radfordneal

<p>Thanks for sharing your experience. I've now fixed mine. Not a loose screw, though.</p>

<p>I first removed ten screws on the bottom and eight on the back, after which the housing easily slid off. I could then see lots of interesting mechanisms. I manually rotated the stepping motor by gripping a bit of black plastic in order to see more. (What you can see without this depends on where it was when you shut down the machine.)</p>

<p>I didn't see anything loose, however. (There were several screws that I can imagine could get loose, though.)</p>

<p>Looking for what might cause the film holder to stall, I did see what looked like they could be sensors on the left side of the machine (when facing its front). These consist of three pairs of knobs, though which a ridge on the left side of the film holder passes. (You can see this ridge on all the film holders, on the left side as you insert the film holder, with the right side instead having places for the gears that move it to grip.) I speculate that these are either optical sensors, or perhaps sensors that look at the change in capacitance when the plastic ridge is betwen the two knobs. I cleaned them all (especially between the two knobs) with a Q-tip cotton swab.</p>

<p>The scanner now works fine. Presumably there was dust or some such on these sensors that caused them to think the film holder was positioned someplace it wasn't, with the bad results I observed.</p>

<p>For future reference, I note that one should actually be able to reach in and clean between these knobs by just opening the front door where the film holder is inserted (they're on the left), without having to take the scanner apart. You would need something longer than a Q-tip, however.</p>

 

<p>My Coolscan 9000 scanner has developed a problem, in which the film holder often doesn't move correctly. Sometimes it won't go all the way in. Sometimes it seems to move slightly wrong, giving unaligned frames. At the moment, it won't move out, so the film holder is stuck inside. It sometimes make horrible sounds. When mostly, but not quite, working, it makes a slightly odd sound (only odd given that I know what sound it normally makes), though maybe that's unrelated.</p>

<p>The intermittent nature of the problem makes me hope that it's just some mechanical switch for sensing the film holder position that has gotten stuck. Or maybe there's some gunk in some gears. Or maybe some debris is blocking an optical sensor. So I hope I can fix it myself. (Not that there is any other option, as far as I know.)</p>

<p>Looking at the bottom, it seems there are some scews whose removal would release the outer covering, allowing it to be slid back, uncovering all but the front side of the scanner. Has anyone tried this? Does anyone know of any tricks needed? Does anyone know whether doing this gives access to anything interesting, and if not what would?</p>

<p>Thanks. I'll report back on what I find...</p>

 

<p>Short answer - Yes!<br>

<br />I just tried it. I put my 18-55 DX lens on my F3, and found that it didn't cover the full image in the viewfinder (which has 100% coverage) below about 22mm focal length. But with a TC-200 2x teleconverter, the full image was covered at all focal lengths.</p>

<p>This shouldn't be surprising. With a teleconverter, the focal length increases, so the field of view decreases. If on an FX camera, the field of view has decreased to what the lens covers on DX, why wouldn't it fill the image? Where would the light coming from those directions be going? (Well, it could end up hitting the side of a barrel somewhere, but that would be a special property of some particular teleconverter, not of teleconverters in general.)</p>

 

<p>With an extension tube, I think the rangefinder coupling wouldn't even reach the body (you'd have to construct some mechanical linkage to pass it on). The rangefinder coupling would still be active with the spacers between the body and the back, but just screwing a close-up lens onto the front of the lens would maybe be more convenient.</p>

<p>As for whether the rangefinder adjustment is sufficiently flexible to allow this, I don't know. Another possibility would be to physically alter the mechanism on the lens or the body (preferrably reversibly). This might seem attractive for the 150mm lens, which focuses only to 2m, whereas the rangefinder mechanism works for lenses that focus as close as 1m. Unfortunately, the thing on the lens that transfers the distance information moves into the lens (away from the body) as the lens focuses closer - if it was the other way around, one might be able to just add something on the end of it (or to the thing it contacts in the body). This way, it seems one would need to file away part of one of these parts. And even if that way one got the rangefinder to read correctly when the lens + closeup lens was focused as close as possible, I don't know whether it would read correctly at other focus distances (which wouldn't extend to infinity, of course), though adjusting for that might well be within the flexibility of the rangefinder adjustment mechanism.</p>

<p>Or one could tape a new distance scale onto the lens, and then guess...</p>

<p>I've been puzzled by the claims that the F or FA 35-80mm lens is terrible. I have the A 35-80mm lens, which some claim is the same optically, and it's fine. Quite sharp, in fact. Of course, its maximum aperture is f4 to f5.6, which can be limiting.</p>

 

<p><em>An *absolutely perfect* multi-coated clear filter (which doesn't exist) would transmit 100.0% of visible light striking its front surface and reflect 0.0% of the light. In other words the perfect filter behaves as if there is nothing in front of your lens</em>.</p>

