It's true that people often overestimate how much detail they really resolve on film, but a scan doesn't necessarily only deal with scene information. Grain rendition might also be important. On my Cezanne, for instance, scanning at higher spi's give's a much better rendition of film grain than scanning at lower resolutions. I scan 35mm film at 6000 spi, and I do so because I ran a bunch of comparison scans.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
just liking the look of what comes out of a scanner is something completely different than resolution.
All flatbeds and I susepct all scanners create their own grain. Its a misguided impression that what you see from a scanner is "film grain". You scanner will fundamentally alter the film grain and there's nothing you can do about that. The grain you see ain't the same as the grain in the neg.
So all scans are a form of interpolation. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just saying it happens as part of a scan and if scanning at 6000spi gives you scans you like the look of then fine. But it's scan grain you're seeing not actual film grain.
35mm film shot at say F5.6 has the potential for much higher film resolution but only with the right films and lighting. But a 200 cycles/m film could give you 160 cycles/m so in theory that would require a 4000 spi scan at a minimum. So yes 35mm film can sometimes require those high scan resolutions. But I rekon most of the time they won't Becasue it will be rare that you get as much 80 cycles/m. There just isn't the resolution in the film to extract.
so to answer the OPs question, shoot at f4 using a film with capability of 400lp/mm and in suitable lighting that gives very high local contrast in the fine detail of your subject.
Then you might approach getting your scanners max resolution and actually be able to see it and NOT be lead into the false opnion that the scanner is not capable just because unwittingly you have not taken into consideration the fact that the resolution didn't exist in your film to extract in the first place.
Good points. Thanks.
By "film grain" I mean the coarse pattern seen in an enlargement, following the very common colloquial use, and not the much smaller grains of silver.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
"My guess is that the scanning lens and/or sensor is optimized for the frequency of green light."
I'm only 6 1/2 years late to the party! Anyway, this would imply - but I could be wrong - that Bayer filtering is involved, since there are more green pixels than red or blue. (Note: I'm not an expert.)
Dave
Originally Posted by Ken Lee
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