Nikon 9000 for 6X12 negs

[Ben R]

Hi,

I will be looking to scan 6X12 B&W negs. My question is if the Nikon 9000 (using wet mounted negs and stitched which I read is the only way to scan this size) can give me sufficient resolution for a good 8X enlargement? The stitching certainly doesn't bother me.

I owned a 4990 which I used a bit for 4X5 but I could never achieve sufficient flatness for a good scan. With wet mounting on a 4990 I should technically be able to produce flat scans with enough resolution (a real 2500DPI needed according to www.scantips.com) but I know that many believe that a drum/pro flatbed scan is needed for that degree of enlargement.

I have about $1500-2000 to spend, no space for a drum scanner and I doubt any access to 2nd hand pro flatbeds in Jerusalem, I certainly don't have the time to learn them, I wouldn't insult the experts here by suggesting that I could do it off the cuff!

I could rebuy a 4990 with a wet scanning kit but I would need the drum scans anyway, would I be able to compromise with a 9000?

[Kirk Gittings]

While I am one of the advocates of the pro flatbeds, we are usually comparing them to consumer flatbeds and drum scanners, not MF dedicated film scanners. I have not owned a 9000, but I did own an 8000. IMO, particularly wetmounted, you should be able to achieve a decent 8x.

[Ben R]

It's funny actually, the price in the UK is over double that in the US for a 9000, how do they have the cheek to do it?

Many thanks Kirk your opinion is worth a lot to me, if anyone has experience wetmounting with this or the 8000 and particularly if you have experience scanning larger than 6X9 negs then I would be very grateful to hear from you.

[Cesar Barreto]

Ben, I've been doing this routinely with 6x17 and 6x24 formats and although it can be tricky sometimes to achieve perfect matches with negatives, even noticing small differences on resolution on each half, after all the results can be good enough for most purposes up to 80x240cm.

Cesar B.

[Paul Ewins]

Just a word of warning if you haven't already bought the scanner. I bought a "Nikon Refurbished" LS 8000 that was DOA. It had a fried main board and loose parts inside the casing. It was all fixed locally under an aftermarket warranty (Mack) as the Nikon warranty was only valid in the US (I'm in Australia).

Sure, it was cheaper than a new one, but I'd never buy "refurbished" again as it is obvious that all Nikon do is repack it in a new cardboard box. No fault against the seller, they were helpful and there was no sign that this wasn't what they had claimed it to be.

FWIW, I haven't tried wet mounting but haven't had too much trouble matching either half of a pano (6x14) transparency. I have just been using the Nikon software (Nikon Scan 4) and while each half turns out to have a slightly different brightness it has always been simple to join the halves and match the colour in PS.

If anybody else is using non-Nikon software for their 8000/9000 I'd be interested in hearing what it is and why you chose it.

[Walter Calahan]

You'd have to make a double scan on a Nikon 9000 or 8000. The medium format holder goes to 6x9.

I do have custom 6x12/17 holders with anti-newton glass for my Epson V750. The V750 has a wet scan plate that works very fine, too.

[Ben R]

After doing a bit of research the Scan Science kit is by far the cheapest method and seems to make sense, they use the regular Nikon holder just adding their own glass rather than making a new holder and charging 6 times the amount that the others do. Anyone using it?

[Cesar Barreto]

Ben, it's very easy to adapt AN glasses yourself on regular holders and you can find it ready to fit at Focal Point. As far as I know, almost everyone follows this route with Nikon scanners.

[Jeremy Moore]

If anybody else is using non-Nikon software for their 8000/9000 I'd be interested in hearing what it is and why you chose it.

I use Vuescan with the 8000 as that's just what I'm used to using for scanning. Just not a fan of the Nikon interface.

[Kirk Gittings]

When I had my 8000, I also owned Vuescan and Silverfast, this was a few years ago. I actually preferred the Nikon software. Multipass scanning with SF had issues with banding and Vuescan gave softer results with Ice. The Nikon software was a little finicky, crashing the scanner often, but this was fixed on the 9000, which I have used but never owned.

[Juergen Sattler]

I agree with Kirk - I have the 9000 and also have Vuescan installed, but I find I get better (or at least same results) with the Nikon software. It just seems more intuitive for me. I have a number of presets stored in the Nikon software for the different films I use and I get dependable and consistent results that way.

[Ben R]

That is good to know, Silverfast is very expensive for the 9000, $500 and more if I don't pretend to live in the US!

[clay harmon]

I bounce back on forth on Nikon Scan and Vuescan with the LS8000. In general, I find that the film presets in vuescan give me superior results on negatives with a lot of contrast. I just fiddle around with the different CI options until I get a histogram that looks good. Vuescan also seems to be better at pulling detail out of the shadow areas of negatives. That said, with some judicious fiddling around with the curve and the analog gain dialog in Nikon Scan, I can generally get something acceptable. Vuescan's main benefit is that 95% of the time, I can just do a little minor tweaking and get a great result. With Nikon Scan, each negative seems to demand a little more attention.

I tried the demo version of Silverfast about six months ago, and I thought the user interface was a horror show. Maybe it does some great things with the raw data from the scanner, but I needed a Rosetta Stone to decipher how the hell to get there.

[Ben R]

I have to admit to having liked the HDR setting on Silverfast, one click, no presets or fiddling and you get all the information there is to have. That way you can do all the work in the lot more userfriendly enviroment of photoshop. Does anyone know if the multiscan and multiexposure settings are as useless with a dedicated scanner as they are on the flatbed due to alignment issues caused by cheap stepping motors?

[Cesar Barreto]

Ben, if you're still looking at b&w scans, I don't see much use for multi-anything, just because you can get everything you might need on a single pass.
Someone told on a dedicated forum at Yahoo that he found and corrected a small error on the way the holder travelled inside the scanner, and I notice the same when I get two halves of a 6x17 negative with slight misalignment, so it makes me think that multipassing would most probably add noise and not avoid it. And common negatives will never have densities high enough to ask for multiexposure.

[Kirk Gittings]

Ben,
No it generally works better on a 9000 and can lower shadow noise and increase shadow separation. Having said that both 9000&8000 sometimes suffer banding with MP, which can sometimes be solved by moving the film to another slot.