[www.betterscanning.com] Film scanning mounts, any good? Your experience and advice??

[PenGun]

The scan platform makes height adjustments easy. Big deal. You only need to find your focus height once, it does not change. Well mine has not anyway.

You can set the height many ways and although the Betterscan holders are nice they are in no way essential to sharp scans.

Ken's statement that:

"A BetterScanning film holder costs another $100, or around 15% more money - and gets us around that much better resolution."

Is simply not true.

[timparkin]

The betterscanning holder allows you to wet mount which means your transparency stays at a fixed, consistent height which you can manage.

Great focus is cool but more importantly, because you end up with your transparency in the same position, you can use multi-pass scanning which will significantly reduce your noise base. Also, you can then scan at 6400 dpi which even further reduces your noise base which means you get Dmax way, way better than a straight scan (i.e. 6400 dpi means your thermal noise is a lot finer/higher frequency than your details and are easy to filter out).

Finally, if you take the step to wet mount, you can get rid of a lot of those nasty colour fringing effects around highlights and some of the large scale halation around high contrast edges.

If you set things up very well, you will end up with a scan that is sharper than your typical Imacon (although without the colour fidelity in the shadows).

I spent some time trying to get my Epson performing for a scanner comparison test here in the UK and the results on a good sharp 4x5 transparency were as follows.

http://static.timparkin.co.uk/static...howtek-raw.jpg

Interestingly, Dmax was reduced by wet mounting because of some newton ring like effects in the very deep shadows which I presume come from a slight sagging of the wet mount mylar because you don't have a drum to tighten the film against.

Oh - here's the original full size picture

http://www.timparkin.co.uk/system/ec.../547/mainImage

Tim

[Ken Lee]

Ken's statement ... Is simply not true.

Please correct me. I'll be the first to admit I am mistaken, and appreciate your help.

[sanking]

Ken's statement that:

"A BetterScanning film holder costs another $100, or around 15% more money - and gets us around that much better resolution."

Is simply not true.

Actually what Ken Lee said is indeed quite true. Adjusting the scanner's plane (4990, V700 or V750) for best focus does indeed increase resolution by about 15%. At least that is what happened in my experience with these scanners.

Yes, there are other ways to adjust the height using either the Epson holders, or with a sheet of window glass spaced above the bed with washers or coins. But the BetterScanning holder is a system that has some advantages in that it allows 1) easy adjustment of the height, 2) a method to center negatives up to full place size, and 3) use of either AN glass to avoid Newton Rings or fluid mounting.

For about $100 that seems to be a pretty good deal to me.

Adjusting the height of the plane of focus and fluid mounting is not going to turn the 4990 or V700/V750 into a drum scanner, or even a high end flatbed for that matter, but scan quality is significantly improved.

Sandy King

[sanking]

Interestingly, Dmax was reduced by wet mounting because of some newton ring like effects in the very deep shadows which I presume come from a slight sagging of the wet mount mylar because you don't have a drum to tighten the film against.

Oh - here's the original full size picture

http://www.timparkin.co.uk/system/ec.../547/mainImage

Tim

Tim,

Thanks for posting. Very interesting test.

Sandy King

[Ken Lee]

Here's the same image, with more robust sharpening.

It shows more clearly, the improvement offered by the film holder.

[sully75]

I tried to find an anti-newton piece of glass, but even anti-glare glass was expensive (the best picture frame glass). The glass, plus the holder for the price is a great deal.

Not to threadjack, but do people use the masks he provides (the black mattes you can cut out)? I didn't really see any purpose in them and never use them. Should I?

[D. Bryant]

I tried to find an anti-newton piece of glass, but even anti-glare glass was expensive (the best picture frame glass). The glass, plus the holder for the price is a great deal.

Not to threadjack, but do people use the masks he provides (the black mattes you can cut out)? I didn't really see any purpose in them and never use them. Should I?

Yes they help align the film in the center of the scan area and help reduce flare.

Don Bryant

[PenGun]

Here's the same image, with more robust sharpening.

It shows more clearly, the improvement offered by the film holder.

No. It shows the improvement offered by proper focus.

I have spent a lot of time going on about the lack of focus in most of the examples offered for comparison in these scanner tests. I do not have Betterscan holders. I use the Epson ones. I have spent quite a bit of time getting my focus as close as I can.

Although if I was rich I would probably buy them they are in no way essential for proper focus. The reason I said you were wrong is because that _is_ what you imply.

[Ken Lee]

"that _is_ what you imply".

Thank you for explaining.

Any such implication was unintentional - but had I qualified my statement, adding that BetterScanning holders are merely one of a variety of options which allow us to get better focus, it would certainly have been more... expeditious