Grain on large format (scanned negative): hp5 plus vs tmax 100

[Pere Casals]

The weird mush from consumer flatbeds that becomes a horrid noisy mess when sharpened is not a reasonable rendering of a film's granularity/ grain character.

This an exageration.

Just download samples here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181002...s-500-scanner/
https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/160...s-500-scanner/

and edit both cases for a best match.

You will find how close result is, and how crazy big you have to enlarge to notice some difference.

The X5 shows more aliasing than the V850 but not better grain:








In 35mm film the X5 will show far better grain than a V850, but MF and up the thing is different. In 4x5 the V850 shows better grain. This is because the X5 zooms in, but it only has 8000 pixels in the sensor, while the V has 40000 pixels.

[interneg]

Pere - if you had any real extent of experience with high end scanning & printing rather than spewing links to clickbait, you would know that the claims in that article are at best disingenuous & at worst intentionally dishonest. The real-world differences are not small & become pretty blatantly clear at almost any size of print, especially with current generation inkjet print heads. You have had this explained to you innumerable times by many, many people with years of experience with a variety of high-end scanning equipment, & yet you delude yourself that Epsons are just one unsharp mask from equalling any high end scanner. They are not - and having spent my Thursday afternoon trying to extract decent results from Epson originated files because the original negatives were not available for re-scanning, my charitability towards such claims is currently very limited. For the record, they were from 120 negatives & not big prints - in fact they were well within the resolution you claim the Epson delivers. Large format does not do much better. The totality of the optical system matters, not the nominal high contrast resolution.

Almost any current 24x36 DSLR, a decent macro lens & a light table will do a better job than a consumer flatbed - and with a Nikon D8xx series or similar resolution sensor, up to a 16x20 print you might even avoid having to stitch files.

[Pere Casals]

Almost any current 24x36 DSLR, a decent macro lens & a light table will do a better job than a consumer flatbed - and with a Nikon D8xx series or similar resolution sensor, up to a 16x20 print you might even avoid having to stitch files.

Interneg, in fact a DSLR setup may even outresolve best drum scanner you may find, you only need a high manification macro lens and stitching a high image count.

Beyond that, this is a LF forum, an speaking about sheets you should test what a Hasselblad X1 or X5 is able to do. If one day you check that you will find 1800 effective dpi for 4x5".

Also if you check that with a V850, like I did, you will find that it resolves 2900 dpi in the transverse axis and 2300 in the vertical axis. Of course the X5 is very good for 35mm, but let me reiterate that this is a LF forum.

In practice the V850 performs amazingly for LF. Recently Pali posted some side by side samples, by editing the V700 samples to their best it happened that result was pretty comparable to other high end flatbeds:

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...=1#post1479178

the edited crop in the V700 sample show the same than the crops from very expensive flatbeds:



You may try it on your own, just download those samples and sharpen the V700 one with 2.5 radius and 50% setting, not that difficult, I guess.

Something is true, an EPSON flatbed is not a Pro machine, the scan is not digitally optimized like Pro machines do, it always require some Ps edition to reach its best.

EPSON V700/800 flatbeds fall a bit short in 35mm film jobs, but for LF it's an excellent choice, that given the price (new) it's not easy to beat.

[interneg]

Pere - you clearly have no real clue how the optical/ mechanical system in the Flextight works & that the difference between the early Flextight systems & the newer ones is going to be clearly visible on a test target. If you did, you would understand why the optical system is able to effectively deliver lossless resolution to the sensor on the 4x5 setting. There's 3x linear CCD's, not one behind a Bayer array. Furthermore, by your logic, the Precision II should only deliver 1440ppi on 4x5, not the 1800ppi it actually does.
Nor have you made many hundreds if not thousands of scans of LF negatives on both machines & made big prints. You can tell the difference from 3 metres away, even on a 16x20" & closer on smaller prints - the Epson is a pile of crap on anything other than very high contrast edges & fails utterly at handling fine details in low contrast areas, producing only noise when sharpened. I've made 2400 & 3000ppi stitched scans of 4x5 & 9x12cm & the difference is even more ridiculous. Your sharpening test is fundamentally flawed because it does not look at noise generation in smooth tones, but is instead used on high contrast edges. In other words, you are skewing the test with the intention to deceive.

[Pere Casals]

Pere - you clearly have no real clue how the optical/ mechanical system in the Flextight works

Interneg, rather than going to personal attack (you have no clue etc...) you may comment on the samples in post 23.

Later you can go to the collaborative scanner test to download samples, and then explain why the V750 crop with some edition nearly matches the howtek drum result:

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...an-comparison/

[Ted Baker]

It might be worth remembering that Kodak measure grain using an aperture of 48microns! I have heard that was the size of the hole made into a piece of metal using a sharp point they had around the workshop. 48microns is about 525dpi. So you don't need a very high dpi sensor to "see" or measure grain... That is of course complete different to being able to distinguish particles of around 3-4 microns...

Basically any sensor in 500dpi range should be able detect or show grain such that it can be measured. How it actually looks when scanned and then printed is another thing entirely.

[Pere Casals]

It might be worth remembering that Kodak measure grain using an aperture of 48microns!

Yes... but scanning aperture of the microdensitometer is larger than the grains to see the variable reading as the scanning position moves. Grains may be sized in the 10 to 30 microns, so individual (10um) grains will jut fit inside a 2500 dpi pixel sampling area. 2500dpi is suitable to shape large (30um) grains, while you need more resolving power to shape well the smaller (10um)grains, because at 2500dpi the 10um grain has same size than the pixel.

[interneg]

Later you can go to the collaborative scanner test to download samples, and then explain why the V750 crop with some edition nearly matches the howtek drum result:

That's clearly the softest drum scanner by some margin - possibly in need of servicing etc. Let's see how your claims measure up to one of the the Heidelbergs or the 949 then? They're both in that comparison & how about using the other image crops rather than the high contrast edge one? Those are far more telling.

[MAubrey]

...spewing...clickbait...disingenuous...intentionally dishonest...you delude yourself...my charitability towards such claims is currently very limited

Well, that last bit is certainly clear!

[Pere Casals]

That's clearly the softest drum scanner by some margin - possibly in need of servicing etc. Let's see how your claims measure up to one of the the Heidelbergs or the 949 then? They're both in that comparison & how about using the other image crops rather than the high contrast edge one? Those are far more telling.

Interneg, we may do pixel peeping with the crops as much as you want...

The reality is that your opinion "the Epson is a pile of crap on anything other than very high contrast edges & fails utterly at handling fine details in low contrast areas" is pretty wrong.

The post #23 is not "very high contrast edges", and there the cheap epson is rivaling with high end scanners that costed $ many thousands.

Me, I don't understand why some hate the epson in that way, often throwing the "crap" word when speaking about it... sometimes it is because of commercial interests...

But the sample in the #23 post (for example) speaks on their own.

The V850 has some limitations, as any machine has, but what's for MF and up it performs amazingly, in special a 8x10" V850 scan it's a 100% Pro thing. The larger is the format the better the epson performs, the drawback is that for 35mm it's not the best choice, because it scans 4 strips wide at the same time, so result is not optimal.

Think that if the V850 had a 3rd lens covering a single 35mm strip (24mm scan width) it would deliver an insane resolving power, just multiply. Other manufacturers are lucky that this was not considered by epson.