Pere: the question you have to answer is very simple. Have you ever scanned anything other than 135 colour transparency on a Flextight type of scanner?
That is the question you need to answer honestly. It will cause you a great deal less grief if you do, as painful as you might find it.
Interneg, I don't own an X5 like you, but I've been sitting at the side of the X5 operator and owner to make the 135 and MF scans that later will end in remarkable exhibitions. In some of those sittings I brought my 4x5 sheets and I tested with operator and compared.Originally Posted by interneg
That X5 operator is an extraordinary X5 and Ps operator, extraordinary in the artistic criterion, in the technical skills and in the honesty. He rated with a USAF 1951 target his X5 and he found between 1700 and 1800 effective, depending on the pass. I've personally seen those tests.
As you may know each single pass may vary a bit the rating depending on the particular alignment of the strips with the pixels. I gave them ADOX CMS 20 4x5 sheets/rolls and to make contact copies of the USAF glass slide on hires film to make the tests, and I discussed with them the results.
So look, you are speaking with somebody that's pretty well informed about what an X5 does. An extraordinary machine that I love for 35mm, but that I find it's not worth for 4x5" BW.
This is a LF forum, most people shot BW, and I think it's nice to report what scanners really do with sheets. Beacuse of that the Collaborative test it's really useful.
Probably you have not rated your hassie because of lacking a 45 target, the way to make one, I inform you, is making contact copies of the USAF 1951 glass slide on CMS 20 film. If you are interested I'll explain you how to make a good contact copy, it's not that difficult.
I have one of Edmund's high resolution versions of the USAF 1951 chrome on glass test targets. It's useful, but by no means the be-all and end-all of scanner performance. So Pere has sat next to a scanner operator....compare that to people who have used the devices under discussion for years....I don't have any X5 experience, and so I don't make claims about it.
“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
Here's the same negative, scanned side by side. first one is an Epson V700 and 2nd one is Imacon Flextight X5. Both at 2000. Pere, do you like apples?
Attachment 192572Attachment 192575Attachment 192573
Pere: because you didn't operate the Flextight, there are critical details that you (and by the sounds of it, the operator) missed. The biggest one is that if you allow Flexcolor to do the inversion, it can subtly but noticeably reduce sharpness & resolution - quite possibly by the amount you describe (which is an extremely minor amount of variance between two very small elements on a target that is already going to be an imperfect copy). If you get an un-inverted .tif file (or force convert a .fff) & do the mask correction, inversion etc in Photoshop, you will get a nasty shock at just how much Flexcolor mangles the sensor output when it's allowed to do the inversion. The number of times I've been sent seemingly soft files with awkward crossed curves & weird saturations from Flexcolor scans is never ending, yet if they were scanned in 3F, or I have the original negative, a fresh un-inverted scan or converting the 3F to tif (literally delete .fff, type .tif on the file name in the folder) and taking it to Photoshop as a positive gets amazingly different results - razor sharp, colours go logically & quickly to where they are supposed to be etc, much less noise too. In other words, it largely matches the other high end scanners that use the same sensor, albeit in xy form, in terms of colour/ resolution. In terms of colour rendering, sharpness, my results line up with the results possible from similar sensors in Pali's tests.
For the record, every test I have done essentially matches Chester's in terms of outright resolution and contrast transfer. I've prepared a number of side by sides of 2040 origination on the X5 and 2400 downsampled to 2040 on the Epson & the results do not look good for the Epson, even after the harsh sharpening you claim makes them match (which it doesn't, it just enhances already unpleasant noise).
Peter, what you make is claims about lies. https://www.largeformatphotography.i...=1#post1505192
You are in my ignore list, I'm not to debate with you, I only had to answer one of your your slanders and that's all.
Chester, this is flawed side by side.
> this looks 35mm film, at least the aspect matches exactly 3:2. Here we talk about 4x5", were the X5 loses 75% of the linear performance while the V700 holds the same.
> in 35mm, even if you scan 2000dpi the X5 takes advantage of the crazy good 6900dpi effective because of the optic zoom and digital processing.
> With 35mm film the X5 is way, way superior to the V700, no doubt: 6900 vs 2500. For 4x5 the X5 drops to 1725 (zoom out) while the EPSON retains 2500 because the lens is fixed.
> The EPSON requires to scan at higher dpi and then downsampling, a the right edition.
Your test was cooked to discredit the EPSON, while it's true that the X5 is extraordinary for 35mm it's close to the EPSON for MF, and inferior to the EPSON for LF.
This is apples: a honest side by side test for MF, where the EPSON is still slightly inferior.
https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/160...s-500-scanner/
Probably you made flawed tests with the EPSON, it's not that easy to obtain optimal results with the EPSON than with an X5.
The EPSON is semi-pro gear, the X5 is pro gear and you have the flextight. With the EPSON you should ensure film flatness and distance and scanning 3200 or 4000 to end in 2500 effective.
Please, just answer me a question:
How it can be that if you download the crops in the Collaborative test you obtain those close matches with the EPSON after the right edition?
It doesn't matter what format the negative was, as long as it was scanned at 2040ppi. Answer Chester's substantive question (which he backed up with clear evidence) with scans that you have made on an X5 or other Imacon. Otherwise you're just spamming desperately.
Secondly, let's see that whole image after that ugly sharpening then? I see crassly oversharpened, yet fundamentally poor resolving Epson V7/8/9xx scans on a daily basis. It's a high contrast part of the original, so of course it's going to even things out slightly in terms of visual acuity. Let's see a low contrast area from a scan you've made & see how that stacks up? Should not take you long to scan a fresh 4x5 for us, should it?
Please omit this kind of wording and go to technical reasoning, I'm not going to personal attack, but you'll find me and then I'll force you into technical contradictions that will discredit you.
It matters a lot !!! because for 35mm the X5 delivers a 2000dpi that's downsampled (with smart digital processing) from crazy good 6900dpi effective, so the "modulation transfer" of detail is crazy good, while the EPSON works closer to extintion.
By 4x5" the X5 has lost that advantage because its contrast extintion is at 1725 dpi, and not at 6900. ...while the EPSON keeps exactly the same performance than with 35mm.
Format matters, this is seen in the Petapixel test, while the X5 is crazy better in 35mm it's almost equal by 6x6cm, and inferior for 4x5. We can discuss why.
You can do it on your own, problem is not in the low contrast areas, but in the low contrast areas of high density. Solution is multi-exposure feature, that yields perfectly clean dense areas.
My guess is that X5 obtains multi-exposure performance in a single pass form two possible factors: probable larger pixels, and probable multi-exposure before the scanner advances a row, while the epson makes two passes.
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Please answer the question in post #78, not answered
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No doubt that the X5 is very pro gear: it has the flextight, it does not deliver unnecessary pixels, it digitally optimizes the image very well, crazy good DMax in a single pass...
But the cheap Epson also has very strong points, in special for LF. A 5x7 (or 8x10) Epson scan delivers an absolutely pro result, with very acceptable 4x5 jobs that are better than those from an X5 if not crazy high densities there.
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