Canon 1D MkIII vs. Nikon Coolscan as a scanner

[www.wesleyalmond.com]

Today I received a very interested phone call from a customer.

 

He was trying to duplicate his 35mm slide collection via a Canon The Mach III (I

think?) and a macro lens,

 

 

He told me over the phone that he placed the slides on a light box (true light

source unknown?) and with a tripod he hovered the camera over the slide and

photographed them.

 

 

I told him this was the worst idea I had heard of. And that a simple negative

scanner (flatbed or drum) would improve his image quality and speed.

 

 

He chuckled and said he owned a Nikon coolscan (rich guy) and didn't like the

results calling it obsolete and that his camera had a better d max..

 

 

Now before I go thinking he's completely wrong and has more money than

intelligences,,, please I want to hear everyones opinion on this matter.

 

 

..-Wes

[ellis_vener_photography]

in terms of quality a slow and careful workflow with a film scanner wil l yield better results, but slow is the operative adjective.

[denisgermain]

not the first person I've heard doing this...

[fourfa]

I think you might be surprised at the quality of results from a top quality DSLR, top quality macro lens, and a duplicating rig, definitely good enough for most uses. It may indeed be better than some older Coolscan models. Definitely faster and perhaps simpler to profile. Won't be as good as the original slide, but neither are the files from my Coolscan V.

 

I'd assume the camera is the new 1D Mark III.

[fourfa]

PS I strongly doubt that a simple flatbed scanner would be better for 35mm slides. Drum scan, definitely. Given the cost (free) and time (extremely quick, both to shoot and PP) it's definitely worth considering in some situations

[www.wesleyalmond.com]

No he's NOT using a duplicating rig. IF he was using this I wouldn't be giving him a hard time by doubting his intelligence.

 

From what I understand he was using a tripod and basically pointing it at the slide on the light box, which in my opinion the sensor and slide film would never be parallel with this method. Thus causing under par images, also vibration from the shutter firing would cause issues

[fourfa]

PPS - I dearly wish I could get the depth of focus from my Coolscan V that you can get from an SLR macro lens at its peak aperture. curved film is a problem with cheap desktop scanners.

[fourfa]

shutter vibration is a problem on a tripod? since when?

 

Let's assume you meant shutter vibration, not mirror slap since this camera is equipped with mirror lock-up

[roger_smith4]

I think he'll have fun dealing with dust on the slide (digital cameras don't have "ICE"), focus/alignment issues, and possibly uneven illumination. If he knows how to use a recent Coolscan it should scan with essentially no noise and is quite sharp.

[ferensen]

"Slide duplicator" attachments for 35mm cameras have been available for years. Maybe one could be made to work on a DSLR. An Ebay search indicates there is still a market for them.

[Ed_Ingold]

The Canon 1dMkIII would be much faster copying slides than a Nikon LS-4000 would scanning them (4 to 6 minutes/slide). Where you would fall down is in resolution. The Nikon files would be about 4000x6000 pixels (24 MP), compared to about 2592x3888 for the 10 MP Canon.

 

Since film is not perfect (don't say this in a film forum), the actual resolution is less than that of the film, the camera, scanner or lens by itself. The lower the resolution of one component, the greater the impact on the results, so the camera would get a double whammy.

[david_lau3]

My LS-4000 takes less than 1 min for a full scan if I don't turn on ICE. If you talk about the total time to scan a batch of frames, the LS-4000 may be even faster than using DSLR. LS-4000 has auto loading capability, but for DSLR and light table you need to re-position, re-focus etc for each frame.

 

I agree the major difference is no ICE for DSLR. Unless you don't care, the time spent on re-touching will make the DSLR method useless.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"My LS-4000 takes less than 1 min for a full scan if I don't turn on ICE. "

 

I can dupe a slide in under 10 seconds using a camera and a light table. No ICE of course. A cable release would take care of mirror vibrations and a two way level would take care of parallel issues. The results are good enough for a web gallery and basic archiving. And even using a Canon EOS1Ds mark 2 the raw file is about 20mb as opposed to a 110mb 16 bit per channel TIFF from a Nikon LS Coolscan 5000. I can also use this rig to dupe medium and large format film as well.

[miklosphoto]

When I first started using the NIKON coolscans I was really frustrated with the results I was getting. After almost two years of scanning I can say it that there is a steep learning curve to master the right scanning technique. I have never tried to photograph slides but I can say that with a properly profiled Coolscan (using the IT8 targets for the equivalent slide film) you will get scans which are a match to any DSLR. Oh, and I am talking about 35mm slides. Now try the same with medium format slides and you will be blown away. I think what the majority of people don't realize is that you first must learn what you are trying to do.

There are so many things you can do with the Coolscan.

Miklos