<p><em></em>Not quite, I think. The hypothetical perfect <em>filter</em> has no effect, but the ring holding the filter will act as a small lens shade!</p>

 

<p>The only moving part is a little thing that you push sideways when putting it on and taking it off. However, there is a manual parallax adjustment slider in the viewfinder. Since the parallax is mostly vertical, I would think that this would work the same for 6x7 and 6x9.</p>

 

<p>Correction: The original scan of this image is 3721x5699 pixels (about 21 Megapixels). The full image above is slightly cropped.</p>

 

<p>And here's a crop from lower down (but not the lower edge, which isn't in focus). I'm not sure what focal length this is at, or what f-stop, though I'd guess around 35mm and f/8.</p><div></div>

<p>Here's a crop from the top edge of the frame. This is at the full resolution of the Coolscan V, 4000 dpi. (The full image above is 3195x5133 pixels in the original scan.)</p>

<div></div>

<p>There are two versions of the Nikkor 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6 AF-D lens. I have the newer version, with 0.4m close focus. It's pretty good. Here's a photo taken in 2008 with Black's ISO 200 film (probably the Fuji consumer film of the time) and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan V (100% crops to follow):</p>

<div></div>

<p>Does body affect IQ? Unlikely, in the way you probably mean, assuming the body is from a reputable manufacturer in the last 50 years, and is in good repair. However, the body can affect things like how easy it is to get the desired focus.</p>

<p>Cheap way to get film? If you want colour film, then the cheapest way may be to buy "processing included" film. In Canada, you can get ISO 400 colour film with processing included for about $8 a roll (of 24 exposures), from Black's photo (the film is likely made by Fuji). This price includes 4x6 prints, though from scans that are fairly low resolution and usually too contrasty. You can of course then scan the negatives yourself to get higher quality. For black-and-white, you can buy the film pretty cheaply, and then process it yourself cheaply. Any film made by Fuji, Kodak, or Ilford will be high-quality (for what it is - a high speed ISO 3200 film will of course have higher grain than an ISO 100 film).</p>

<p>You can get a film camera pretty cheaply. You mention auto focus, so presumably you'd want to buy a failry recent film camera. Something like a Nikon F75 (also called N75) or a Pentax ZX-7 (also called MZ-7) would be small, cheap, and capable. You'd need a lens too, of course. Some of these are also pretty cheap used. Lenses for the Nikon and Pentax bodies I mentioned are compatible with DSLRs, except that lenses designed only for cropped sensors may not fill the whole frame of film.</p>

<p>This all assumes you want a 35mm camera. If you want high IQ, a medium format camera might be better. You could get a cheap TLR (twin-lens reflex) camera, for instance, though if you want auto focus, a medium format camera would be much more expensive than 35mm.</p>

 

<p>You might want to get a 35mm lens, which would give you a wider field of view than the 50mm lens you have. The 35mm 1:1.8 lens is reasonably cheap and well regarded (I haven't used it myself).</p>

<p>If you want to take macro shots, the cheapest option is to buy a set of "closeup lenses" that can screw onto the front of your 50mm lens (or onto the 35mm 1:1.8 lens). These work reasonably well, though not as well as a real macro lens.</p>

<p>For birds, you would need a lens with a larger focal length, such as one of the 70-300mm zoom lenses.</p>

<p>Do you not have the usual 18-55mm "kit" lens for the D50 or D70s? You might want one, and they are reasonably cheap. That could be a substitute for a 35mm lens, though it wouldn't work as well in low light with no flash.</p>

<p>One problem with the picture you attached is that it is focused on the wall behind the people rather than the people themselves. On the D50 (and I think the D70s), you can specify the focus point to use, which is one way to avoid this.</p>

 

<p><em>Radford, i think there is no need to shout, i find this quit rude to be honest...</em></p>

<p>The original poster's question was followed by a dozen or so responses that seemed to me (and I think I was correct) to totally miss what the original poster was asking about. I needed to do something to distinguish my post from the others, or the original poster would likely just skip over it.</p>

<p>And the original poster does need a bit of prodding to give adequate information!</p>

<p>My apologies, though, for the double posting, which resulted from odd behaviour of my browser when using the "back" button.</p>

 

<p>HAVE YOU TOLD US EVERYTHING????</p>

<p>My guess is that you are screwing a "wide-angle, macro" accessory lens onto the front of your 18-55 or 55-200 lens. </p>

<p>If so, you need to say exactly what sort it is, and what happens when you do this.</p>

<p>I'm I'm right about this, you can ignore all the earlier responses, which assumed you were using the 18-55 or 55-200 lens without an accessory lens on the front.</p>

 

