Should I Drum Scan, X1 Flextight Scan, or use the Epson V850 w/Aztek Wet Mount Kit?

[Pali K]

Oh boy, I clicked on a scanner thread and instantly time traveled to pre coronavirus days Enjoyed knowing that my scans are still generating some healthy debate - haha. I don't want to get in the middle of the fun so please continue but I have one thing that might be worth considering and that is the following scan from a Tango that I made a while ago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/palika...9861/sizes/6k/

Click on the link, pixel peep, pay attention to color especially in the shadows, and then please note that an Epson scan of this will make you think that you are looking at completely different photo and not in a better way. If all you want is a digital copy from a B&W large format negative, Epson is pretty darn good. If you shoot other stuff like color negatives, slides, or 35MM/MF, you'll not be able to get the best out of your film from an Epson. This is coming from no expert - just a random guy on the internet who loves film photography and enjoys the hobby including the digital workflow using some fun scanners.

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy

Pali

[sanking]

Per,

If you were to do some research from the forum archives you would find quite a number of posts by me from about 10-15 years ago on using the V700 to get optimum results, including the use of the higher resolution lens, AN glass to keep the height correct, fluid mounting, and method of adjusting height to optimize resolution. I have also made scans of the 1951 USAF glass slides with the Epson V700 and Eversmart Pro, believe those were also posted here back in the day. With the most optimistic eyes possible I was able to get about only about 2000-2300 ppi, or about 30-45 lpm, with the Epson V700. That agrees with nearly every valid test I have seen with this scanner, and lots of tests were done back then.

I also made a scan of the USAF glass target a few days ago with the Sony a7r iv with the height of copy stand set to a 5X7" scan and the result shows resolution of about 50 lp with 16 shot pixel peeping, and film grain of the T-Max 400 negative is clearly visible. This was done with an Apo Rodagon 70mm 2X lens, and got similar results with the Sigma 70 mm F/4 Art. Small section of that shot attached.

Would be interesting if you would stop citing other sources and do your own research and testing on pixel shifting cameras, and post those results.

Sandy

[Pere Casals]

Oh boy, I clicked on a scanner thread and instantly time traveled to pre coronavirus days Enjoyed knowing that my scans are still generating some healthy debate - haha. I don't want to get in the middle of the fun so please continue but I have one thing that might be worth considering and that is the following scan from a Tango that I made a while ago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/palika...9861/sizes/6k/

Click on the link, pixel peep, pay attention to color especially in the shadows, and then please note that an Epson scan of this will make you think that you are looking at completely different photo and not in a better way. If all you want is a digital copy from a B&W large format negative, Epson is pretty darn good. If you shoot other stuff like color negatives, slides, or 35MM/MF, you'll not be able to get the best out of your film from an Epson. This is coming from no expert - just a random guy on the internet who loves film photography and enjoys the hobby including the digital workflow using some fun scanners.

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy

Pali

Hello Pali, yeah, your side by side is quite a reference !!!!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/palika...9861/sizes/6k/
Click on the link, pixel peep, pay attention to color especially in the shadows, and then please note that an Epson scan of this will make you think that you are looking at completely different photo and not in a better way.

First, let me point that you don't use Multi-Exposure in your V700, you have to separately purchase an upgrade ($50, IIRC) to have the SF version doing it, this will improve a lot your yield with slides in the shadows.


Second, let me suggest something: compare the Epson scan with the real slide on the light table, you will find that the Epson is accurate, it is an IT8 calibrated machine and it nails exactly the reference colors in the patches.

Many high end Pro scanners have color enhancing features that are difficult to disable, if wanting popping colors from the V700 then one may use any image enhancing software, if not wantig to edit.

Those colors from your drum are artificially modified, see the real slide and they are not there.

_______________________

I agree... for 35mm the Epson is slightly worse than other solutions like a dedicated roll film scanner, but the larger the format the more the Epson shines, you saw what happened with MF CN...

[Pere Casals]

Would be interesting if you would stop citing other sources and do your own research and testing on pixel shifting cameras, and post those results.

Of course I made and posted my own tests, but not with a $3000 pixel shifting camera that I won't own in the mid term, but with a regular DSLR, my own research:
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...e-DSLR-scanner

When I cite other resources they are reliable, it is to enforce the idea that I'm not posting a forged comparison like other do.

or about 30-45 lpm, with the Epson V700

Sandy, no...

