rob_landry

<i>Pls. see the screenshot for comparison. No catch! FoV is about equal at horizontal, and same areas are cropped. Mamiya is 100%, and Nikon is 125% upressed to compare easier.</i></p>

 

What were the pixel dimensions of the Mamiya scan? Also, what scanner was used? What steps were taken to ensure the film was flat?</p>

 

Now, concerning the scans you did show, the Mamiya is obviously out-resolving the D200 image and it's pretty obvious. What is fooling your eye is that the D200 is showing sharp edge contrast (around the building, areas of solid color and defined contours; a hallmark of digital) but if you look closer, you'll see that many of the fence rungs and the bars on the windows are missing entirely in the D200 image, as are the spikes atop the fence. The leaves on the trees throughout the D200 image are nothing but blobs, the grass has no texture and you can't make out what the sign says on the building. The fence in front of the flags looks nothing like a fence and the roof and chimneys are showing no texture whatsoever.</p>

The D80 does not appear to have the AI indexing tab on the lens mount, so doubtful about metering with non-cpu lenses. It is also said that while the sensor is the same as the D200, it has a 2-channel readout, so it's doubtful it'll be 4.5fps.

I use the 3010 drum with an older CPP-2, second version I think (I'll have to check the serial number when I get home). I do E6 4x5 and even with 10 sheets in the drum, there doesn't seem to be any strain on the motor and it's certainly not sluggish. Of course with E6, the chemical volume is quite small even for 10 sheets (330ml). If you are planning on doing B&W with very dilute developers, it may be an issue if you are reaching the 1000ml chemical volume range.

Just an update.

 

I have just finished processing 8 sheets of 4x5 Velvia, 1 roll of Provia and 2 rolls of Elitechrome and everything looks great. Chemicals did not exhibit any oiling and no precipitates were observed.

I'm a Canadian and I buy all my gear and supplies from B&H or eBay. Choose USPS for shipping to avoid brokerage fees.

 

Daniel is right. Canada is ripe with social programs and so-called "free" health care. What most Canadians don't realize is that nothing in this world is free, so the price for "free" Medicare is higher taxes and more of 'em. Canada is famous for its taxes. We pay sales tax on EVERYTHING, new, used, junk, whatever; whether it's bought in-person, mail order in-province, out-of-province, even out-of-country.

 

So Peter, get thee to bhphotovideo.com and whip out that credit card before the bottom drops out of the loonie.

Dan is correct about carryover between steps; the only place I could ever envision a wash would be between the bleach and fixer, but I personally don't use one. Since I use the Kodak 5L kit, I've never been able to tell how a wash between these final steps would affect long-term stability, since Kodak no longer uses a formaldehyde stabilizer step; the stabilizing agent is encapsulated in these final steps somehow (pre-bleach step possibly).

 

Anyway, back to the greenish blue cast. It's really hard to tell because there are a few things can cause a blue, green or cyan cast in E6. Improper mixing of the color developer or reversal bath would do it for starters. If you could post the details of the process you followed with your times and temps, it would be easier for us to advise you further.

<i>I'd washed for 15 minutes between color development and fixing</i><p>

 

If this is indeed the 6 step kit, you missed a few steps (conditioner/pre-bleach and bleach) and there is no wash between the color developer and any of the remaining steps; at least one should not be necessary. The 1st rinse is between the first dev and reversal bath and then again at the end, after fixing. Even if there was a wash there with your kit, I can't believe it would be 15 minutes.<p>

 

Hopefully, you will be able to get hold of a better copy of the instructions.

Try using a program like Noise Ninja or Neat Image for grain (aliasing) reduction. Once noise reduction is applied, film scans sharpen up MUCH better in my experience. In fact Noise Ninja is part of my regular scan workflow; there really is no reason for not using it.

