounting would be a minor burden.

I've come to appreciate what a major factor correct technical workflow is to producing professional quality scans.

Don

[Kirk Gittings]

Let me play with it a little bit more and I will get back to you.

[paulr]

After reading Vincent Oliver's many-day review on photo-i, I abandoned my hopes and put in an order for the epson 4870.

Has anyone used the 4870 to scan bw negs using vuescan? I'm curious to know how that works out, since I've heard some criticism of Silverfast's handling of bw.

[Kirk Gittings]

Don,

Yes it appears clipping is part os the problem but more importantly the 4x5 seems to sag more in the Canon, but I solved much of the sharpness problems. See my other thread on side scanning "Canoscan 9950f Am I crazy".

My opinion of the two scanners after much experimentation is this. For the moment I am going to run both scanners, the 4870 for high resoltion 16 bit b&w scans for my artwork (the 9950f has a limit of 10,000 x 30,000 pixels thats a 275 mb 16 bit file which I find a bit limiting ([bad pun!]) and the 9950f for medium quality-high quantity color commercial work on (fresh from the lab) color negatives because the batch scanning interface is superior to the Epson. Better software when it becomes available will sove this I presume. I say "fresh from the lab" negatives because on further investigation I find the Digital Ice of the Epson to be superior to the dust removal of the Canon.

If I were to chose one scanner right now it would be the Epson 4870 with some strong reservations. If Silverfast comes out with software for the Canon and it doesn fall apart from the sidescanning it may become my scanner of primary choice. Neither one is perfect, each has its strengths.

[Franco]

Heve you seen this? : http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/review/2004/10/19/259.html

You can translate it with Babelfish.

I've just downloaded more than 200MB of scans and I'm really impressed.

I'm buying right now the 9950F...let me know if someone is still interested in my opinion.

Thanks for all your suggestions above, they were really interesting and helped me a lot.

Bye.

[Kirk Gittings]

I am currently on my 4 th scanner 9950F from Canon. Each one has had subtle streaking in mid tones like clear blue skies along the direction of the scan. The first three got progressively worse. I am checking the forth one now.

I would suggest you wait for them to get the bugs out. I have wasted an enourmous amount of time on this scanner. They have been completely unusable to date.