The Epson resolves 58 lp/mm in the Horziontal axis and 46 lp/mm in the Hor axis, see the test made by Pali. (https://www.largeformatphotography.i...-Drum-Scanners)

Do you scan 5x7 with the low resolution lens ? it can be done with the Hi resolution lens of the V700 !!!

a 5X7" scan and the result shows resolution of about 50 lp with 16 shot pixel peeping

If you resolve 50lp/mm on film with the shifting then you are also optically resolving exactly 250lp/mm on sensor, can your lenses do that ?



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PD: Those Sigmas are reported to yield 17 MPix effective limitation in a 45 MPix camera (please correct me if I'm wrong), so my view is that they should resolve way less than 50lp/mm over a 5x7" single shot scan, or way less than 250 lp/mm on sensor. It would be interesting to see a shot of the USAF 1951 slide over a 5x7" negative taking all the sheet, Element 5.5 should be discerned.



Regarding the Rodagon x2, it is ideal for scanning MF frames with a Full Format DSLR, or to take MF sized crops of a LF sheet, but if you shot a whole 5x7" sheet with it you are photographing at x5, which is a (1:5) magnification where the Rodagon D (Duplication) performs quite worse than at x2. These are very specialized lenses for particular magnifications. A Regular Rodagon would perform optimally for that.

[manfrominternet]

...

Enter the new generation of scanning with high resolution pixel shifting cameras. Quality with 5X7' film ONE SHOT using 16 shot pixel shifting is about on par with best protocol with the Epson V700 and V800. A bit better in fact because it just "resolves" the grain of a film like T-Max 400. And this technology will be getting increasingly better and less expensive.

Sandy

How would you guys compare the scan of a 4x5 negative/transparency assembled with 4-6 stitched shots and made with a Sony a7R IV/Sigma 70mm ART Macro vs. a scan of the same 4x5 negative/transparency made with a (good) drum scanner?

I guess what I’m really asking here is if there are any current high-end mirrorless/digital medium format (Fuji GFX, Pentax 645z) camera and macro lens options that rival drum scanning.

I’d love to hear what you guys think I should eventually replace my current scanning setup with (Sony a7R III/Sigma 70mm ART Macro).

[grat]

How would you guys compare the scan of a 4x5 negative/transparency assembled with 4-6 stitched shots and made with a Sony a7R IV/Sigma 70mm ART Macro vs. a scan of the same 4x5 negative/transparency made with a (good) drum scanner?

I could beat an Epson or a drum scanner with my 13 year old Canon EOS 30D (8 megapixel) and a 100mm macro lens. It's only time and effort. I might have to take 20+ individual frames to do it, but I could, as long as I had a decent full spectrum light source. B&W imaging is much easier to do with just about any continuous light source, but color is a little pickier.

Years ago (2003), when PanoTools was a new thing, and hugin hadn't been written yet, someone stitched a 1 gigapixel image of Bryce Canyon, Utah, using a 6 megapixel camera and 196 images. That would be roughly 8,150 DPI if it were based on a 4x5 negative.

What amuses me is people keep extolling how $4,000 USD worth of camera+lens (current prices for A7R/IV and said Sigma 70mm ART) or a commercial scanner that *used* seems to be going for over $5000, are far superior to an $800 scanner-- I'd be concerned if they weren't significantly better. They would be incredibly overpriced crap if that were the case.

Next, people will be claiming that a Schneider super-angulon is far superior to a plastic lomography lens.

Personally, I think the lack of improvement on the Epson between the v600 and v850 is pretty depressing, but that's what happens when tech companies appeal to the lowest, cheapest denominator. I'd rather have something better, but I'd rather have money, as well. While I'm currently "making do" with an Epson, chances are, I'll build a decent arduino-powered scanning rig for my non-pixel-shifting 90D. Any real need for high resolution scans will be met by having professional labs do the hard work, because I really don't have a need to produce 4000 DPI scans on a regular basis. 2600 DPI is excessive for my normal use case (ie, viewing at 4k, or printing at 8x10 or equivalent).

And for those with Howtek 8000 scanners, as an IT guy, I have to ask... where are you finding SCSI-2 controllers still supported under Windows 10...?

