Nikon Coolscan IV vs 24 Nikon DSLR

The Coolscan cultists can only carry on till their units need parts and/or service--then what?

Yes. In the meantime, we have, however, finished the big job of scanning thousands of slides and negatives.

All that is left is the occasional roll of film (what is the role of film, I wonder?) that we shoot in our beloved old film classic cameras. For those, we can use the Honeywell Universal Repronar or some such.

I've never been a "cultist" before. It's really quite exciting.

I've never been a "cultist" before. It's really quite exciting.

....until you try to leave!:eek:

"2. A top-quality, 6 element enlarging lens - Rodagon, Componon-S, El-Nikkor, Minolta CE, Neonon, etc. - is the most cost-effective way to get a suitably flat-field copying lens."

Yes, I have an 80mm Schneider-Companon enlarging lens, as well as a 50mm El-Nikkor, and I have adapters that fit them to a Canon bellows that in turn fits to a Nikon F-mount. They make no difference when copying my negatives, because they make no difference when enlarging the same negatives in a darkroom. The limitation isn't the lens' flat-field rendering; it's the film flatness, as you point out.

When enlarging 35mm negatives in a darkroom, achieving equal sharpness across the whole field is equally difficult. Normally I aim my grain focuser about one-third away from center to achieve approximately uniform sharpness across the whole print. And I do get sharp grain in the center and corners unless the negative is badly warped. But I stop down to f/8 or f/11 to ensure it. (And also to give me time to burn and dodge with consistency from print to print; I prefer exposures in the 30-45 second range.) When the subject matter is centered in the frame and I don't care so much about the corners, I'll aim the grain focuser at the center. Basically I do the same when focusing my DSLR on the negative or when focusing my Nikon CoolScan.

Could I achieve better film flatness with a better holder? The metal "frying pan" film holder of my Beseler 23C enlarger is already pretty good. The Nikon ES-2 film holder for my DSLR is about the same. I don't have room for the elaborate copying rigs I see here, and I have little to gain by using them. My inkjet prints are as sharp as my darkroom prints from the same negatives. The film grain is sharp, and the grain is the picture.

I'm not making poster-size prints from pristine film. Mainly I'm rescuing old negatives (and slides). My greater problems are badly faded colors, scratches, embedded dust, torn film, discoloration on b&w film, vinegar syndrome, fungus rot, and even film emulsion that's separating from the base. The tiny tiny difference of diffraction sharpness between f/5.6 and f/11 is the least of my worries.

My guess is that most people who are using a DSLR to "scan" film don't have the room, skills, or inclination to build elaborate copy stands using the best possible equipment. They want a simpler solution that's 99% as good. It doesn't get much simpler than a DSLR, macro lens, and Nikon ES-2 film holder (that isn't limited to Nikon cameras and lenses). It's fast, it's easy, and it solves the problem of aligning the lens to the film (because it's all one unit). And it's a viable alternative to a dedicated 35mm film scanner.

"2. A top-quality, 6 element enlarging lens - Rodagon, Componon-S, El-Nikkor, Minolta CE, Neonon, etc. - is the most cost-effective way to get a suitably flat-field copying lens."

 

Yes, I have an 80mm Schneider-Companon enlarging lens, as well as a 50mm El-Nikkor, and I have adapters that fit them to a Canon bellows that in turn fits to a Nikon F-mount. They make no difference when copying my negatives, because they make no difference when enlarging the same negatives in a darkroom. The limitation isn't the lens' flat-field rendering; it's the film flatness, as you point out.

 

When enlarging 35mm negatives in a darkroom, achieving equal sharpness across the whole field is equally difficult. Normally I aim my grain focuser about one-third away from center to achieve approximately uniform sharpness across the whole print. And I do get sharp grain in the center and corners unless the negative is badly warped. But I stop down to f/8 or f/11 to ensure it. (And also to give me time to burn and dodge with consistency from print to print; I prefer exposures in the 30-45 second range.) When the subject matter is centered in the frame and I don't care so much about the corners, I'll aim the grain focuser at the center. Basically I do the same when focusing my DSLR on the negative or when focusing my Nikon CoolScan.

 

Could I achieve better film flatness with a better holder? The metal "frying pan" film holder of my Beseler 23C enlarger is already pretty good. The Nikon ES-2 film holder for my DSLR is about the same. I don't have room for the elaborate copying rigs I see here, and I have little to gain by using them. My inkjet prints are as sharp as my darkroom prints from the same negatives. The film grain is sharp, and the grain is the picture.

 

I'm not making poster-size prints from pristine film. Mainly I'm rescuing old negatives (and slides). My greater problems are badly faded colors, scratches, embedded dust, torn film, discoloration on b&w film, vinegar syndrome, fungus rot, and even film emulsion that's separating from the base. The tiny tiny difference of diffraction sharpness between f/5.6 and f/11 is the least of my worries.

 

My guess is that most people who are using a DSLR to "scan" film don't have the room, skills, or inclination to build elaborate copy stands using the best possible equipment. They want a simpler solution that's 99% as good. It doesn't get much simpler than a DSLR, macro lens, and Nikon ES-2 film holder (that isn't limited to Nikon cameras and lenses). It's fast, it's easy, and it solves the problem of aligning the lens to the film (because it's all one unit). And it's a viable alternative to a dedicated 35mm film scanner.

