What determines the scan area with Nikon software and 9000

[ben_grisso]

<p>I have been working for a while to get full frame scans of my medium format B+W negs (Rollie camera). With forum members help we were able to figure out that my neg size was slightly larger than typical, which meant I was not getting full frame on all 4 edges with the stock Nikon carrier. I was able to file out the neg carrier slightly (about 1mm) and yay, now I am getting full frame on all sides (barely).<br>

my next problem, aside from how precisely the negs have to be sitting in the carrier (this is using the 869S, with focalpoint glass added) is that nikon software pre-determines the scan area for each frame, and it typically will be black on 3 sides but not on one edge. This is in the thumbnail preview, using the 6x6 setting. With the setting it will accurately locate multiple 6x6 frames on a strip, but not precisely enough to get the full frame I want on all 4 edges.<br>

Changing the setting the 6x7, I am sometimes able to get black on all sides, however it's just a roll of the dice each time I preview the thumbnails, how accurately Nikon software chooses to place the crop area around each frame. I don't seem to have any control over this, and so I just have to keep trying over and over, using the 6x7 setting, until it happens to work. Using the 6x6 setting I have not gotten it to work yet.<br>

Does anyone have suggestions? Trying to scan many rolls of film this way seems like it would take forever.<br>

The other thing I tried was using the vuescan software. This seems to just give me a preview of part of the entire strip, and lets me place the crop area, so that is better. However with two frames loaded it only seems able to scan about 1 frame, plus a third of the second frame, and I dont seem to have any control over this. I assume it should be able to scan the entire length of the film carrier? And then let me manually chose multiple crop areas in that preview? So perhaps this is a better option since it does not force me into pre-determined crop areas, if I can get it to preview multiple frames.<br>

I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious, but any help is much appreciated.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>In Nikonscan (and Silverfast), you can adjust the size and position of the scan for individual frames in the thumbnail view before performing the actual scan. I presume Vuescan has a similar capability. You can save one frame as the default, but just editing the crop doesn't make it the default for the next thumbnail scan.</p>

[User_1577653]

<p>As far as I know the width of the scan defaults to the same maximum size for a given holder regardless of which frame size (6x6, 6x7, etc.) is selected, so I don’t think that dimension is actually changing from scan to scan. Instead, I think the variability may just be due to the film moving around in the holder. The distance between the rails is just a little wider than the film, and consequently the film (and glass) is able to slide about fairly easily. I find that even if a lot of care is taken to insure that the film/glass is perfectly positioned between the rails initially, it tends to move around as I insert the holder into the scanner, and sometimes even <em>during</em> the scan. [Edit - now that I think about it, this might not apply to you if you are still using the original thin rubber strips that the film is supposed to sit on (I am not), which <em>should</em> keep the film more stably positioned]</p>

<p>In any event, if the film migrates towards one rail or the other that edge of the image is obscured by the rail. The scanner sees the rail as opaque/black, which upon inversion becomes white. I assume this is the white edge you are talking about. Is that consistent with what you are seeing? (if so, it would only be on the “top” or ”bottom” edges, not the sides). Another possibility related to mechanical positioning is that there could be some tolerance to the left-right position the holder takes each time it is inserted and drawn into the scanner. With our small margins it wouldn't take much of a change for these those small differences to manifest as the offset/white edge inconsistency.</p>

<p>If it <em>is</em> in fact just a matter of tolerances and movements, I can suggest a couple solutions. One is to use some tape to hold the film and/or glass in position after you get it exactly the way you want. Another possibility would be to get that file out again, and enlarge the opening even more. Eventually you should get to the point where the entire frame is always included in the scan. Granted, you may still need to use the 6x7 setting to get the width you need, and I can confirm that Nikonscan has some issues with identifying the frames in that situation. But as Edward commented, each of these programs (I can verify that it is true for Vuescan as well) has settings to manually adjust the position of the scan, at least along the one axis.</p>

<p>Jeff</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

I don't think that the problem is that the film moves inside the holder, think it safe to assume that the edge not caught by the scanner is neither left or right, but the upper or lower edge of the frame. But that's an assumption, so...<br><br>Frame spacing on 120 or 220 film is not a fixed entity, and will vary from film to film and along each single film. The scanner tries to detect where each frame begins automatically when you preview the strip of film and does that indeed not very well. So manual adjustment of the start position of each frame is indeed necessary most, if not all, of the time. There is a setting in the scanner extras part of the software to move the start position, so no need to let the scanner try to find the edge itself over and over again.<br><br>If changing the start position does not help because the actual frame on film is too long, there is nothing left but indeed tell the scanner that the frame to be scanned is a different format, 6x7 being the next larger. That obviously changes the length of the frame the scanner will scan (in both preview and final scan), but will not change how well or badly it detects the frame start, so adjustment will remain necessary.

[ben_grisso]

<p>Thanks for the feedback everyone, that has solved my problem. The only challenge is that it can be hard to tell from the small thumbnail if I have the settings correct for black on all sides, and it's quite slow to get the full screen preview, which means it can take a few tries to get it right, but I can live with that.<br>

At least I am getting a true full frame scan! It has taken a lot more work than I expected. But I have been able to prove two things to my satisfaction that I was not sure about before:<br>

1) at least with my negs, it is absolutely necessary to use two pieces of glass. So far using the less expensive focal point glass with the standard strip carrier seems to be working fine, which saved me a lot of money compared to buying the 869G carrier.<br>

2) again with my negs, which seem to be larger than others so far that have responded to my questions, it is possible to file out the nikon strip carrier and the CCD is able to capture a larger scan area.<br>

Now I can actually start scanning all my negs for the first time, which looks to be a very time consuming process.</p>

 

[ben_grisso]

<p>PS.....it was the strip film offset setting in the scanner extras which solved the problem. I tried it before but when I hit reload thumbnail it did not update the full screen preview, and I didn't realize it was only updating the small thumbnail, so I didn't realize it was actually doing something</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

It is indeed slow work, scanning. A lot of waiting is required, but not for long enough to leave the scanner at it and go do other things.<br>So do take your time to do it right, the best you can, straight away. Else you will be redoing it all some time from now.