Gray,

 

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I have a full time job, new house etc. and very little time to devote to photography. When I look back over the images I've taken, it's almost hard to believe that I actually took those because my mindset at this stage in my life is so much different. At the time, nights and weekends were my own, as were vacations, I had an apartment then as well; photography was what I lived for. I think it was this "freedom" that allowed me to capture the images that I did. When I went out shooting, my head was clear and I could concentrate and take it all in; good photos just seem to come naturally.

 

Now that I have a house, family etc., there's always too much to do on the weekends and even when I do have a few moments, it's hard to concentrate when I'm out with my gear. I'm always thinking that there's some unfinished project waiting at home I should be working on, or that the lawn needs to be mowed etc. and this always succeeds in restricting my creativity, or in many cases, my desire to get out in the first place. So, where am I going with this? Well, instead of making new images, I've decided to work at printing some of my older images and work on my website, as I can do this even if I have only an hour or two late at night. The bonus to this is that I'm not spending a whole lot on photo gear during this transition period to digital. For the few times I do go out, my film gear is more than up to the task. While I'd love to switch to the Canon 5D (from Nikon) for my small format shooting, my D50 satisfies my digital curiosity just fine. When I finally do discover the time to do more photography, I'm sure DSLRs will be much more advanced and a whole lot cheaper and perhaps by then even Nikon will have a FF camera.

James,

 

Great comparison and I agree with your conclusion completely. If you have not already done so, you may want to test your 4990 for the optimum focus position. This is accomplished by "shimming" the film holder at various heights and making a few test scans. Many users of the Epsons have found that this improves sharpness considerably, so much so that Epson has finally included adjustable holders in the V series.

The big advantage for CMOS in Canon's case is that the pixels on a CMOS sensor are directly addressable and will support "on-chip" hardware based noise reduction. Nikon (CCD or CMOS) do not have access to this technology so their noise reduction is done in software after the data is offloaded from the imaging chip.

Dan,

 

Glad to hear that freezing is working for you too.

What you or I or Nikon thinks of FF is of little consequence to Canon. The fact is, Canon does very well with the 5D and many Nikon shooters are switching because of it, or are seriously considering it. Priced at $2700 after rebate, it's pretty hard not to be tempted (which is not doubt, just what Canon had planned). Just the sheer number of FF topics in the Nikon forums (here and on DPreview) lend credence to that fact.

 

I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't seriously considering it; the only thing holding me back from switching outright is that at this point in my life, I'm not shooting a lot and what I do is mostly LF. Should I discover more time in my life, or get the hankering to shoot some small format work, I'll be dropping Nikon like the proverbial hot potato. I've enjoyed my Nikon gear over the years but the DX format is just not my cup of tea for many of the reasons Ilkka and David Hartman so eloquently outlined.

For a trip to Africa, I wouldn't limit myself to one type of film. Pick up a second camera body; they're cheap these days. Myself, I like Provia 100F pushed a stop to 200 for low light, it has excellent grain and sharpness that doesn't change much when pushed. I also wouldn't be leaving for Africa without some Velvia. Concerning grain, don't worry about it if scanning, programs like Noise ninja will work wonders at eliminating what little there is with slides. As for negative film, you could take some Reala, but if you're scanning, be prepared to deal with a lot more noise and grain; negs just don't scan as well as transparencies.

Lex,

 

While the D2x/h and D200 viewfinders are of good quality, they are not in the same league as that of an F series Nikon. If you mount a 35mm lens on your D2h and a 50mm on your F3, you mean to tell me that you cannot see and feel a difference? I know I certainly can. For me, viewfinder size, bite, magnification and brightness are important, eyepoint less so. If Nikon could wedge my F2AS or F4 viewfinder atop a DX DSLR, I'd be home again, but they cannot because it's not possible.

