f64

[Greg Miller]

Greg,

I apologize for my comment. I mistakenly personalized it when in fact it was a reaction to other comments as well as your own.

In any event my comparison of drum scanners and Epson flatbeds was limited to B&W film, whether that was fully explained or not.

Sandy

No problem. My first comment would have better understood if I was specific that I was talking about shadow detail in a transparency (not a negative).

I am curious, sincerely and politely, what your reaction would have been if I had said "highlight detail in a negative" (similar concept as with shadow detail in a positive). My own assumption would be that a drum scanner would pull more detail than a flat bed. I would also assume that color would fare slightly better than B&W because there are 3 channels to help differentiate neighboring pixels rather than one. But I could be wrong.

[sanking]

I am curious, sincerely and politely, what your reaction would have been if I had said "highlight detail in a negative" (similar concept as with shadow detail in a positive). My own assumption would be that a drum scanner would pull more detail than a flat bed. I would also assume that color would fare slightly better than B&W because there are 3 channels to help differentiate neighboring pixels rather than one. But I could be wrong.

Well, I want to be clear that my only case for an Epson flatbed was made only with reference to a B&W negative that was exposed at an aperture that gives fairly low resolution in lp/mm, with the farther assumption that the negative was well exposed, and not over developed. If that is the case there should be no problem at all in pulling detail from the highlights. And I believe that would be true of color negatives that are well exposed as well.

Now, if the negative is either over exposed or developed too long that changes the game entirely, and it might well be that an Epson flatbed would not be capable of capturing all of the highlight detail.

I don't accept at all the statement that drum scanners give better tonal rendition with well exposed and developed b&w negative. They may depending on the skill of the operator, but then again they may not. When it comes to scanning artifacts you can get a lot of these with either drum or CCD scanners if the machine is not in good working condition.

Sandy

[Lenny Eiger]

I don't accept at all the statement that drum scanners give better tonal rendition with well exposed and developed b&w negative.
Sandy

Sandy, This has simply not been my experience. I've seen many 750 scans and compared my drum with lots of types of ccd's. The drum has won every time in tonal rendition, and for that matter, in color sensitivity.

As far as resolution goes, I have been surprised by what I see. It doesn't match the numbers but it also wasn't done with an air force target. It may not be sensible, as jbl stated, but it's in right here in my hand. FWIW, it is far more than what a 750 is capable of. I understand that I have no business making my case unless I can prove it properly. Next set of shots I do I'll do a proper comparison and see if I can't put it together in a way that actually makes sense, one way or the other...

Lenny

P.S. In the meantime, let's be nicer to each other. Not pointing at anyone, but at all of us... We all know something, we can all be wrong about something we always thought was right... we can all come to a wrong conclusion about something we see.

[sanking]

I understand that I have no business making my case unless I can prove it properly. Next set of shots I do I'll do a proper comparison and see if I can't put it together in a way that actually makes sense, one way or the other...

Lenny

Good point. Some of us do remember when you were bad mouthing TMY and other T grain films as inferior to traditional emulsion films when in fact you had never thoroughly compared them. Fast forward a few years and lo and behold you have decided that the two best films for your work at Delta 100 and TMY-2, both T grain emulsion films.

Some of us also remember that you were on the LF forum trashing Eversmart scanners, when in fact your opinions were based not on personal comparison but on comparison made by folks at Aztek, who have a vested interest in trashing the competition.

Now, for what it is worth I do understand what drums scanners can do and in many cases they are essential to get the most out of a negative or transparency. However, in the end the scanner is one of several tools that enter into the work flow of someone who develops film to scan, and there is a point at which it does not make one bit of difference what kind of scanner you use because the other links in the chain are more important to final image quality than the scan itself. You can compare the most expensive modern Schneider SSXL lens in the world with a 19th century rapid rectilinear on your 8X10, but if the wind is blowing the camera around like mad and you shoot at a very slow shutter speed you will get a big blur with both lenses.

Sandy

[Lenny Eiger]

Good point. Some of us do remember when you were bad mouthing TMY and other T grain films as inferior to traditional emulsion films when in fact you had never thoroughly compared them.

Sandy, this is unfair. First of all, it's old history. Second I went through a very large number of boxes of film, tested tons of developers, even made up some of my own, talked to Bill Wilson, Gordon Hutchins and Steve Anchell, all of whom told me what I eventually repeated, before I finally found the problem. I have also been very clear that I was wrong about that.

Since then, I have been very careful to qualify what I say, using words like "I think" this is the way it is vs "I know" or this works for me and suggesting people do their own testing.

Some of us also remember that you were on the LF forum trashing Eversmart scanners, when in fact your opinions were based not on personal comparison but on comparison made by folks at Aztek, who have a vested interest in trashing the competition.

