Scan quality pn Nikon Coolscan 5000ED?

[dominik_lazarski]

Ok, how much noise should I be getting when scanning negatives? Here's what I

get from Fuji Pro 160 at 16x multi sampling. I think the amount of noise is

ridiculous but maybe I'm expecting too much. If any one has samples before post

processing, please post them so I can compare.

 

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1221/1131029409_5d69d7cdcb_o.jpg

 

Thanks!

[Stock-Photos]

Could you be confusing noise with grain aliasing?

 

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Grain.htm

 

Try scanning at a different res, up or down, and you may get a reduction in the artifacts.

[ilkka_nissila]

No point in using 16x multisampling on color negatives. Multisampling helps with noise in dense areas of the film but color negatives don't have these.

 

Those examples look like what one would expect. Pick your favorite GEM setting and start making prints.

[david_littleboy__tokyo__ja]

Here are more scan samples than you'll ever want to look at<g>.

 

http://www.terrapinphoto.com/jmdavis/

 

Thanks are due to Rafe B. for organizing and hosting this effort. It's really helpful.

[dominik_lazarski]

I don't think I'm confusing grain with noise. I see tons of green and purple pixels through out the images and when using GEM it leaves ugly artifacts. Even on web sized images I get an ugly color cast, usually most obvious on the skin.

 

Les Sarile, your images appear to have less noise then mine.

[roger_smith4]

What you are seeing is film grain as it looks nothing like scanner noise. If you saw scanner noise in color negatives (unlikely), you would see them in the highlights *not* the shadows. Remember negative shadows are almost transparent.

 

If you want less grain increase your exposure. Set a 100 speed film to ISO 50 or set exposure compensation to +1.

[dominik_lazarski]

Ok, now I see the similarity. I'm used to taking photos with a digital camera so that's why I thought it was noise. I guess my scanner isn't broken!

 

Roger,

Thanks for the tip. I'll try shooting my next roll +1 overexposed and see what I get. I ran the same negative through the scanner again but I adjusted master analog gain to +1 and did some tweaks in post processing and it already looks much better.

 

Thanks everyone!

[robert lee]

Take a look at this thread with regards to giving negative film more light: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CH8D

 

One more thing to keep in mind. Looking at a 1:1 crop (of a 4000dpi scan) really amounts to a huge enlargement of the negative. On a commodity 17in LCD panel, it's like looking at a small section of a 60in x 40in print. That you're seeing film grain really says something about the high quality of the Nikon scanner.

 

Image quality for 35mm film breaks down past maybe a 12x18 print. You should see almost no grain if you print the image at 11x14 or smaller.