<p>HAVE YOU TOLD US EVERYTHING????</p>

<p>My guess is that you are screwing a "wide-angle, macro" accessory lens onto the front of your 18-55 or 55-200 lens. </p>

<p>If so, you need to say exactly what sort it is, and what happens when you do this.</p>

<p>I'm I'm right about this, you can ignore all the earlier responses, which assumed you were using the 18-55 or 55-200 lens without an accessory lens on the front.</p>

 

<p>Oh... regarding the framing changing when focusing... Maybe this is due to the 55mm focusing by extension, and the other lenses having "internal focus", so they focus by changing focal length?</p>

 

<p>Near the manual focus ring at the front, you should see an "A" with a line going to a dot, and under that, another dot. Is the second dot lined up with the "A", or with the other dot? For autofocus, it should be at "A". The other setting increases the focus resistance to make precise manual focusing easier. To change the setting to "A", push toward the lens mount a bit and turn.</p>

 

<p>Yes, the numbers seem to be chosen with no thought to helping the consumer actually understand which camera has which features. It seems like they just gathered around a table one day and thought "700 sounds like a nice number, let's use it next".</p>

<p>I think they missed a big chance when they released the first FX digital body. They could have called it the DF1, allowing three professional lines, ..., F5, F6, ... for film, D1, D2, ... for DX, and DF1, ... for FX (which they maybe would have called DF instead). As it is, what are they going to do if they decide that technology has moved in a way that makes a new professional DX camera a good idea?</p>

 

<p>If it's not the processing, then if as you say the photo was taken at f/2.8, slight mis-focus seems the likeliest reason for your scan being softer than the D70 shot. Even if you had the camera on a tripod and focused carefully, it seems that the subject wasn't held in a vise, so there's no way to be sure the focus was right on.</p>

<p>A comparison with a static subject, and an aperture of f/5.6 for the D70 and f/8 for the film camera (giving equivalent DOF) would be more informative.</p>

 

<p><em>Film was shot with Fuji Astia 100, scanned at 4000 down sampled to match my 6MP file and a 100% crop taken. Full auto, no sharpening, PP, ICE or anything ...85mm lens used. The D70 with the 1.5x factor used a 50mm lens. Both were the 1.8 version shot at f/2.8 I think.</em><br>

<em><br /></em><br>

Unlike what you have seen, in my experience, 35mm film can certainly match the resolution (and other good qualities) of a 6MP DSLR. I haven't used the Coolscan 4000, though, so I can't say how good it is. One possibility: I have found that poor processing of slide film can produce images that look OK except that they are soft. This was the case with a local lab offering one hour E6 service, for instance (there may be a reason why other labs' fastest is two hours). I don't know enough of the chemistry to say why, but this could be a reason for your results. You could try a different lab, or try colour negative film for comparison (I would guess that poor processing that's not obviously poor is less likely with C41 processing).</p>

<p>The responses above are all correct, but not necessarily helpful. The helpful answer is "Yes, you do effectively get a bigger magnification ratio from using a DX sensor camera". A lens giving you a 1:2 magnification ratio when used on a DX camera gets you the same ability to fill the frame with a small object as you get when using a lens giving a 1:1.33 magnification ratio on a "full-frame" camera.</p>

 

<p><em>I do not use ICE or any equivalents which I feel just mush the image.</em><br>

This doesn't match my experience with the Coolscan 9000, <strong>except</strong> when the film hasn't been processed properly, specifically when not all the silver has been bleached out. ICE doesn't work if there is silver left on the film (hence it doesn't work with traditional B&W).</p>

 

<p>I've had fun with a C2 as well. One question: How is the frame spacing on yours? I find that in order to get the spacing right (no overlaps), I need to wind the film on until the arrow is about one centimeter past the mark that you supposedly should stop at. I attribute this to a change in the thickness of film over the years. But maybe my C2 is just slightly defective in this regard? </p>

 

<p><strong><em>@Radford Neal</em></strong><em> I did what you recomended Radford from 0.01-1.00 for excluded for White and i can see no difference at all at Whites ...</em></p>

<p>Perhaps adjusting analog gain is what is needed for your particular situation, but it occurs to me that I may not have explained enough. After changing the percent excluded, you would need to do re-do the preview, and then the scan, before seeing any difference.</p>

<p>The Nikon Scan documentation is rather deficient, but this is my guess as to what it does. First, during preview it does one or more preliminary scans to see what analog gain is necessary for a reasonable exposure (manual change to analog gain seems to be relative to what it figured was good). (You can tell it sometimes tries several values because really dense negatives take longer to preview.) It also decides on a scaling of the raw data (with that analog gain) so as to spread out the values over the whole range. Here is where the percent excluded comes in - it ignores that amount at the top/bottom when figuring out how to scale the data. If it ignores highlights you're interested in, they will come out all at the maximum.</p>