This is not true, either. I have an associate locally who has an Eversmart who made a scan for me that was quite unacceptable. I also have good reason to believe what Phil Lippincott told me. Every time he said something I thought was outrageous I would go away and test it out and behold, he was right. When Phil met me he took a liking to me, he treated me like another son. He appreciated my work, and there are two of my prints hanging up at the Aztek office. I had already bought my scanner and he taught me how to use it, explained many of the technical intricacies. He had no reason to lie to me.

While I might chalk up the Eversmart scan I received up to a lack of operator expertise, there is a huge difference between a CCD and a PMT. That's physics. The differences between Aztek's independent analysis of the Eversmart and what some people want to suggest about it is not small. It was a reasonable conclusion. I have not had the opportunity to see something great from an Eversmart as yet. However, I have seen things that surprised me from just about every scanner.

We could look into your lab, and every single person here, and we could find places where you are absolutely sure of something, which is incorrect. None of us has all the answers. That's life.

You say "Good point" like it was going to be polite, but then it isn't. We already had this conversation on the telephone, and if you recall I expressed remorse at having expressed the opinions about the film. If you want to tell someone that their behavior is less than perfect (especially someone you have direct access to) it is not very nice to do so in a public forum. Its an unnecessary, direct and public attack on someone's character. In our phone conversations, I offered you my friendship and I invited you to my home. Maybe you feel good taking putting someone else down in public. But it doesn't feel good over here. It feels like I've lost a friend, maybe one I never had.

Everyone should always make up their own mind. I don't want anyone to "follow" me - or agree with me - about anything. Except that maybe civility is a better way to do this.


Lenny

[onnect17]

I hope I can help the conversation with my opinion.
The level of noise in the howtek is a lot higher than the Epson. Period. The perception of better details in the shadows is only because this devices features a two path stage amplifier before the A/D conversion: linear and logarithm. Add to the equation the small apperture used for a decent focus and the amount of photons reaching the PMTs is minimal.

Regarding the F/64 resolution I agree with Sandy. Based on my numbers, the wall in optical resolution in this case (assuming 580nm yellow) is the equivalent to around 561 dpi. You can scan the negatives at a million dpi if you want, still the information is not there. Check the "size of smallest object that the lens can resolve" paragragraph in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleig...on#Explanation

1.22 * 0.00000058 * 64 = 0.00004529
To dpi --> 25.4mm / 0.000045.29 = 561

[sanking]

Lenny,

All I can say is that if you felt so strongly about this why did you not just pick up the phone and tell me off privately instead of making me look like sh&t in public.

I don't have any more words for this. It is late and I must let it go, otherwise I will brood about it for hours.

Sandy

[Peter De Smidt]

Recently, I've been scanning some of my old 35mm film with my Cezanne scanner. Some if it is on Kodak HIE film, which was very grainy film. I did comparison scans at 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000 dpi. I sincerely doubt that any of the scans left out scene detail, since the film's grain was so coarse, and I doubted that there would be any benefit with the higher res scans, but there was! As the res got higher, the grain became much less obtrusive, and the 6000 dpi scan was clearly the best. (The Seybold report claimed the Cezanne's real resolution topped out near 6000 dpi.) I've since had another experienced Cezanne user verify this result. Thus in this case the resolution of the taking lens/film/processing combination did not determine the best scanning resolution, and I expect that a superior scanner, such as the one Lenny uses, might've produced an even better file, even with the low res film.

[Kirk Gittings]

The level of noise in the howtek is a lot higher than the Epson. Period.

If I understand your point. I think my experience is the exact oposite. Not that I have ever operated a Howtek, but with the scans I have had made-the Howtek has dramatically less noise than the Epson. Even with the multipass noise reducing thing-a-ma-jig in Silverfast. The noise in the shadows of epson b&w scans are significant compared to the Howtek where noise seems non-existent. What am I missing here? What am I not understanding?

[onnect17]

Kirk,
As Sandy said, a lot depends how familiar with the hardware and software the person doing the scan is. The more familiar the operator gets with the features and shortcomings of the system the better.

The amount of energy reaching the sensor in the CCD based scanners like the Epson is a lot higher than the PMTs in the drum scanners so the analog noise is lower. That means scanning a single step of density let say 2.0 will show more noise in the drum compared to the CCD.

The typical flatbed CCD scanner will have a fixed logarithm applied to the output with 0.5 to 0.6 density allocated to the center of the histogram. So as you can imagine densities in the 3.0 order are being compressed at the end and in most cases this is done by the manufaturer using software in the driver to cut costs.

Now, in the typical drum scanner each color channel has his own circuit capable of calibrate max and min density, gamma, etc. in the analog stage, before the conversion to digital, and is expesive. In fact you can set the configuration to run a calibration at the begining of every scan.

Some old but high end CCD scanners like the LeafScan 45 were built with optics and hardware way better that any Imacon, just slower.

In short words. The noise you see in the Epson is probably related to digital manipulation vs the most likely analog nature in the drum scanners.