Scanner Comparison 2019 [Epson Flatbed | Eversmart Flatbed | Drum Scanners]

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Related a bit to rdeloe'a comment, one interesting thing related to scanning is the effect on grain size. Before someone feels the need to point this out, I'm referring to photographic grain, the appearance of granularity in a standard photo print. I'm not referring to grains of silver, which are much, much smaller. Anyway, the appearance of grain depends how how the film inherently is, as well as how it's scanned. People talk about grain aliasing and hard/soft light sources, and maybe that's it, but whatever the explanation, some scanning systems really exaggerate film grain more than others. For example, I had a Nikon Coolscan V. It was a very good 35mm film scanner, at least with fine-grained film. But with grainy film, say, Bergger 200 or HIE, it wasn't as good as my Canoscan 9950F, a consumer desktop scanner. The grain with the Nikon with those films was massive. It clearly limited system resolution. With the 9950f, those films had much finer grain but also more subject detail. Moving on to today, with 35mm film I scan at 6000spi with my Cezanne, not because I get more subject detail, but because I get the finest appearance of grain. It's not that I don't like grain, at least with some pictures. I'm just pointing out that some systems increase apparent grain size more than others.

This is true. What I find with the films I use, HP5-400, Portra, Extar, Acros, Tmax and D100, is that if I have good exposure, then even at high scan resolutions, I get minimal grain, if I am off too much on exposure, then I get the grain starting to appear. Much like a digital file and underexposing it and trying to pull the shadows out of nothing, gets real noisy.

My last image I posted in the Image sharing was scanned at 6000dpi and resized to 300dpi at 16x20 (approx) and you can see it is a fairly smooth file (little grain) I prefer to scan at max resolution, save that linear raw tiff as my archive file and then If I want, I could resize it as first step to the size I plan to print and edit that file. Will be much smaller, there is another method outlined here https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2012/0...our-photoshop/and pointed to by Ken Lee that allows you to work an a smaller version of your file and then apply to the image scanned at max dpi.

I havre the coolscan 4000 and about 5000 images to scan for archiving. Slides included and uncut roll film. Need to get the roll film adapter and the slide adapter, but they cost more than the scanner!

[sanking]

I have the coolscan 4000 and about 5000 images to scan for archiving. Slides included and uncut roll film. Need to get the roll film adapter and the slide adapter, but they cost more than the scanner!

The Nikon Coolscan is a very good scanner, but scanning 4000 to 5000 slides might drive you nuts.

Last year I decided to archive all of my 35mm slide collection and debated how to go about it. I have a Howtek drum scanner but that would have taken too long. Eventually I decided to re-purpose one of the old Repronar slide duplicating devices with a modern FF Sony camera. It involved three steps that took about a day of work. 1) Remove and replace the film camera with a FF Sony mirrorless, 2) make an adaptor to connect the Sony to the existing bellows, and 3) replace the existing Repronar lens with a 75 mm Apo Rodagon. The 50 mm Repronar is actually a pretty good lens, but I had the 75 mm Apo Rodagon from an old Leafscan 45 and knew its quality

One might ask, why go to that much trouble? Well, the Repronar is a sturdy unit with a good light unit that one can buy for peanuts on ebay, and once converted one can set it up for a specific format and leave it that way until finished. As recall it cost me about $100 on ebay, quite a bargin for a good sturdy focusing unit and light source. Scanning 35mm and medium format is very easy, just set up the focus, insert the slide or film, adjust exposure, and snap. With the 75mm Rodagon for 35mm or 105 Apo-Componon it is one shot for 35mm or 6X9 film, or some stitching with template for 4X5. Regardless of format I get resolution of over 4000 ppi, which is way more than any of my old slides have. And dynamic resolution with the current Sony FF cameras is way more than most of my old slides and film actually have.

Project might not be for everyone, but for me it was worth the effort for long term saving of time. And I save the drum scanner for larger film like 5X7, 7X17 and 12X20.

