erik scanhancer

<p>Here you can buy one: www(dot)scanscience(dot)com (stupid Photo.net thinks this is free advertising when I post the URL).<br>

I am in no way a friend of this man (had some clashes with him in the past about scanning theory), but I have no reason to believe that his fluid would not be good or that his fluid mounts wouldn't work.</p>

<p>Dimage Scan utility (driver for the 5400) runs just fine on even the latest Mac OS (being 10.6.2 at the day of writing this). But even if it wouldn't there is still VueScan that supports it.</p>

<p>Apart from the fact that I find Gitzos overpriced (I do actually own a carbon fibre model which was too expensive), I find them not very useful when you are in a hurry. No doubt Gitzos look good and are very sturdy, but they are very slow to set up and after a day of shooting and setting them up again and again you will have ripped the skin off your hands because of that horrible leg fixing system. My preference is in Manfrottos (I have a whole collection of them). Depending on the intended use I pick the right one. And that is exactly where you come in: how do you want to use your tripod? Do you want to walk with it for a prolonged time, or do you keep your carrying times as short as possible?</p>

<p>As a very good all-around tripod for your camera I can recommend the Manfrotto 755MF3 (carbon) and 755XB (aluminum). They are the best balance for numerous different situations and they have a half-bowl for horizontal leveling built in. This way you can always move your head sideways without having to readjust the horizon after every adjustment. The 755's are perfect for use with a 410 head. Together they will place the camera at eye-level, if needed.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>I do own the 90 degrees telescopic viewfinder and do think that it is not very good for various reasons, although it is not difficult to get sharp images with it.</p>

<p>Anyway, the standard folding viewfinder that comes with each 6008AF body has a built in flip-up magnifier. This lens can be exchanged for a number of different diopters. It is the cheapest option to get your problem covered. If you want highest possible viewing quality you should buy the Rollei 3x loupe that can be attached to the body by means of an adapter frame. This loupe will cover the entire ground glass image without any aberations or distortions and will be sharp from corner to corner. It also has the ability to be moved up and down for diopter correction. This loupe will give you the sharpest, most clear view available for the system. (I am speaking from my own experience here as I have it myself too.)</p>

<p>It is very easy to remove the folding finder and place your own loupe directly on top of the ground glass too, by the way.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Erik not been my experience. Don't really see much diff between the two in terms of Nikon Nefs. Actually, the best I've used for raw Nikon files is Capture One 4. Noticeable quality diff in color reproduction. Not nearly as Orange skin tones as LR and Aper.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>My comment was about the Aperture vs Lightroom (ACR) engines. So I took a Nikon D300 NEF shot at ISO 1600 that was freely available from the web. I opened it in both Aperture and Lightroom and turned off all noise reduction and made sure histograms were similar. Then I made a JPEG at 95% quality for web viewing. The Aperture version looks better to my eye. It will also clean up better under NoiseNinja because it has much more defined noise. I can't see orange skin tones, by the way. But, have a look for yourself: the evidence is compelling.</p><div></div>

<p>The biggest problem I have with LR (and ACR) is that it does not handle many RAW formats very well. Canon files are "OK" generally, but Nikon and Sony RAW files are much better converted in Aperture. Noise is handled into lovely film-like grain, without blotching, while in LR and ACR noise turns into yukkie worms. Very ugly. To me this makes LR useless, whatever nice other features it has. Everything starts at the quality of good RAW conversion. After the basic conversion I take the picks to Photoshop where I perfect them. From a quality point of view this is only logical, although from the efficiency point of view one might still prefer LR.</p>

<p>I've been using these for over 20 years now and none of mine has ever had a problem. No cracks, no C-rings falling out. Are you sure you handle the inserts with the proper amount of sensivity?</p>

<p>The previous owner has probably charged them before they were empty, thus causing memory-effect: you cannot drain the batteries under the level at from which they were charged lastly and therefore they will not last long. There are some reconditioning options (search the forum for Maha charger) or buy new batteries and treat them the way NiCd cells should be treated. Always use them up (by camera-indication) or discharge them before recharging.</p>

