peter_haagerup

<p>To me it really seems like 35mm is simply too small to get a good result with a normal flatbed. It is made for scanning paper, prints and maybe medium format and large format where the large magnification is not needed. On 35mm scans, the problems of the scanners really shows up. Even on the V700 I think, but it is clearly better than the Canon 8400F.</p>

<p>I am considering getting a slide copy system or making one myself. I need a good macro lens though. I think it is the best solution. Of course the limits are the sensor of the camera and the lens. With a high quality macro lens and even my Canon 400D I expect better results than the Canon scanner. With a very cheap lens, the results might be comparable I think.</p>

<p>I have seen a few photos scanned with this method - it looks very good. And it is fast - that is important as well. If the lens allows and care is taken to setup the system - I cannot see why it should not be sharp at 100% - even in the corners because the lens is stopped down.</p>

<p>I might get a 35mm IT8 calibration slide as well - to get everything just right.</p>

<p>I think it is worth a try because the lens can be used for normal photography as well. I really don't like to spend insane amounts of money on a slow, comparable quality dedicated film scanner.</p>

<p>I did a test scan of a slide - without film holder (very hard to get the film flat against the glass), with film holder and a multi exposure with film holder.<br>

Looks like I did not have trouble with multi exposure this time. Looks as sharp (or unsharp) as the non-multiexposure. However, the scan without the film holder looks less sharp. Not by much, though. The optics in this scanner are so bad that it is almost impossible to see the difference ;-) hehe</p>

<p>This daylight picture is Fuji Sensia 200 - definitely shorter shutter speed and higher f-number than my first posted picture.</p><div></div>

<p>Thanks on the info on the slide copy stuff. It is expensive as well, but at least it is a camera at the same time - that is a huge difference to me. Even if the results is not like a $$$$ film scanner, if it is like a good flatbed, it will be fine because it is very much faster. For family photos, it might be more than good enough. I have an idea that it could make very, very high quality "scans" if setup with care. I have some ideas why, that I want you "professional guys" to give your view on, if you like:</p>

<p>* The sensor is making a complete 2D picture at once. No moving parts, cheap optical lenses and glass platen to blur the image.</p>

<p>* The macro lens used can be stopped down to it's sharpest setting and focus can be done with precision - either manually or by using auto focus.</p>

<p>* High dynamic range can be achieved by taking several pictures, just like making HDR pictures. May give good results with negatives where the image information is narrow (low contrast) compared to a slide.</p>

<p>* Composing a picture of several exposures (HDR) will still give a sharp picture, while flatbed scanners have some trouble with this because of the not-so-precise motion of the sensor bar. (When using multi-exposure and similar in SilverFast, most of the pictures have slightly higher dynamic range and less noise but the result is always even more blurred than with a single scan)</p>

<p>The only thing I need to know is the price of a slide copy attachment and diffuse light source. And where to get it.</p>

<p>To the stuff about very expensive scanners and people buying stuff only reading numbers in the speclist, I can say that I do not buy stuff myself based on the specs. My greatest hobby besides photography is hifi. I own a $5000 turntable and a $1000 catridge - that's only part of my setup. Very, very expensive to me. But I use it almost every single day - and will continue to do so. My turntable has fairly good specs and that matters. What matters even more is the sound you actually hear.</p>

<p>To me it seems like false specs on most scanners. A scanner capable of scanning 3200 dpi should be sharp at 3200 dpi. Just like a 300w amplifier should play music with clarity and solid control when playing loud. The cheap amplifiers saying 300w in the specs are not even close to 300w. I guess that's the same with the scanners. It is a consumer thing I guess.</p>

<p>I am not going to make billboard size prints or anything like that. A4 is more realistic. A3 for really good photos maybe. I just like quality. It makes me take more photos. Just like a better hifi setup makes me listen to more music. That's just how it is :-)</p>

<p>If I was going to use a film scanner very, very often, I think it is OK for me to buy a expensive Nikon state-of-the-art film scanner. I will probably use a DLSR more often than a film scanner, so if the slide copy thing is worth trying out - I think that's the way to go.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies. I am learning a lot about film scanning :-)</p>

<p>It gives me headaches to figure out how to scan those (insert a very bad word) photos with reasonable quality. I am not expecting the film scans to look like a DSLR photo. Film is some grainy, quite low resolution dirty stuff unless you use really low ISO film and carry a tripod around all the time. Am I right?</p>

