Steve, I couldn't tell the difference from what you posted which gives me high hopes when I order the 800 or 850.
Flickr Home Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums
Bryan's right. At some point using a higher resolution is more about minimizing noise, in analogue photography that's mostly granularity, then it is resolving subject detail. If one doesn't print large enough for the granularity to be visible, all the higher resolution scan leads to is increased time needed for the scan, increased storage space, and slower editing.
This speaks to an advantage that drum scanners have. Namely, they can minimize noise through aperture choice and not just by increasing spi.
“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
That's probably because on all photo forums people evangelize drum scans like they bring you to a higher plane of existence. It's also possibly because most are using Epson scanners with poor height calibration. Why on god's green earth they do not release a unit with AF I have no idea. It's quite an egregious oversight that they apparently build into the units.
When it comes down to it many an exhibition or book was probably scanned with CCD line units like a Coolscan or Imacon. It would have to be quite a rarified frame for me to consider drum scans frankly.
Years ago, I used a 'Service Bureau' to drum scan 2, 35mm slides, circa 1997
Cost $60, quality, terrible
I bought a CoolPix Scanner, scanned all my slides, that $1000 digi toy died long ago, but the scans were better.
My cell phone took a snap today of an 11X14 film portrait on a light panel, then V700 scan. The client and I cannot tell the difference on my monitor or iPhone
I am making contact prints ot it. No digi file will be saved...
Tin Can
Look at the 100% crops. Aside from magenta cast of Epson scanner, the details are softer than the Howtek. To me it is quite obvious. And for scan resolution it is faster to do a 3200dpi scan than a 6400 and bin to 3200. I find the base images of the Howtek to be much better to start. In the end though as long as you set focus height properly on the V850 and do linear scans it will give great results.
Color cast aside, after sharpening and all other corrections have been performed, at what size print can the difference between scanners be discerned ?
Perhaps a better way of asking the question is: what degree of enlargement is required for the difference to emerge ?
You shouldn't need to change from the auto aperture when scanning Provia. You'll get the 6.35 micron aperture which corresponds to 4000 ppi. You would only manually select apertures when scanning color negs but not for fine grained transparency. Having made literally thousands of scans on the same scanner for the past twenty years, this is something I'm quite familiar with. Do you know which aperture they actually chose?
No, but I will ask at what aperture he used. He just mentioned the auto aperture was showing too much grain and as these were just for comparison didn't spend a bunch of time on them to fine tune them. When I start using the drum, then I will need to develop my skills all over again for the new machine.
Good question indeed. And I would guess when I start printing above 16 x 20. I plan to make same rather large panos and 32x40 images. Plus, for my astrophotography and astronomy research, the drum scanner will give me better images suited for the science aspect of things.
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