<p>The latest Rollei charger has a discharge function. Use it.</p>

<p>Sorry, can't help you, but once you get it done I would be interested in the result to use with my Mac and 6008i.</p>

<p>Actually you should tune your printing profile to make the output look best under the intended viewing light. The parameters for the intended viewing source can be set in the more advanced profiling applications.</p>

<p>As for the Solux bulbs: they do have the correct color temperature to reasonably match daylight, but they do by no means have the illuminant (spectral composition) of D65 or D50. Some special full spectrum tube lights do actually come closer to the illuminants D65 or D50 than Solux bulbs. I have measured dozens of lamps with my photospectrometer. Finally I have settled for a very rare tube that I managed to find at my local repairman. It has near-perfect D50 illuminant.</p>

<p>"<i>do you know where the Minolta Multi Pro could be bought ?"</i><br>

Become a member of that Yahoo Multi Pro group and you'll be the first to know if any of the other members offers his/her's. Here is such an example: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/multipro/message/3662<br>

Multi Pro's are still very popular because you can get such great scans out of them once you have them tweaked. Right now there is even someone in the group making a fantastic film holder accessory for maximum film flatness, with metal masks for each film format. I mean: his prototype has run off the mill today and the production model will be sent out within a few weeks. That's how much the dedicated user base loves their Multi Pro. They keep improving it.</p>

<p>Rishi, do not forget that this is Photo.net, which is usually not used for very scientific discussion. I would like to encourage you to pursue your quest, but please understand that your methodical search will look like "newly inventing the wheel" to some. It is beyond their comprehension what you are actually trying to achieve. Oh, and a Happy Birthday to you!</p>

<p>OK, I'll try to stay purely on topic now. The moving film in the 5400 with Dimage Scan 1.1.6 is very interesting. Maybe you should try the version from the European support site, or otherwise version 1.1.5, which will run on a Mac too. Start here: http://www.scanhancer.com/index.php?art=34&men=3 . The Photoshop plugin of Dimage Scan hasn't worked for me since after PS7.0, so you can forget about that one. If you can't find a version 1.1.5. of Dimage Scan I have it for you, as well as the 1.1.6. version I am currently using, of course. I cannot check what other Elite 5400 scanners do with multi-sampling because I do not have one. Looking forward to hear from others who can confirm. Although it is trivial for me to know, I still would like to know what's the real story here.</p>

<p>If you want to check the version number of Dimage Scan you need to move the mouse over the blank area right under the title on the opening page. The information will then light up, as my screengrab showed.</p>

<p>Rishi,</p>

<p>The latest Dimage Scan Utility (for Mac) should show Version 1.1.6 inside the program. 1.0.0 is not correct. (See the attachment, but disregard the ROM info since it is of the Multi Pro in this case.) In the finder when info is opened it will say 1.0.0.</p>

<p>Multi-sampling is supposed to be what it says: each line will be sampled several times, without moving the film in between. Earlier versions of Vuescan did what you described: moving the film along the head several times, which indeed resulted in bad alignment of the different samples. Dimage Scan software uses true multi-sampling, to my knowledge. At least it does with other scanners. Moving the film back and forth during the actual scan is not correct. How many samples did you take? There is virtually no advantage beyond 4x.</p>

<p>It is beyond me why so many people do not use multi-sampling. It is vital if you want to get the highest possible quality, especially when scanning reversal film. The differences in shadow noise can be huge and the accuracy of colors becomes greater. (Would there be people who do not use 16bit scanning too? I can see anything gruesome now, in my mind.)</p>

<p>The Grain Dissolver is a thin etched/grained diffuser. Scanhancer is a 3mm thick 3D bubble diffuser with smooth surfaces and no visible structure at all. When Minolta copied the Scanhancer idea the engineers didn't really understand why a 3D diffuser is better to eliminate pepper grain. That's usually the problem with copying: it lacks the understanding of why something has to be the way it is. Perhaps you can replace the GD with Scanhancer material, if there is enough space.</p><div></div>

