Which of cheaper scanners scans velvia the best ?

[katherinea]

Which of cheaper scanners, either new or used, scans velvia the best ? I've had a bulk scan

done before from Velvia at a professional lab on some Sony scanner and the scans were

horrible. They were overexposed, some colors were there in some scans that weren't in the

originals (quite dramatically), and often the colors looked like they were painted with

enamel with almost none of the original detail. I'd like to buy a scanner that is particularly

good for velvia.

[nick_evans1]

Hi

 

It depends on how 'cheap' you want a scanner.

 

Most flatbed scanners will struggle to give you good sharp image from 35mm colours should be ok but you will have to experiment to get the best result. Of the flatbeds Epson seem to be the ones that get good reviews so that could be a good starting point.

 

Dedicated film scanners will do a better job, worth looking at the second hand market. I use a Nikon Coolscan IV (about 4-5 years old) and does Velvia ok, but I find Velvia tricky to scan as it is quite contrasty and it blocks the shadows up like mad.

 

I would think that you could pick a dedicated film scanner, which scans at 2900dpi for about ﾣ200 second hand, maybe some else could confirm that.

 

HTH

 

Nick

[Ray House]

I use a Minolta Dual Scan III which works very well with Velvia. To help overcome the shadows from blocking up I shoot Velvia 50 at ISO 40. If you can afford it, I would suggest the Nikon coolscan V.

[johnclinch]

I have suceeded scanning velviaith my minolta 5400, infact I have had some great results, but its been alot of work

 

I can now work fairly quickly using a custom scanner profile I got free from ethervision http://www.ethervizion.com/lost_found/

[katherinea]

Are there any scanners that have custom profiles for velvia built into the scanner's basic

software ?

[Ed_Ingold]

You don't need a custom profile with reversal film. With one profile, "what you see is what you get" (with the possible exception of Kodachrome, which has a lacquer coating).

 

You can use an inexpensive flatbed scanner, but don't expect great results. The Epson 4990 is one of the best, but only gives about 1500 ppi resolution (forget the marketing claims), which is marginal for 35mm. A dedicated film scanner like a Nikon LS-4000/5000 gives about 3600 ppi (nominal 4000 ppi). K-M is out of the photography business, but you can still get their 5400 ppi scanners until stock runs out. Nikon scanners are still better, IMO.

 

Because of the high contrast and high DMax (maximum density), you need to turn down any automatic compensation and scan at 16 bit depth (14 bit rounded up). It also helps to use multi-pass scanning to pull a little more detail out the scanner noise in the shadows - 4x is usually enough. Multi-pass scanning only works well as a native function in certain Nikon scanners. In a flatbed, the entire image is rescanned from top to bottom, and registration errors reduce sharpness (which isn't all that good to begin with).

[micheleberti]

Velvia is probably the most difficult film to scan even with expensive scanners. In any case I have good results with a coolscan 5000 ed which is not probably the cheaper one ...

[custom film holders for fl]

If you obtain a scanner that can make use of profiling targets, you can order an inexpensive profiling target for Velvia from Wolf Faust:

<p>

<a href="http://www.targets.coloraid.de/">http://www.targets.coloraid.de/</a>

<p>

I have read many posts from people who have been satisfied with his product.

<p> Doug<p>

<a href="http://www.betterscanning.com">New holder designs for Epson, Agfa and Microtek</a>

[johnclinch]

I have to say that I haven't needed a custom profile for kodachrome, but have had problems with velvia

 

you may find this thread useful

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EqNz&tag=

 

I post picture of the same slide with different profiles

 

the first greener one has a velvia profile applied

[katherinea]

Does anyone know if nikon coolscan V with vuescan multi-passes would work as well as

coolscan 4000 with it's native multi-passes ? Thanks everyone for the responses so far;

and lovely colors in the pictures John!

[johnclinch]

I'm far from an expert on these scanners but I think not

 

In native multi sampling the slide is fixed while multiple images are made of the same part of the slide

 

each pass covers an identical area

 

in vuescan you simply get the average of a number of scans, which are less well alligned

 

apparently the allignement is crucial to noise cancelling

 

this my memory of what others have said

[ilkka_nissila]

Many slide film types do require different profiles as they have different dye spectra. E.g. Velvia is quite different from Ektachrome. This is easy to see if you make a profile for both.

 

IMO it's not technically possible to create a good generic profile.

[katherinea]

Thanks to all for being so helpful.