adrian_sancho

Thanks for your replies.Strange, I couldn't find anything for neg or chrome, I just assumed it was chrome as I was looking at a scan I made of it some time back. I used to shoot with a Fuji GS645 back in the 90s, and I shot mostly chrome, although I did shoot some negs. Thanks for the info, much appreciated!

Hi folks, does anyone remember what film stock this is? I was looking at an old scan I have, and I can't remember what this is. I know it's transparency film, but a search around the 'net shows nothing. The shot was taken somewhere around the late 90s/early2000s. I believe it was a high speed stock, as I shot a lot of night photography at that time. It's either a 120 or 220 roll I shot in a Fuji GS645. Thanks for any info on this.

<p>Thanks for your replies. Yes, I believe the Scanhancer was what I was thinking about, although that is not what made me think about it in the first place. :-) I was really hoping my faint memory was referencing a third-party glass film strip carrier for the Dimage so I could get images in focus across the live area of a frame on film strips. Although it's impossible to do so with mounted slides unless you remount them (something I don't want to do because I want to preserve the slides in their original dated mounts), I was hoping to be able to set up a system that could maintain full flatness on film strips.</p>

<p>A while back I remember reading about glass options for the Minolta Dimage 5400 scanner. I can't remember if it was a glass carrier for the film itself, or a glass insert to help with imaging issues with the scanner. Is anyone familiar with this, and if so, what specifically was it? Thanks.</p>

<p>A problem I see with all modern scanners is that they are "pre-focused". This includes film scanners. Although they are relative focused, they won't perfectly focus. Also, none of the modern scanners bring glass carriers to be able to keep your film perfectly flat across the scanning plane. The only scanner I'm aware of that both can focus and had a glass carrier was the discontinued Nikon Supper Coolscan 9000, which goes for astronomical prices today on ebay.</p> <p>That said, you will probably get decent scans from the Plustek, it should certainly be better than anything you'll ever get from a flatbed, which is just garbage. I suggest if you're curious just order one on Amazon, and if it doesn't meet your standards, you can send it back.</p>

<p>Thanks for your reply. Well, I'll give some of your suggestions a try, most noticeably the floor. The room I'm in, one of two in my studio apartment, is the lesser of two evils dust-wise.<br> I'll look into the ICE program, as I'm on a Win 7 setup. Using collage or reposition in Photomerge, I still get funky skewed images sometimes. I also get some kooky arrangements like the ones I got with this 10-exposure 35mm test:<br /><img src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/vidrazor/collage_zpsf3f80400.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="758" /><br /><img src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/vidrazor/reposition_zpsdcb007e8.jpg" alt="" width="905" height="768" /><br />I'm not sure why the skewing or these kooky arrangements occur, but if I process two adjacent images at a time, I don't get image skewing. Sometimes I can merge 3 or 4 sequential horizontal image sequences.<br> As far as magnifications are concerned, I'm limited to what I can get using the lens hoods for distancing from the image area. I use this setup to ensure the sensor plane is parallel to the film, to ensure focus across the live area. I can't imagine any other way to do this, although I wish there was indeed an option. Inasmuch as I have been working with sacrificial images for my tests, I have already damaged them with the rim of the lens hoods, especially the older metal HS-1</p> <p>Although I haven't locked the mirror up, I do focus with live view at full mag, and I do tape the images down, as well as tape the focus ring to the lens barrel once I've reached focus. I can't imagine not doing so trying something like this. :-) I use the very thin Scotch Magic Tape to hold the film down, so height-wise I'm virtually on the film base.<br> <br />While I know the Coolscan is a gamble, there are really no other options out there. The problems with scanners like the Reflecta is they they are pre-focused, they have no ability to focus on the film plane like the Coolscan or my Minotlta DiMage 5400 35mm scanner. I have yet to see one of these devices actually properly focused as such. They can't. Ironically even high-end scanners come pre-focused! I used to work at an agency where we had a Heidelberg Tango photomultiplier tube drum scanner, and it was pre-focused! I could not believe it. Heidelberg relied on unsharp masking in post to compensate for the lack of focus. I was stunned (and angry) that the scanner could not be focused or have it's aperture set (it was also preset!). We're talking about a $50,000 scanner here. I finally convinced my company to get a Coolscan 9000 with a glass carrier, and not surprisingly the Nikon blew the Tango away. The Tango was then used only for 4x5 scans.</p> <p>So far I haven't seen the same advantage with 35mm as I have with medium format film using this multishot-stitching technique. Below is a 12274x8721 multishot scaled down to match the the 7661x5200 resolution of a full res scan on my Minotlta DiMage 5400 scanner. Neither image has been sharpened. Here you can clearly see the advantage of being able to focus on the film plane. The multishot oddly looks like it's out of focus, but I checked it multiple times. It was shot with a 55mm Micro Nikkor @ f/11 using a Nikon PN-11 52.5mm extension tube (the 1:1 tube for the 105mm Micro Nikkor) along with a 36mm Kenko extension tube for a total of 88.5mm extension, which puts the Nikkor around 2:1 or greater magnification (the Nikon PK-3 1:1 extension ring for the 55mm Micro is 27.5mm). Adding smart sharpen to the multishot would swing it closer, but again it was just so much more work. So for 35mm I'll stick to my DiMage.<br> <img src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/vidrazor/scan-pana_zpsf2e0704f.jpg" alt="" width="1019" height="764" /></p>

