hon_soon

<p>Hi,<br>

bit late on the scene since the last post, but I just bought a 16-85 last week since I was never really happy with the sharpness of the 18-200 which I've had for about 2yrs now.<br>

Like Peter I carry a wide angle zoom in my kit so the 16mm v 18mm difference wasn't a big deal, but wasn't sure I wanted to give up the extra reach of the 200mm when travelling. Scanning through my photos from the last 3 years though showed that I may only use the long end of the zoom maybe once in 200 photos.<br>

I don't notice any difference in the centre of the images in either lens, but around the edges the 18-200 tends to get soft, creating a slightly blurry look all around the edge of the images which I always bothered me.<br>

cheers<br>

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

I'm not sure if this the same problem you're having, but I also get bright blue pixels in some of the transition areas of my scans when I scan a negative as a transparency and then invert and apply a curve layer adjustment. If I tell the Minolta software to scan as a negative, it's fine.

I'm guessing it has to do with the negative film's orange mask appearing as blue when inverted, and then being enhanced when curve adjustment is applied. Had a test print made, and did notice a bright blue tinge to the edges of some objects, so isn't just my monifor playing up.

Haven't the foggiest what's causing it either, so am also a bit stumped.

I'm currently scanning my X-Pan Negatives & Transparencies using the Minolta 5400, and they work out ok in most cases.

I'm not brave enough to cut the separators out as I couldn't find anything in the minolta software that would let me change the scannable frame size. (Although I seem to recall some discussion in one of the older threads about being able to do this in Vuescan, but can't be sure)

I do find that the 2 scans I need to do are usually slightly tilted about 70% of the time despite my best endeavours. Isn't a huge problem as it tends to be only about 1-2mm on screen when viewed at 200% scanning at 5400dpi (not sure how many pixels that adds up to), and just use the clone tool to blend out the mis-allignment.

I've found that I need to focus the scanner each time nearish where I intend the 2 scans to be joined, otherwise the grain/texture of the scans where they join sticks out like sore thumb.

BTW: Generally scan my negatives as transparencies and then just invert and apply a curve layer to cancel out the blueish mask, otherwise I keep forgetting to lock the exposure.

cheers