Well haven’t had a lot if time but although once I saw equivalent sharpness with the micro 55.2.8 on my enlarger rig but after scanning a few rolls on the Coolscan IV it was consistently sharper. That was at f8.. I will do my next comparison at f11. This was done with the D7500 and magnified live view focusing. This was all done with Vuescan both on the NEF files and scanning. I’m finding Vuescan doing nef conversions the match quite well to the nice scans which us a huge boon. Sharpening was turned off when scanning the negs. Dust filter on light. Workflow so far much faster with scanner if neg conversion and dust cleaning factored in. Only about a minute per frame. I do a low rez preview and autofocus just at scantime. I have the strip loader so minimal film handling. With camera scanning my film holders are very good belonging to a Minolta Multi Pro which I have and is higher res and probably sharper than the 2900 dpi Nikon scanner.

I finding some interesting exposure related issues when scanning in the nef files in Vuescan if anyone is interested or experienced in using Vuescan for neg conversion.

Hacks galore for DSLR scanning. Scanner technology is stagnant and likely to stay that way. The Coolscan cultists can only carry on till their units need parts and/or service--then what? Happy to scan 120 b&w negs with a Nikon D7200+Micro Nikkor 40/2.8g. Like the look. Digital for color. No need for Lego-like Kickstarter neg holders. Get an old copy stand and do DIY neg holders instead. Speed and the ability to focus are undeniable advantages over affordable civilian-grade scanners. YMMV, as usual.

Cultists? No, I still use my CS 9000 because I'm scanning my late father's slides and negatives. The IR dust removal saves a lot of spotting time. So snap away with your DSLR if you have spotless film. Life for many other people is a bit more complicated.

Newindustar: "Well haven’t had a lot if time but although once I saw equivalent sharpness with the micro 55.2.8 on my enlarger rig but after scanning a few rolls on the Coolscan IV it was consistently sharper."

I made a similar comparison: CoolScan V-ED versus Nikon D7200 + Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 Macro + Nikon ES-2 film holder. At first glance, the scans looked a little sharper than the DSLR dupes, but a closer look revealed it was deceptive, in my case. The scans looked sharper because local contrast is higher. The CoolScan may have a collimated light source, whereas the ES-2 holder illuminates the negative or slide by diffuse backlight. The difference is like prints made with a condenser enlarger versus a diffusion enlarger. (I have always preferred diffusion enlargers.)

I can match the slighter higher "sharpness" and local contrast of the scans simply by using Photoshop's unsharp-mask filter with a wide-area setting (Radius 50, Amount 20%, 0 Threshold) on the DSLR dupes. But this filter may also blow out some highlight detail if the histogram has no headroom.

In another similarity with condenser versus diffusion enlargers, the CoolScan emphasizes dust and scratches, whereas the DSLR minimizes them.

C_Watson: "Cultists? No, I still use my CS 9000 because I'm scanning my late father's slides and negatives. The IR dust removal saves a lot of spotting time. So snap away with your DSLR if you have spotless film. Life for many other people is a bit more complicated."

Yes, I agree. I use the DSLR to copy silver-based b&w negatives, which the infrared dust-removal can't fix. I always use the CoolScan for color negatives because the dust removal works and because it's much better at removing the orange mask and correcting the colors. I use the CoolScan on dirty slides. Clean slides are much faster to copy with the DSLR. Different tools for different jobs.

To prove that my digital copies of b&w negatives are sharper at f/11 than at the lens' nominal optimum aperture of f/5.6, I made the following photos. My purpose is to encourage people to test their own equipment and working methods to find their best solution instead of blindly following advice that copies are always sharper at f/5.6 or thereabouts.

 

Snip

 

Aiming the DSLR focus point at a different spot on the negative would show slightly different results, but some spots would always be much less sharp than others when shooting at f/5.6 or even f/8. I conducted many experiments to verify that f/11 is the optimum aperture for my equipment. At f/16 (not shown here), the corners sharpen a little more, but the center crop definitely looks softer. The diffraction falloff from f/11 to f/16 is significant with this lens.

 

Let me add that I've never seen a sharper result at f/5.6 or f/8 than at f/11, no matter where I aim the focus point. The diffraction falloff from f/5.6 to f/11 with this lens is invisible at 24 megapixels, and the film grain is as sharp as I need it to be. Maybe the difference would be visible at a higher digital resolution (e.g., 48 megapixels). But I think it would be overkill, especially for Tri-X and other old films.

 

I get similar results when digitizing negatives with a Nikon CoolScan V-ED dedicated 35mm film scanner. Sometimes it can't achieve equally sharp focus across the whole negative. In those cases I aim the focus point at the most important part of the picture. I can do the same when copying negatives (or slides) with my DSLR.

 

Conclusion: test your own equipment before gluing your aperture ring at f/5.6! Lenses allow smaller apertures for good reasons.

 

Snip

 

To my eyes an on my monitor, 5.6 corner is clearly sharper than the other 2 crops. 5.6 center seems to have less noise, and seems to resolve better detail resolution of the fabric of the jacket.

To my eyes an on my monitor, 5.6 corner is clearly sharper than the other 2 crops. 5.6 center seems to have less noise, and seems to resolve better detail resolution of the fabric of the jacket.

Really? Look again. The f/5.6 corner shows no film grain at all, because it's out of focus. The grain just becomes visible at f/8 and is apparent at f/11.

At f/5.6 center, I think what you perceive as less noise is actually less-distinct film grain. The jacket fabric doesn't look much different to me.

I'm judging sharpness by the film grain, because the grains are the "atoms" of the image, so to speak. When the grain is sharp, the picture is sharp. It's exactly like using a grain magnifier to focus an enlarger in a darkroom.