 

Regardless, my original point is that Nikon needs to get in the game and start getting serious about getting their products to market and about sensors. 20 years ago, you wouldn't see a Canon camera in my local photo club; today, you'd be lucky to find a Nikon and the ones you do are film cameras. Guys bought 10Ds and 20Ds when Nikon had only the D100 and D70, some started buying the 5D when it became available when the D200 was just barely more than a rumour. The D200 turned out to be a nice camera, but the 5D was out first (in quantity), and has better image quality. This is not because Canon's are better by nature, they're not, but they have the better sensors and with digital, this unfortunately makes a huge difference. Also, despite what some may choose to believe, having FF sensors in their lineup does differentiate them.

 

Anyway, I'm not trying to bash Nikon, I still enjoy my gear immensely, but it's sad to see a once superlative company fall behind in a field they once dominated. Hopefully, by the time I'm ready to switch completely to digital, Nikon will have that lovely F6 converted to a FF digital at a semi-reasonable price.

<i>In any case, if you don't wear glasses, why do you complain about Nikon? Just buy the 5D and be happy.</i><p>

 

If I shot exclusively digital, I would switch to Canon for sure, but I still shoot quite a lot of film and I find Nikon's film cameras to be MUCH better than Canon's.

Ilkka, I agree with your first five picks for sure, but I feel that the 5D viewfinder is better than either the D2x or D200 but I don't wear glasses so I place a higher score on viewfinder size and magnification. The 5D does have a slightly higher eyepoint than either of those two (20mm vs. 19.5 for D200 and 19.9 for D2x) but of course, the view is larger in the viewfinder and harder to see the entire screen and data display with your eye at the same distance. My D50 has a crappy eyepoint (18mm), but I can still see the whole screen with my eye an inch away because the screen occupies only a small center portion of the viewfinder space. A DX viewfinder just can't be made to equal that of our beloved F Nikons so Nikon needs to get off its duff and start developing FF sensors to compete with Canon. Of course lower noise at higher ISOs would be nice too.

Ilkka, I agree wholeheartedly that the 5D's viewfinder is nowhere near as good as that of an F-series Nikon, but it's still much better than any DX Nikon, and let's not speak of the 1DsII. Again, if Nikon produced a FF sensor, then perhaps we'd once again have a spectacular viewfinder to look through. C'mon Nikon, get that sensor fab built and give those engineers some overtime.

The D2x sensor is better than that of the D200 at lower ISOs. The only reason that the 12MP sensor is not better at higher ISOs is because Nikon does not have on-chip noise reduction, which CMOS does support. Again, an example of Nikons lag in sensor design/availability.

I agree, complaining is a good thing when you're paying through the nose for something. If it were free, I'd tell you to shut up, but it's not. As far as I'm concerned, paying $1700 buys you the right to complain. Me, I voted with my wallet and did not, and will not buy a D200.

 

Is Nikon having supply issues? Yeah, sure seems like they are. I tried getting a DK-17M and had a hard time. The only place that had 'em were eBay sellers in Hong Kong. B&H finally got them in stock this week. In Canada, D200s are in extremely short supply with most dealers saying end of April now. Buying mail order from the USA is a dandy idea, except you won't get any warranty coverage unless you wanna go through the hassle of shipping it back to Nikon USA.

 

I think the D200 is partly to blame for Nikon's current situation; I think alot of their efforts are currently focused on this camera. Personally, I think they goofed big time by putting that damn Sony sensor in an otherwise good body. They should've used the 12 MP CMOS sensor from the D2x, but noooo, Nikon chose the path of product differentiation. They felt that a 12MP sensor in the D200 was going to steal sales from the D2x. Well, wake up Nikon, the 10MP sensor seems to be doing just that anyway, so nice try. The problem with the 10MP sensor is that it's a CCD and they mated it with their four channel readout from the D2x. Unfortunately, the 4 channel readout doesn't seem to like CCDs for whatever reason and we get banding.

 

My advice to Nikon: build a damn sensor facility and stop buying sensors from Sony or Sanyo or whoever. Give your engineers a facility to design and fabricate new sensors in house and stop trying to shoehorn existing designs into your bodies. Yeah, a sensor fab is expensive, but it's not like digital is going away anytime soon. Canon has its own facility and Canon has the best sensors on the market by a long shot. Probably gives them a significant cost savings advantage to boot.