Sandy

[Steven Ruttenberg]

The Nikon Coolscan is a very good scanner, but scanning 4000 to 5000 slides might drive you nuts.

Last year I decided to archive all of my 35mm slide collection and debated how to go about it. I have a Howtek drum scanner but that would have taken too long. Eventually I decided to re-purpose one of the old Repronar slide duplicating devices with a modern FF Sony camera. It involved three steps that took about a day of work. 1) Remove and replace the film camera with a FF Sony mirrorless, 2) make an adaptor to connect the Sony to the existing bellows, and 3) replace the existing Repronar lens with a 75 mm Apo Rodagon. The 50 mm Repronar is actually a pretty good lens, but I had the 75 mm Apo Rodagon from an old Leafscan 45 and knew its quality

One might ask, why go to that much trouble? Well, the Repronar is a sturdy unit with a good light unit that one can buy for peanuts on ebay, and once converted one can set it up for a specific format and leave it that way until finished. As recall it cost me about $100 on ebay, quite a bargin for a good sturdy focusing unit and light source. Scanning 35mm and medium format is very easy, just set up the focus, insert the slide or film, adjust exposure, and snap. With the 75mm Rodagon for 35mm or 105 Apo-Componon it is one shot for 35mm or 6X9 film, or some stitching with template for 4X5. Regardless of format I get resolution of over 4000 ppi, which is way more than any of my old slides have. And dynamic resolution with the current Sony FF cameras is way more than most of my old slides and film actually have.

Project might not be for everyone, but for me it was worth the effort for long term saving of time. And I save the drum scanner for larger film like 5X7, 7X17 and 12X20.

Sandy

That is actually an interesting method. I have been looking for a way to use my dslr to scan 4x5 film and stitch together. What is hard to figure out is how to move the neg around without messing up its orientation to get the several frames needed for 4x5. I am going to use either a 100mm macro or a 180 macro. How do you do the 4x5 film without messing up the orientation and maintain consistency for good stitches?

Yeah, it will drive me nuts, it is a lot of insert, scan and wait. Good thing most of it is uncut rolls. But a lot are slides and cut rolls.

[Tin Can]

I also set up a $15 Repronar with a lesser camera and lens to copy slides.

I still use the Nikon PS-4 Slide Copying Adapter with the PB-4 bellows which I did not give away, as it's fun for macro.

[Peter De Smidt]

Great setup, Sandy!

[Alan Klein]

I rescanned my 120 6x7 Velvia 50 at 3200 on my V600 and didn't notice any difference with my normal scan setting of 2400.

[sanking]

How do you do the 4x5 film without messing up the orientation and maintain consistency for good stitches?

Since you can copy up to about 2X3" at a time with a 105 mm lens you only need to set up a simple template for six shots on the x-y axis to capture a full sheet of 4X5" film, with way more than enough overlap for simple photomerge in PS.

That said, 4X5 was never one of my favorite formats so I have so little work in that size that I would probably just scan it with the drum scanner.

Sandy

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I rescanned my 120 6x7 Velvia 50 at 3200 on my V600 and didn't notice any difference with my normal scan setting of 2400.

Can’t speak to 120 or the 600, but there is a huge difference with 4x5 once focus is set using wet mount. And even more at 6000 and up.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Since you can copy up to about 2X3" at a time with a 105 mm lens you only need to set up a simple template for six shots on the x-y axis to capture a full sheet of 4X5" film, with way more than enough overlap for simple photomerge in PS.

That said, 4X5 was never one of my favorite formats so I have so little work in that size that I would probably just scan it with the drum scanner.

Sandy

Cool thanks. I am probing into going to 5x7 and or 8x10.

[Pere Casals]

Cool thanks. I am probing into going to 5x7 and or 8x10.

hmmm, Steven never look through a 8x10 GG, see what can happen, min 0:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V40Mz0mVotg

Remember, never look through a large GG, not even a single time.