High res 8x10 scan sample, anybody?

[Sizam]

Could somebody(s) post some samples of high-resolution scans from 8x10, color or B&W? I'm curious what you can really get out of a high-res scan so maybe a small 100% crop and a full sample if you will.

Thanks!

[Don Hutton]

Fuji Pro160S scanned at 2000SPI on a Howtek 4500...

[Don Hutton]

Here's a B&W example. Tmax100 scanned at 2000SPI. Crop is at 100% (excuse the lack of any merit in the subject matter - this was a test shot to compare 4x5 and 8x10 and find out at what print size the two showed differences).

[willwilson]

Don, what size did you come up with?

[Sizam]

Impressive, and both those are 8x10 samples?

[john borrelli]

Extremely impressive!

[Don Hutton]

Those are both about 8x10: at 2000SPI yields about 19500 x 15500 pixels. The B&W at full size and printed at 360DPI would be about 53x43". The crop would represent a 2.6 x2.1" piece of that print... I can't remember the exact size of the color crop because I did it some time ago.

[Sizam]

Thanks for the extra info.

So now I'm a little concerned, here is a comparison of the color shot with a shot from the Hasselblad H3D-39II (unsharpened):

Seems like the 8x10 edges out the Hassy but not by very much, or am I missing something? I was hoping for at least 4x more resolution in an 8x10 scan, virtually equal really takes the wind out of my sails. Feel free to call me and idiot and say there is a substantial difference.

http://img.skitch.com/20081206-87eepu1f3j95hs4c9je4wa682u.jpg

[Don Hutton]

The crops are almost comparable size in a pixel sense - what you're missing is that the 8x10 scan crop is from an image which is 19500x15500pixels, whereas as the Hassy is only 7200x5400 pixels - so is you printed both at 360DPI, the scan would produce a print of about 53x43 inches with about the same level of detail as a 20x15 inch print from the Hassy... The print from the scan would be 7 and a half times bigger than the print from the Hassy. Apples and oranges. Even then, I think that the scan crop shows more detail than the Hassy crop - there's no texture in the bushs on the Hassy crop.

[Don Hutton]

Here's another crop from the same scan - this would be a 1.5 x 4 inch piece of that 53x43inch print... You can't even discern these guys on the Jpeg of the whole scene, but they're there (about 2/3rds of the way up the beach).... BTW, both scans are completely unsharpened.

[Sizam]

The crops are almost comparable size in a pixel sense - what you're missing is that the 8x10 scan crop is from an image which is 19500x15500pixels, whereas as the Hassy is only 7200x5400 pixels - so is you printed both at 360DPI, the scan would produce a print of about 53x43 inches with about the same level of detail as a 20x15 inch print from the Hassy... The print from the scan would be 7 and a half times bigger than the print from the Hassy. Apples and oranges. Even then, I think that the scan crop shows more detail than the Hassy crop - there's no texture in the bushs on the Hassy crop.

Yes, no doubt the scan has more detail then the hassy it just appears to be close, ie marginal, where I'm expecting 4x at least (7x as you say would be great). Could you please explain the logic in the above paragraph a little more. It seems like what you're saying is you'd have a 53x43 print vs a 20x15 print but the 53x43 print would just be larger, ie the people would be 7x larger which would net nothing since that would just be 'blowing up' the detail we're seeing in the sample images. If however you mean that we have a 53x43 print vs a 20x15 print and the size of the people remains constant, well then now we're talkin.

[Sizam]

Ok,
We noodled it out and got that you ment the latter (more awesomer) option which really makes my day (weekend even).

Thanks!

[Don Hutton]

I just did this crop - it's exactly 467x498 pixels - pretty close in actual pixel size to the Hassy "crop". However, the scan is 19500 pixels wide by 1500 pixels high vs 7210 pixels wide x 5410 pixels high for the Hassy full image. So if you print both images at 360DPI, the scan will produce a 53x43 inch print whereas the Hassy print will only be 20x15 inches, BUT the level of detail in both will be comparable, as shown in the actual pixel size crops.... i.e. for the people in the crops to be of similar size, the print from the scan will be 7 and a half times larger than the print from the Hassy file.