[Pere Casals]

I think the lack of improvement on the Epson between the v600 and v850 is pretty depressing

The V600 yields 1560dpi effective (https://www.filmscanner.info/en/Epso...V600Photo.html), so the difference is huge.

but that's what happens when tech companies appeal to the lowest, cheapest denominator.

The V850 resolves 2900x5.9" in the scan width, totalling +17,000 effective pixels in the scan width, so a sound setup is there.

Problem of the V850 is that it takes holders with four 35mm strips, or two 120 strips, having to cover 5.9".

Now imagine that the V850 uses another "Super-Resolution" lens covering 4", taking two 35mm strips or one 120 strip, or one 4x5 sheet. It would deliver 2900 * 5.9 / 4 = 4300 dpi effective in the Horizontal axis and 3400 in the vertical axis.

The V850 is not better because it is designed to take four 35mm strips at the same time, not because it is cheap, it resolves 17.000 pixels in the scan row which, belive me, it's not easy at all. They have that yield because the lens is optimized to work specifically in the precise magnification it works. You won't find another flatbed resolving 17.000 pixels in the scan width, Creos stitch crops automaticly to get that from a 8000 pix sensor. The Epson has +40,000 pix sensor.

[Sasquatchian]

"And for those with Howtek 8000 scanners, as an IT guy, I have to ask... where are you finding SCSI-2 controllers still supported under Windows 10...?"

I run mine on Mac OS 9.2.2 off an Adaptec 2930 and have been since 1998. That same card is still available or Windows 10, so I'm assuming it should work as well. I think there was a 2940 card too, but the person who would know more authoritatively than anyone would be Evan Lippincott at Aztek. Shoot him an email or give him a call. A most gracious and friendly individual.

[Pere Casals]

I run mine on Mac OS 9.2.2 off an Adaptec 2930 and have been since 1998. That same card is still available or Windows 10, so I'm assuming it should work as well. I think there was a 2940 card too, but the person who would know more authoritatively than anyone would be Evan Lippincott at Aztek. Shoot him an email or give him a call. A most gracious and friendly individual.

Yes, it looks they provide Windows 10 compatibility: http://www.aztek.com/digital_photolab.html this is nice as one may use a fast M.2 drive and lots of RAM, using a single computer to scan and to Ps edit.

Today's computer performance is one of the factors that improved the V700 practical yield, now it is possible to scan LF at 6400-16 to extract every bit of information possible. The Epson requires scanning at higher dpi than Pro scanners for the same, the Pro scanners yield better eleborated information, with the Epson you need to oversample and make a careful edition before binning to the lower edition size, and that was a nightmare with slow computers of the past.

The M.2 loads a 3 Gigabytes file in around 1.5 seconds, and still 12 Gigabytes of RAM are free in my case, being all that quite cheap. The single operation that takes a bit is sharpening the 3GB image just before the bicubic "for reductions" binning to convert to the edition size.

In the past Pro scanners had the advantage to deliver a well digitally optimized image, this was quite important. With the today's computer performance overkill this is less important.

[Alan Klein]

Yes, it looks they provide Windows 10 compatibility: http://www.aztek.com/digital_photolab.html this is nice as one may use a fast M.2 drive and lots of RAM, using a single computer to scan and to Ps edit.

Today's computer performance is one of the factors that improved the V700 practical yield, now it is possible to scan LF at 6400-16 to extract every bit of information possible. The Epson requires scanning at higher dpi than Pro scanners for the same, the Pro scanners yield better eleborated information, with the Epson you need to oversample and make a careful edition before binning to the lower edition size, and that was a nightmare with slow computers of the past.

The M.2 loads a 3 Gigabytes file in around 1.5 seconds, and still 12 Gigabytes of RAM are free in my case, being all that quite cheap. The single operation that takes a bit is sharpening the 3GB image just before the bicubic "for reductions" binning to convert to the edition size.

In the past Pro scanners had the advantage to deliver a well digitally optimized image, this was quite important. With the today's computer performance overkill this is less important.

I just got a V850 as I started to shoot LF. These 4x5 Tmax 100's are scanned at 2400. I tried scanning at 3200 but couldn't see the difference. Should I scan at 3200 or 4800 or higher? The tiff files get pretty big. By comparison, I also linked my earlier 6x7 Tmax 100's scanned on a V600.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alankl...7714124881023/ Tmax 100 4x5 V850
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alankl...7642492618713/ Tmax 100 120 6x7 V600



By comparison, these