<p>Well, I finally got around to trying this, and so far it's been a bust. First was trying to rig up the macro so it could rest flat on the film to keep the image plane parallel. I finally was able to get a 55mm f/3.5 Ai Micro Nikkor with a 20mm Kenko extension ring, with a '60s Nikon HS-1 hood gaffered to a Modern Nikon HB-37 hood, which allowed me to get somewhere between 1:2 and 1:1 parallel.<br /><br />Once that was out of the way, dealing with dirt and lint was the next problem. Even with cleaning the film with film cleaner and wiping all surfaces with a Ilford Antistaticum cloth, dirt and lint was everywhere.<br /><br />Finally was the problem of stitching. Both PhotoShop and Hugin gave me distorted results. The only solution I could find was stitching two images at a time, using Photoshop's reposition setting (Hugin was useless, but I admittedly don't know it beyond it's wizard) out of 6 total images per 6x7 Velvia 100 transparency. This of course added time to the process.<br /><br />The end result, while it did look good, I felt still needed Smart Sharpen set at a 1 pixel radius at 100%. Other than the dirt and lint issue and the additional time needed to stitch correctly, it certainly looked good. The whole process strikes me as almost futile however, because it needs extensive time per image, especially cleaning all that dirt and lint.<br /><br />Here is the comparison from of this technique compared to a raw 2400 DPI Epson V500 scan and the V500 scan processed and sharpened with smart sharpened set agressively at 1 pixel @ 300% The multishot image has been scaled down to match the size of the V500 scan, and was sharpened in it's original size (you may need to click on the image to bring it to 100%).<br> <img src="http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/vidrazor/comparez_zps18a71da3.jpg" alt="" width="1021" height="754" /><br /><br />While the multishot image looks spectacular in comparison, it was a lot of work and is still dirty (although there is no dirt in the sample area shown). Frankly, I think I can get a scan of equal quality to the multishot from a Nikon Coolscan 9000 with it's glass carrier, and I'll have the luxury of automatic dirt and dust removal. <br /><br />The multishot technique, while it yields fantastic quality detail, is plagued with complications from maintaining focused parallel registration, stitching complications, the problem of dirt, and the time it takes to perform al the different stages. Scanning with a Coolscan 9000 using Vuescan allows me faster auto dust removal than Digital Ice and I can save the file to DNG to boot. The only complication there of course is the price and availability of Coolscan 9000s.<br /><br />So needless to say I'm disappointed with this, as I was crossing my fingers that it would be a viable option to having to save up, and hunting down, a 9000. I'm not going to give up on it entirely, but unless I can effectively minimize or eliminate the dirt issues and overcome the stitiching complications I think this is a bust for my needs. For 35mm and medium format film, I don't see a better alternative than the Coolscan 9000 with it's glass carrier. For those of you with larger format film I would say this is a viable option, but you may want take the above points into consideration.</p>

<p>"I find "invert" only in Photoshop, not Aperture or Camera Raw (I am not sure about Lightroom)."<br> Hi Glenn, if you have a curves option in Aperture, simply invert the white and black points and your image will be inverted. You only need to do this if you think you may get better tonal adjustment of the RAW data for a given image, otherwise it's simple enough to do it in Photoshop.</p>

<p>Hi Gianluca, I find your concept interesting, but I' a bit confused as to how you move the film with the rig you posted. Seems like moving the camera would be what you're doing. How do you move the film without scraping it against the camera? Do you need to re-focus for every exposure? Could you put a video up on YouTube showing your process? Thanks.</p>