Screen Cezanne Users Unite

[Corran]

though I'm still working on the best tray system for holding negatives.

FYI, I'm working on some 3D-printed film holders for the Cezanne. I'm planning on making them for 35mm through 4x5, maybe 8x10 if I can fit it. I have a thread about it in the DIY forum. I have the 4x5 holder idea rendered, just gotta schedule time to go print it.

[Peter York]

That should be useful. I have generally given up on P99 as a platen material because it degrades over time and differs from batch to batch. I'm currently using Epson 4990 holders on top of the P99 platen. I routed the platen for the holder openings. The Epson holders are good, but I doubt they hold the film perfectly flat at an equal height - you tend to loose resolution at the edges of the holder. The 120 holders for the Epson suck, and I get variable quality in the scans.

[Peter De Smidt]

I had a Coolscan at one time. It did a very good job with very fine-grained film, but it did a terrible job with grainy film.

You still have to spot with a dslr scanner .

[timparkin]

I would love to get some opinions from other Cezanne users about an issue I have been having...

I love color transparencies but boy does this scanner seem to hate them. Without really having a low-contrast chrome it just seems to suck in the shadow areas. What's the actual DMax that the Cezanne can pull through?

I have been developing my own transparencies for almost two years ago and honestly I thought it was just my developing or exposure (though the chromes look perfect on a light table) so when I had the opportunity to test a Nikon Coolscan 9000 for my friend I put an old chrome on it as a test.

Here is the result - the best I could pull from the Cezanne on top, the Nikon on the bottom with only a slight tweak to the curves. Yes there is a bit more detail in the highlights of the Cezanne but I think I probably could tweak the scan on the Nikon to pull that in but the shadow detail is no contest.

These are fresh bulbs, brand new from Screen just a few months ago.

Am I doing something wrong, is there something wrong, or is this scanner just so-so on the DMax? This is Velvia 50 BTW, so really deep shadow values of course.



I wouldn't mind using a different scanner for chromes if the Cezanne just doesn't pull the shadow detail out of them but the Coolscan solution doesn't work for 4x5, obviously. And I still have a lot of LF chrome film in the freezer. That said, the detail on both is about the same - high praise for the Cezanne.

Velvia 50 is certainly the hardest thing to scan. The mass of shadows in the upper left on the Nikon scan is still pretty much gone but the transparency has tone.

The Screen Cezanne has a couple of problems in the deep shadows

1) It's got a low dmax - yes it's not that great at all. However we could probably live with that if it wasn't for

2) The scans are pre-processed in firmware to increase colour separation. For example, if you want to make the cyans more 'pure' you would decrease the level of the red channel.

And this is exactly what the Cezanne does. The problem is that it decreases it to zero and not the film base level. This means that you don't get a consistent black across the whole frame. If you set the black to the base level, you clip areas of complementary saturated colour. Fuji Celsis scanners supposedly have the same problem. It could be great if we could work out how to disable this bit of firmware but I don't think it's possible

3) Noisey blacks - they pick up lines of digital noise when the gain is ramped up.

4) High contrast bleed. Specular highlights bleed across into darker areas.

So overall I consider the Screen Cezanne a poor scanner for transparency film. Velvia has particularly dark base level. Provia isn't so bad (actually provia and velvia have the same dynamic range, it's just that Velvia 50 has a really dark black)

I use my Screen Cezanne for Colour and black and white negatives for which it is absolutely stunning (better than any drum scanner I've used for resolution and pretty good at colour too)

[Corran]

Thanks for your valuable insights and information!

[Blasted]

So overall I consider the Screen Cezanne a poor scanner for transparency film.

Great info Tim, thanks. But how bad do you rate it in the grandscale of things compared to no so high end scanners and with respect to transparency film?

[EOTS]

Hi,

does someone know if the 5000 & 5500 lamps are interchangeable?

Best regards,
Martin

[Peter De Smidt]

I'm pretty sure they are. The 5000 uses 4 of them, whereas the 5500 uses 2.

[TC542]

I'm pretty sure they are. The 5000 uses 4 of them, whereas the 5500 uses 2.

Hi . . . The lamps are compatible. They are special ones that have a silver foil on one side to reflect light in a certain direction.
Hence when fitting them ensure the 'SCREEN' label is facing the correct way. . . (Labels on the machine tell you how to fit them.)

There are 4 on the 5000 . . 2 for Transmission, 2 for Reflection
There are 3 on the 5500 . . 1 for Transmission, 2 for Reflection

Hope this helps.

[EOTS]

Thanks guys, good to know!

Got my hands on a 5000 which resolves better than my 5500.
Set it up yesterday, but it has a low-light warning with the elder lamps, so I'll try to swap replace them with the newer 5500 lamps.
I'm only using the transmissive lamps and keeping the other as a spare.

Best regards,
Martin