[Sizam]

Yea,
I get yea now. Freakin awesome.

[Don Hutton]

Don, what size did you come up with?
Sorry I missed this earlier Will

My conclusion was that around 24x30, the print from an 8x10 starts to show some worthwhile advantages. This is presuming very careful and high quality capture on both formats, drum scanned digital workflow and inkjet printing. I threw an extra stop on the 8x10 because working apertures in my experience are typically about a stop down from 4x5. With a very fine grained high resolving film like Tmax 100 (which is what I shot for the B&W test) the differences probably start to become apparent at slightly larger print sizes than they would for a faster film. This was really about justifying keeping my 8x10, and despite the fact that I seldom make very large prints, I decided to keep it!

[Sizam]

This was really about justifying keeping my 8x10, and despite the fact that I seldom make very large prints, I decided to keep it!

No kidding! Glad I got into 8x10.

[james zhou]

I had used a D300 as a light meter and test shot to analyze the scene, while setting up my 8x10. I later looked at scans from 8x10 provia and some D300 shots of part of the scene. I think the 8x10 film is about 18-20 time bigger than the D300 for the same detail. That is similar to what you two found out. Interestingly, I found Provia gives more highlight and shadow details than T-Max when shooting the same scene---but this could be due to how film is processed. This convinced me to keep all of my film camera including Pentax 67, and 4x5. Nice postings! Thanks! jim

[Steven Barall]

Thanks Don. That is pretty cool when you actually see it displayed like that.

[Ken Lee]

"My conclusion was that around 24x30, the print from an 8x10 starts to show some worthwhile advantages".

That makes good sense. Let's ignore film grain altogether, and presume that a good taking lens for Large Format gives somewhere around 50 or 60 lp/mm at best. This means that under anything less than ideal circumstances, it performs worse, perhaps more like 30 to 50. On a contact print, that's a lot of line pairs. The look is... smashing !

But to get a 24x30 image from 4x5, requires around 6X magnification. Now that 30 to 50 lp/mm is down to 1/6 of the original: somewhere around 5 to 8 lp/mm - inside the range where the average human eye can detect a difference.

Meanwhile, the 8x10 image, requires only 3X enlargement, and still has 10-15 lp/mm. It is still at - or above - the limit of human perception.

A 6x6 image made with the best lenses, may have somewhere around 80 lp/mm. You can make a 8X or 9X enlargement, and get a very sharp image around 18x18 inches.

But we rarely get to shoot our lenses at their best aperture, and it's mostly normal length lenses (like 80mm on 6x6) which do so well. So it may be more realistic to expect a 16x16 image. In any event, that camera had better be on a tripod, or we can kiss all those line pairs... good bye. :rolleyes:

[Bruce Watson]

Could somebody(s) post some samples of high-resolution scans from 8x10, color or B&W? I'm curious what you can really get out of a high-res scan so maybe a small 100% crop and a full sample if you will.

Got a couple on my Large Format Pro website. (http://www.largeformatpro.com/index.html) One from color to show detail (http://www.largeformatpro.com/examples_color.html), one from B&W to show tonality and shadow detail. (http://www.largeformatpro.com/examples_bw.html) Both drum scans of 5x4 negatives though. Might be close enough for what you need.

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry I missed this earlier Will

My conclusion was that around 24x30, the print from an 8x10 starts to show some worthwhile advantages. This is presuming very careful and high quality capture on both formats, drum scanned digital workflow and inkjet printing. I threw an extra stop on the 8x10 because working apertures in my experience are typically about a stop down from 4x5. With a very fine grained high resolving film like Tmax 100 (which is what I shot for the B&W test) the differences probably start to become apparent at slightly larger print sizes than they would for a faster film. This was really about justifying keeping my 8x10, and despite the fact that I seldom make very large prints, I decided to keep it!

Thanks, this has come up farily often here but you're the first person I recall who's actually done a real test. Some claim that a noticeable difference shows up around 16x20, which I always disagreed with because I did a rudimentary test at that size in a darkroom (no scan) and it showed no difference that I could see at 16x20. I couldn't go any larger with my darkroom at the time so I didn't know but my guess was right around what you concluded - 24x30 or maybe even a little larger before you see a difference. There's also a point where even prints from 8x10 film look crappy, which anyone can see if they look at Clyde Butcher's 5' x 6' or thereabouts prints.

