celerystalksme Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Has anyone run across a review of the Canon Canoscan 9950F? I can't seem to find a review anywhere! And I've really been looking! After going back and forth on it for a while, I've decided that I want a flatbed, mostly due to my medium format negs. And it comes down to the Epson 4870 and the Canon Canoscan 9950F. The 9950F sounds very impressive, but I gotta get some first hand impressions of the Canoscan before I buy either one. So, if anyone can point me in the right direction, that'd be GREAT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin_barnes Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Vincent Oliver is promising to do the first "in depth" review of the 9950F which he will publish on his website. Have a look at the latter - www.photo-i.co.uk. Scroll down the first page and click on the picture of the 9950F. Interestingly he says that Canon are discontinuing their FS4000 35mm film scanner because they claim that the 9950F gives comparable quality to a dedicated film scanner. Great news if independent tests confirm this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mag_miksch Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 I think the Canon isnt in the shops untill now, so wait a little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinwen Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 I cannot about the Canon of course, but I am using the Epson 4870. I bought it for my 4x5 and 6x9 /6x6 chromes and neg. I had a problem with it, nothing of a neg was scanned, so Epson changed the film module. With the new I had somme dust inside giving a long stripe in the middle of the scans. It went for a second servicing, at that time it was a bit too much for me, I thought of getting rid of it. Now it works perfectly and produce excellent scans, A2 prints from a 6x6 neg are just sharper than any silver print I ever made in my lab. Now, don't expect anything from a 35mm neg, I have a coolscan V for that. And besides that I do photocopies with it for my personnal documents. The start has been difficult, due to my legendary lack of luck but now I am happy with it.....until I find a faster, sharper, cheaper, stronger, lighter....one :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack paradise Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 The Epson 4870's real effective resolution is in the 1600-1700 dpi. The rest is just interpolation. Nothing much to brag about, except that is does better than the 1200 effective dpi of the Epson 3200. Epson will release two new scanners: the Epson F3200 and the Epson GT-X800 which will replace the Epson 4870. And in the mean time,Canon's new scanner, the 9950F should be available in about a week. My only hope for these three new scanners is that we see a real improvement in the effective resolution. It's about time. I'm hoping for at least 2400 effective dpi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
celerystalksme Posted October 7, 2004 Author Share Posted October 7, 2004 Hmmm... I'd really hate to have sucky 35mm scans. Are these flatbeds really THAT bad for 35mm? Will I find myself so unhappy that I'll have to get a separate film scanner for 35mm negs? I was hoping that the Canoscan 9950F or the Epson 4870 (or its successor) would be able to do both medium format AND 35mm....with equal aplomb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack paradise Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 "I was hoping that the Canoscan 9950F or the Epson 4870 (or its successor) would be able to do both medium format AND 35mm....with equal aplomb." We'll soon find out, although I think that mf will do better because of its larger negative size. Anyway, Canon is discontinuing the Canon 4000 35mm film scanner and stating that the 9950F flatbed scanner is replacing it. Vincent Oliver of http://www.photo-i.co.uk/ should be reviewing the 9950F as soon as he gets one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
celerystalksme Posted October 7, 2004 Author Share Posted October 7, 2004 Jack, The guy at that site...his review of the Epson 4870 is glowing. He compares it quite favorably to some pretty decent film scanners...in his estimation, the 4870 is superior to the Nikon LS1000. And while it fell short against the professional Flextight Precision 2 and the Nikon LS4000, it still compared well to them. Yet, photo.net members and other folk do not seem think that the 4870 is good at all for 35mm. From what I have read and the responses I have gotten, even a $250 Dual Scan IV will produce better images from 35mm negs than the 4870. So...I'm not sure how to take his reviews. Based on his reviews alone, I'd go and get the 4870 right now...cuz it's almost as good as film scanners costing a LOT more. But his view of the flatbeds like the 4870 is in stark contrast to what I've read around here, where people seem to think the 4870 just can't cut it for 35mm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard abrahamsson Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Trying to post my comparison between my Minolta Dimage Scan Elite II 35 mm filmscanner with 2820pixels/inch and the Epson 4870. Here comes first the dedicaten filmscanner (a model a few years old):<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard abrahamsson Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 And here is the same crop from a Epson 4870 scan at 4800pixels/inch down scaled to the same size/resolution as the dedicated filmscanner.