<p>Rishi, yes it is very sad that film scanning wasn't perfected before chipcams took over. With the Scan Elite 5400 for 35mm Minolta got it nearly right (in that price segment). The 5400-II was just some sort of effort to push out a cheap follow-up of that scanner, in the light of Minolta's photography business being extinguished already. A follow up for the great Dimage Scan Multi Pro never saw the light of day. This scanner has become a near legend now that easily sells for over a thousand dollars used. Canon pulled their film scanners already earlier, when they were the first to rule the chipcam pro market. Only Nikon still has a film camera (the F6, despite what earlier reports said about this camera being discontinued) and so they do support film scanning as well. But there is obviously no more development from their side.</p>

<p>I have always been baffled to see that companies such as Minolta and Imacon were not able to come up with something simple like my Scanhancer, without bluntly copying the idea. It seems as if those teams of engineers never really understood the workings of light when going through a piece of film, while there is really nothing special to it. When I went to Minolta in my own country (Netherlands) to show them my Scanhancer products they purchased all the different models I had at the time and sent them to Japan. Then word from Japan HQ came which said that my contact at Minolta Netherlands should no longer talk to me. Half a year later they came out with the Grain Dissolver in the Elite 5400. Still, Minolta Netherlands continued to speak with me, as did Minolta Europe in Germany. They used the existence of my Scanhancer 5LE for the Multi Pro as a sales argument for prospect buyers. They even demonstrated it at their booth at different trade shows. It just shows how little of Minolta's own engineering went into perfecting the quality of the scans. And unfortunately Nikon and the likes didn't do any better. That's the result if mediocracy is the very standard. Nobody was pushed to create a really great film scanner for a reasonable amount of money.</p>

<p>Camera manufacturers are not interested in making film look better than chipcams. Just a marketing decision.</p>

<p>You could place the slides taken out of their frames with a wetmount in the Epson V700. The V700 has ICE as well and quite a soft light source by itself.</p>

<p>1. For scanning slides with fungus a soft light source is absolutely needed. (This is why your Elite 5400 works so well; it has the "Grain Dissolver" light diffuser built in.)</p>

<p>2. ICE is a must too.</p>

<p>3. I suggest taking the slides out of their frames and scan them in a glass holder, possibly a wetmount. Or use a dedicated MF film scanner, like Nikon Coolscan LS-9000ED or Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro. (The Minolta can be fitted with my special diffuser Scanhancer 5LE. See my website.)</p>

<p>The original 5400 is better for scanning B&W silverbased film anyway, because it has the Grain Dissolver filter (based on my Scanhancer 5LE) built in. You should engage it of course to have the advantage. Minolta officially has stated that the 5400-II might give less than optimal results with B&W silverbased film. (No, this has nothing to do with ICE not working with such film, but solely with the more diffuse light of the 5400.) Check my website if you want to learn more about the inspiration that led the Minolta designers to put the Grain Dissolver in the 5400.</p>

<p>They don't.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I checked my Scan Science manual. Julio claims that the light source is below the film holder and that the ccd is above. There is no problem if the light goes through glass prior to passing through the film. Can anyone verify the ccd location? Erik, perhaps?</p>

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<p>Robert, the light source in the Nikon 9000 is above the film, the CCD is under it, 100% sure.</p><div></div>

<p>When using fluids to mount film on a drum scanner or on a glassplate for scanning you should always use the fluid on the emulsion side. Think of the emulsion side of the film as a rough surface, which is filled with optical fluid in order to get trouble-free in/outlet of light rays. It would be possible to stick your film onto a glass plate on the underside, so that it "hangs" inside your scanner. This way there would be no glass surface between the film and the CCD optics. Only the transparent carrier of the film itself will be between the emulsion and the CCD optics.</p>