[Ole Tjugen]

I don't have a high-res scan from 8x10" - only some "relatively lo-res" ones.

But this one is from (an unusually grainy) 5x7": http://www.bruraholo.no/images/Lodalen.html

[VictoriaPerelet]

Hello, I have few 8x10 drum/flatbed etc comparisons and 1:1 enlargements here:
http://www.victoriasphoto.com/Notes/

[Daniel_Buck]

On the inside of the building next to the elevator, there is a sign :-) This was only on my Epson flatbed scan, about as much detail as I can muster. But plenty enough for me!

http://404photography.net/wip/samitaur_01a.jpg

http://404photography.net/wip/samitaur_01.jpg

[David A. Goldfarb]

Even fairly low resolution flatbed scans from an 8x10" neg have quite a lot of detail. Here's a page where I've posted some examples. The largest file is still downsized by half from the full 1000 ppi flatbed scan--

http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/imviaduct.htm

[Don Hutton]

This "debate" goes on forever... Here's my "summary" of the consumer flatbed vs high end scanner debate. Since purchasing a very cheap and reasonable drum scanner, I can make "better" prints from 4x5 negatives than I could previously do with 8x10 negatives on a consumer flatbed scanner. Better in pretty much every way too - better tonality, shadow detail, smoother and better resolution. And the difference in convenience of getting to where I want to make photographs with a 4x5 compared to lugging an 8x10 outfit around is enormous.

[Sizam]

I don't think anybody would argue that a flatbed is near as good as drum scanner. But you can't (and you're not) argue that a given scan of a 4x5 will provide as much information as a scan of a 8x10 of the same subject using the same scanner. I imagine if my subject is 5 miles up hill I'll probably suffer through my 4x5 but if there is any possible way to get an 8x10 on location now I'm doing it (and thats you guy's fault :)). But I'm only using LF for when the final output will be a massive print or I want the look of film, otherwise I'm sticking with digitalMF or high-res digital 35mm.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

This "debate" goes on forever... Here's my "summary" of the consumer flatbed vs high end scanner debate. Since purchasing a very cheap and reasonable drum scanner, I can make "better" prints from 4x5 negatives than I could previously do with 8x10 negatives on a consumer flatbed scanner. Better in pretty much every way too - better tonality, shadow detail, smoother and better resolution. And the difference in convenience of getting to where I want to make photographs with a 4x5 compared to lugging an 8x10 outfit around is enormous.

What brand and model is this "very cheap and reasonable" drum scanner? And at what size do you see a difference compared to prints from your flatbed scans? I'm not trying to spark debate- just curious as to if I should think about getting a drum scanner for my own needs.

[Don Hutton]

What brand and model is this "very cheap and reasonable" drum scanner? And at what size do you see a difference compared to prints from your flatbed scans? I'm not trying to spark debate- just curious as to if I should think about getting a drum scanner for my own needs.Brian

I have a Howtek 4500. Depending on the subject matter and source film, I have seen differences in prints as small as 11x14 - at around 16x20, they are obvious in just about every print. The lack of microcontrast is probably the single most noticable difference from B&W scans. Obviously chromes suffer most with shadow detail. If I only owned a consumer flatbed, I would only shoot color negative - never chromes.

[Policar]

Let's ignore film grain altogether, and presume that a good taking lens for Large Format gives somewhere around 50 or 60 lp/mm at best. This means that under anything less than ideal circumstances, it performs worse, perhaps more like 30 to 50.

A 6x6 image made with the best lenses, may have somewhere around 80 lp/mm.

This is...not encouraging. If Hasselblad lenses resolve 80lp/mm and the best large format systems resolve 40lp/mm then an image shot on a Hasselblad should be as sharp as large format even when cropped, much sharper when left square.

[Ben Syverson]

Here's another...

One of the issues with 8x10 is that you have to choose between focusing on the eyelashes or the iris...