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard abrahamsson Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 None of the images above has any unsharp mask applied, neither in scanner software nor in postprocessing (only color adjustments made). Both scans were made with emulsion towards the CCD for highest possible sharpness (for Epson this means that I had to mirror the image to get it right). (note that images in the review of Dough Fischer's 120-film holder at www.photo-i.co.uk suggests improved sharpness over the holder supplied by epson, I have not been able to reproduce that sharpness improvement)<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard abrahamsson Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Ooops, forgot to downsize that one properly. What I am trying to say is: Do not expect to get dedicated film scanner compareable sharpness from a flatbed scanner. The talk about 9950F replacing Canon FS4000 because of superior resolution/sharpness with 35mm film sounds like salesman talk to me. For mediumformat scanning and larger Epson 4800 is well spent money, it is also usefull for scanning 35mm for web use, but quite a bit from filmscanner sharpness IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
celerystalksme Posted October 8, 2004 Author Share Posted October 8, 2004 interesting...the film scanner is clearly better. it's not even close, in my estimation. but www.photo-i.co.uk thinks the 4870 is close to or better than some film scanners... the reviewer at photo-i...i don't think i can trust him on his review of the 9950F. the only conclusions that one could trust from his are conclusions based on comparisons between the 4870 and the 9950F...but if he continues to insist that the 4870 is almost as good or better than some film scanners, that statement obviously cannot be trusted... thanks for those scans! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ole_hjalmar_kristensen Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 On the other hand, have you tried to apply unsharp masking to both scans? The Epson scan should be able to tolerate more sharpening than the other, so perhaps the difference will not be so great. I seem to remember that the reviewer on photo-i apllied quite a bit of unsharp masking on the Epson scans before comparing with the dedicated film scanners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_milton2 Posted October 13, 2004 Share Posted October 13, 2004 http://www.nikmultimedia.com/welcome/windowsxp/NotHowItLooked.shtml somewhere in a photo.net thread i saw the comment that using the above software with the 4870 yielded results comparable to a dedicated 35mm film scanner. while i have found praise for the software elsewhere on the www, i have not found any additional info re how results might compare to a dedicated scanner (and i'm reluctant to just go by one opinion). it would be nice to be able to get great 35mm scan results from a flatbed since a flatbed is so versatile. but i'm starting to think that is not going to happen because the difference in quality has something to do with the physics of flatbed vs dedicated. at any rate, it will be interesting to read some reviews of the new canon but i'd also be a little skeptical of the opinion of the reviewer who likes the 4870 so much for 35mm since so many others disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter_olsson Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 The New York Times reviewer -of the Canoscan 9950- said the results were good enough to put on a refrigerator, but not any better than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick_vasilopoulos Posted November 5, 2004 Share Posted November 5, 2004 I picked up a Canon 9950f last week, used it for a few days scanning 6x6cm negs and then took it back and got an Epson 4870. I was Unimpressed. Let's face it, canon make fantastic digital camera's and lenses but poor scanners and scanner software. Don't believe the hype about the 9950f. Go straight for the epson 4870 if you want a scanner now, they've dropped the price too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_g Posted November 8, 2004 Share Posted November 8, 2004 Purely from the hype surrounding this scanner you'd expect it to give a Creo or a Lanovia a run for its money. I'll wait until I see the reviews but I can't help thinking there's too much hype surrounding it. A bit of a shame really since I'm looking for a replacement scanner and this seems to offer a huge advantage over dedicated 35mm scanners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeroen dommisse Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 That Photo-i review has been abandoned: http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Scanners/Canon_9950F/page_12.htm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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