Microtek M1 user experiences

[Helen Bach]

I've been using an M1 Pro to scan some 8x10 Ektachromes for a friend. That is the limit of my experience with it so far.

Re Newton's Rings
I've seen a few on the dry-scanned 8x10s taped to the glass, emulsion side up. They come from the glass/film base gap. If this was my scanner I'd buy an AN glass for the glassless carrier, and scan all sizes of film on the glass.

General
The glassless 'main carrier' was very badly warped, and is being replaced by Microtek. I had to remove the top glass to get it out on one occasion. It's easy to remove the top glass for cleaning the innards.

Green Rays
The scans had a few green bands running lengthwise. Easy to remove in Photoshop, but they shouldn't be there. I was using the latest Silverfast download, with Windows XP on a MacBook.

Performance
I've written more in another thread - I meant to post it here, but it is here (link).

In practice I found that it could do a good job of recovering shadow detail from Kodachromes. That's about as much as I need to know in that respect.

I haven't yet had time to print some tests to show what degree of enlargement is acceptable to me. That's more important to me than a simple resolution figure.

I will go back and do a side-by-side with a 4x5 negative that has been scanned on an Imacon 949. I already know that the Imacon scan is going to have better 'effective resolution'* at 2040 ppi than the M1 at 2400 ppi, unsharpened. What it means in practice to a photographer other than myself is more difficult to quantify.

Best,
Helen

*ie what I can end up with on a print

Edited out of original post, but not before Ted had seen it and spent his time writing a reply: a comment about the use of spi and ppi.

[Ted Harris]

Helen,

You raise an interesting point re "spi." I have always assumed that the manufacturers of consumer scanners referred to everything in "dpi" so as not to confuse the buyer. When we talk about "spi" in regards to a high end scanner we mean the number of samples it takes per inch. Once changed to "dpi" it becomes a meaningless number and maybe that is on purpose and the claimed resolution in xxxx dpi has no relation to samples at all.

As for the multiple scan capability mentioned in your other post, I've had the same results. I imagine the step motors just don't operate with sufficient precision to make this any moe tan a hit or miss exercise.

[Helen Bach]

If I didn't know the convention, I couldn't decide whether a sample is a sample or a combination of red, green and blue samples, unless the magnitude gave an obvious answer. One pixel is made from how many samples? That's why I use ppi, because we usually know unequivocally how many pixels are produced. Lines per mm, or line pairs per mm also seems like a dangerous measure for general use, especially when some people call line pairs per mm 'lines per mm' and two different conventions are used.

Best,
Helen

[Ted Harris]

Helen, agreed. I'm almost at the point where I am ready to ignore conventions if they aren't supported by an ISO, EIA, etc. type standard.

[rugenius]

Ted,
I had subscribed to View Camera around a month or more ago but still haven't received an issue yet. Looking forward to the first issue...
Anyway I had hoped to see your review of the M1 but later realized it must be in a back issue.
Do you have general comments you could share on resolution, optical density, etc,... and how you obtained those results (IE calibration targets, etc,...)??
Perhaps you've already covered those points in various forums? Example approx 2400 dpi optical resolution, ODens 3.1...??

Also, I understand how confusing specifications can be as well as conventions used to describe those specs.

Example: Pertaining to imaging systems and resolution.
When manufacturers of electron microscopes provide spot size specs they do this at arbitrary energy, beam current, and even method used to obtain this value. In fact sometimes involving post-processed imaging to obtain specs that one would assume come from "raw" format.

Anyway, another point should be made that DPI is an ISO recognized term. How Microtek or any other manufacturer describes optical resolution is obviously arguable and frustrating as you and Helen point out.

Resolutions of output devices are still frequently specified in dpi (dots per inch), which is the reciprocal value of the pixel size multiplied with 25.4 mm.
What if, in some cases, an imaging system (Ex: scanner) could have a specification for resolution based on sensor pixel size without respect to the true optical performance.
Microtek wouldn't do that would they?

More info below on DPI for the curious...

Instead of giving a reciprocal pixel size in dpi, it would be much more convenient to specify the pixel size directly in micrometers, as it is also common practice in the semiconductor industry.

The following table shows a few commonly used typesetting resolutions in both µm and dpi:
µm 10.0 20.0 21.2 40.0 42.3 80.0 84.7 100.0 250.0 254.0
dpi 2540 1270 1200 635 600 317 300 254 102 100

Typography is an old art. Long before the introduction of the international standard system of units (“metric system”), printing equipment manufacturers all over the world have established a bewildering variety units to measure length, many of which continue to be used today:

* 1 point (Truchet) = 0.188 mm (obsolete today)
* 1 point (Didot) = 0.376 mm = 1/72 of a French royal inch (27.07 mm)
* 1 point (ATA) = 0.3514598 mm = 0.013837 inch
* 1 point (TeX) = 0.3514598035 mm = 1/72.27 inch
* 1 point (Postscript) = 0.3527777778 mm = 1/72 inch
* 1 point (l’Imprimerie nationale, IN) = 0.4 mm
* 1 pica (ATA) = 4.2175176 mm = 12 points (ATA)
* 1 pica (TeX) = 4.217517642 mm = 12 points (TeX)
* 1 pica (Postscript) = 4.233333333 mm = 12 points (Postscript)
* 1 cicero = 4.531 mm = 12 points (Didot)

The printing and publishing software market is at present dominated by manufacturers (Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Quark, etc.) located in the United States, the last country on the planet that has yet to make significant progress towards the introduction of modern standard units. As a result, the use of standard units is far from well established in digital typography, to the significant annoyance of users all over the world.

[captain carl]

Hi. Forgive the intrusion, but I can't find such an informative discussion about the M1 in any 35mm boards, and my question isn't really relative to format size, it's about black and white film scanning. How well does the M1 perform with B&W film? 90% of what I want to archive is Tri-X and T-Max. I've read that the Epsons are rather mediocre when it comes to B&W. I'm this close to buying an M1, but I just want to be sure it can handle this task well. Thanks for your help! Carl

[Colin Graham]

Carl, I hesitate to respond because I'm far from an expert, but I don't think you'll be disappointed there. I've been scanning in many FP4+/TMY/Efke negatives developed for alt processes to a high dynamic range, and haven't had any highlight clipping or shadow noise. This is even without running the multiple pass, which seems to soften the image because of stepping motor issues.

But for 35mm, well, I haven't scanned anything smaller that 120, and that was pushing the optics of the scanner. You'd probably be better served by a dedicated film scanner. But the dmax of the M1 is definitely one of its strong points.

[coops]

It's been a while since anyone posted on this, and I am interested on opinions now that you guys have had a while to play with it. I am shooting a fair bit of MF now, as well as LF, and was thinking of getting a scanner to replace my Epson 3200. My first choice was the Nikon 9000 ( or a used 8000) but I am leaning more toward a flatbed, either the M1 or Epson v750. Seems there may not be a lot of difference in performance between the M1 and the Epson.

[BarryS]

I've been primarily using mine for scanning black and white large format negatives--4x5 (and 8x10 soon) used for printing sizes up to 16x20. For that purpose, the M1 is excellent and the scans are as good or better than any other sub $1000 flatbed. The Epson V750 is also an excellent scanner with a good track record. I've scanned some of my MF negatives and chromes and I think the results are pretty good, but definitely not up to the quality of the Coolscan 8000 or 9000. If you're only printing 11" or 12" wide, the M1 might make you happy for MF, but if you want any big prints, a sub $1000 flatbed is a real compromise in image quality.

[alex_photo]

I've posted a few scans of b&w medium format film to this page: http://homepage.mac.com/alex_home/ar...n_samples.html