<p>Fluid mounting does <b>not</b> do anything for suppressing dust particles, so I would still use ICE or similar systems if I were you. On a modern speedy computer the ICE calculation will not slow down the scanning process since the actual scanning by the scanner will take longer than the ICE calculations by the computer. In reality the computer will still have to wait for each scanning line that drips through the firewire line. No time gains here.</p>

<p>Places to discuss everything concerning your back:</p>

<p>http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?s=a1c5337593a67912e09c48be8105b7b9&showforum=16 (lots of pro users)</p>

<p>http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=10 (lots of amateur users)</p>

<p>http://www2.leaf-photography.com/pages/forum/ (Leaf's own user's forum)</p>

<p>In this thread there are two samples of B&W silverbased scans made with Nikon Coolscan 5000 and with/without Scanhancer:</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00BIiO</p>

<p>Seems to cover your problem quite well.</p>

<p>Dear Rishi, </p>

<p>I'll try to answer your questions 5 and 6, but please bear with me as I do not use this scanner myself and I deliberately named the Scanhancer for Nikon V/5000 a "beta" as to make sure that users would understand that some home experimenting with it could be needed under some circumstances.</p>

<p>5> The diffusing in the Nikon 9000 is not done by a diffuser, but by some changes to the dispersion rod that creates the light line inside from the LEDs that shine into its ends. They might as well have upped the blue and green LEDs a bit in order to compensate on hardware level. I find the term "analog gain" somewhat misleading, by the way. At least when speaking about how it is implemented in the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro, where the separate channels are actually exposed longer to a certain extend. If it was just "analog gain" then the noise would also go up, but this is not the case (as long as you don't correct outside two stops in total). AFAIK the Nikons are also exposing longer when you use "analog gain". Whether this can be done for each channel separately, like in Minolta's, I don't know.</p>

<p>6> I have no experience in playing with IR dust removal in VueScan as I use the original ICE algorithms that came with my scanner's software. The Minolta driver has no options for the heaviness of ICE, so it works or it doesn't. Scanhancer behavior is tuned to work best with ICE the way it is implemented in the Dimage Scan driver. Vuescan uses an algorithm written by Ed Hamrick. If you can find a setting that works fine with Scanhancer I would suggest that you use that. ICE in the Minolta driver does not eat any details other than dust and micro-bubbles (aka pepper grain). The settings for your Nikon scanner in VueScan of IR exposure 12 and IR dust removal to Heavy do seem to work identical and not eat any details either. Maybe you should ask Ed Hamrick if you want to find out the mechanics behind this behavior, but at least it seems to work so I don't know if there is a reason to bother any further if all you want is making good scans.</p>

<p>Dear Rishi,

<br />

Essentially your findings are correct. The Scanhancer is supposed to lineary diffuse blue frequencies most, while red frequences are nearly not diffused and IR frequencies aren't diffused at all. (Your test with the halogen lamp shows this clearly.) The idea behind this is to suppress the grain grittyness optimally since it is mostly caused in the blue and green channels. At the same time you want ICE dust removal to work fine, so diffusing the IR light of the scanner would not be wished for. It is a particular property of the Scanhancer material that it diffuses some frequences more than others. A normal diffuser would not do it. On a light box Scanhancer will appear neutral, while under collimated light it may seem to introduce a color cast. In reality it does not block any frequency, but since blue and green light are diffused more away from the receiving lens it appear as if more red light comes through. (Also see the introduction page of Scanhancer 5LE: http://scanhancer.com/index.php?art=15&men=15 ) If you read the information available on the Scanhancer website you would find that I suggest to used manual exposure settings of the scanner as to expose the blue channel longer than the red one and the green channel should be set somewhere in between. See the information on this page for example: http://scanhancer.com/index.php?art=42&men=3 . Especially check out the image of the exposure control of the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro scanner. Whether this same sort of exposure correction can be done with your particular scanning software I don't know, but in order to properly profile your scanner it would be best to linearize the RGB-channel output as much as possible before you make a master scan of your target. In future scanning with the created profile you should always use the found RGB channel settings that gave you the best linearization.

</p>