Mani,

 

The reason I've suggested the DK-17M as opposed to the DK-21M is because the 17M has a higher magnification and is a higher quality, multi-element glass eyepiece. It has less distortion and is much more comfortable to use. Of course its price is double that of the 21M and has to be modified to fit the D70. The DK-21M, while a direct fit, is of lower quality and is blurry at the edges and I find it to cause some eye fatigue with extended viewing. The image also doesn't quite feel very crisp with it on; its really a cheaper product and it feels it with prolonged use.

 

As for using one of these magnifiers with a D200, from all I've read they significantly reduce the eyepoint of the viewfinder to the point where you can no longer see all of the image without moving your eye around and it is said to obscure some of the data display at the bottom of the viewfinder. The D200s reported magnification of 0.94x (w/50mm) cannot be improved upon with these magnifiers without some reduction is viewfinder usability.

Mihut,

 

It's pretty much impossible to get an F5 finder on a DX camera, but until Nikon releases a FF digital SLR, the D200 and D2x are as good as we get for now. If you are planning on staying with your D70, you may want to get your hands on a Nikon DK-17M viewfinder magnifier and modify it to fit on your D70. I have one on my D50 and it makes a big difference; it almost fills your field of vision and there's no more tunnel effect. The magnification is 1.2x (20%) so this brings the D50/70 viewfinder magnification up to 0.9x, which is close to the D200's 0.94x. It really improves manual focusing and reduces eye fatigue.

Lon,

 

The Printfile 45-4HB pages will fit sleeved negs, however, I have always removed the sleeves provided by commercial developers as their archival properties are suspect (highly doubtful).

Gerry,

 

It all depends on what type of photography you do and how picky you are. If you're into landscapes, forget 6 MP digital, it just doesn't have enough detail, I know, I have one. For portraits, sure, 6 MP is fine. Generally, I'm happy with my D50 up to about 8x12, beyond that I can start to see the image begin to fall apart, some subjects are better than others. In 35mm, I shoot mostly Velvia and I can get enlargements up to 11x16 and possibly slightly higher that I would consider good and without the grain becoming objectionable. Again, some images better than others. Beyond this size, I shoot large format.

 

You have to remember that the glowing comments about 6 MP digital stems from its lack of grain and not its amazing detail. Many nowadays are grainphobic to the point of paranoia and will choose the ultra-smooth digital look every time. It's why you always hear comments about how X DSLR blows away 35mm or medium or large format, yada yada yada. Some people just hate grain and/or don't know how to deal with it in post processing. That's ok, that's their preference. If you want, you can make 35mm look an awful lot like digital with programs like Neat Image or Noise Ninja with some aggressive grain removal and sharpening settings. As for programs like Genuine Fractals, just modern day snake oil; don't really do any better than just upsampling in Photoshop.

 

In the end, only you can decide, we can't make that decision for you. I faced the same dilemma as you and I decided that the only way I was going to find out was to just go out and purchase a DSLR. I'm glad I did as it is a useful tool, but I also realized that I wasn't ready to give up shooting film in any sizes as they too have their uses. 6 megapixel DSLRs are cheap now, so you're not going to lose much by getting one. C'mon, join the club.

Steve, you do make some good points and I agree completely, however I have never had to think in multiple formats with a single set of lenses prior to digital. My 4x5 lenses are not shared, 6x7 was not either and until digital, neither were my 35mm lenses.

 

You know, we can debate about crop factors until the cows come home, however, in the end it is the market that will decide. It's pretty obvious from the sheer number of threads on this topic how many people perceive FF to be an ideal choice despite the DX format's supposed superiority. I hate to re-iterate what has been said already, but FF chips can offer higher resolution, lower noise, bigger viewfinders and of course, no crop factor (which you seem to feel should not be an issue.)