<p>Also, using a Olympus OM-10 is not easy. No autofocus, the light meter is freaking me out because I have to turn it on for almost every frame. The cat-eye focus plane in the viewfinder is probably not that precise, so a lot of my pictures are a little out of focus. In bright sunny weather, one could step down the aperture at f/8.0 or even more - pictures shot on a distance will look fine.</p>

<p>So, I admit that the sample picture I supplied in this thread is not a reference picture but I think of it as a "normal" picture. It could be sharper but it is not very unsharp. I still think that the scanner is blurring it up a lot. The professional scans you guys uploaded looks a little over sharpened to me, but it clearly shows up the grain and the sharpness is what I would expect for most of my own pictures. One thing that is stunning me is the colors of the pro scans. From a negative I am not getting anywhere near those colors. The dynamic range of my scanner is so bad that, when converting back to a positive (inverting and expanding the colors to get a contrasted picture) will produce a flat result even with 48bit processing. 24bit is unusable. Even with 48bit pictures a lot of sensor noise shows up. Of course, I do not normally convert my negatives to positives myself - I let Silverfast do it.</p>

<p>A dedicated film scanner is right now too expensive for me. This has come to a point where I think I might drop the hole idea of digitizing family pictures and my artistic work as well. It will be way too expensive and take way too long time. It is very, very sad. I have hundreds of negative strips just fading right know - waiting to be scanned :-(</p>

<p>I really hoped that the V700 was the solution. With that I could scan up to 24 pictures in one batch with... not so good quality, I guess.</p>

<p>Maybe you think I'm crazy - what about using a high quality DSLR, a high quality macro lens and some kind of slide/flimstrip holder in front of it with built in diffuse light source? A "scan" will take the time to autofocous and press the button. What about the quality? I don't know. At least there will be virtually no sensor noise. Negatives could be "scanned" by taking several pictures at different shutter speed and then combined in post-processing to eliminate flat colors and sensor noise. If that's possible, I could save up for maybe a Canon 5D Mk II and a good macro lens.</p>

<p>What do you think about that? :-) I might be crazy... or maybe it is a good idea? :-) Tell me what you think.</p>

<p>Still looks a lot better than my Canon.</p>

<p>The problem with dedicated film scanners is the price - especially if I want to scan more than a single frame in a batch. That is one reason why I like the V700 - I want to scan a lot in a short time having quality that, if the film/camera allows, I could make A3 prints that will look great. Maybe not super clean and grain free like digital - but who expect film to be that clean?</p>

<p>I am playing around with film myself as an amateur photographer, but I would like to scan old family photos as well. That will take insane amounts of time with a dedicated film scanner?</p>

<p>The Canon I already have is almost good enough for the family photos but not for my own "art making".</p>

<p>Do you think the V700 will satisfy my needs or is it better to get a V500 (much cheaper) and live with the quality? Then get drum scans or anything of the "very important" photos?</p>

<p>Thanks :-)</p>

<p>Is it scans of negatives or slides?</p>

<p>It seems like there is some sensor noise but the pics are not blurry compared to mine. It could probably be sharper but I think it is way better than my scans.</p>

<p>I found a review of the V700: http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_1.htm</p>

<p>The author says that it compares to a Nikon dedicated film scanner. Nikon is still a bit sharper, but a whole lot more expensive. That's interesting. I would still love to see some real scans of negatives and slides with the V700, including 100% crop if possible.</p>

<p>Thanks for the V500 scans anyway - maybe not a V700 but still better than a CanoScan 8400F in my opinion :-)</p>

<p>Hi<br>

Last autumn i scanned some negatives and slides on my Canon CanoScan 8400F. I was not really satisfied with the result, but I really don't know what to expect from the film medium itself. I just scanned a couple of slides again and I still think that the result is too soft compared to my digital SLR.<br>

The attached photo was taken with an Olympus OM-10 SLR with standard 50mm lens. The film is Fuji Sensia 200. I expect this combination to produce quite sharp pictures - maybe I am wrong? Well, I scanned this photo (attached) at 3200dpi (specs for the scanner says 3200 x 6400 dpi resolution) using SilverFast SE Plus. I "blacked out" the person on the picture. I have included a 100% crop as well. The crop shows the sharpness of the picture. Not good enough, I think. The focus seem to be fine, but overall the picture is (very) soft?<br>

With other pictures I get about the same results.<br>

The slide was unmounted and scanned with the 35mm film holder supplied with the scanner.<br>

Negatives are often a lot worse, not softer, but the colors are bad and too much sensor noise shows up on the picture when converted to a positive picture - Multiple-exposure and stuff like that in SilverFast clearly reduces the problem, but not a lot. Looks more grainy than slides as well. Kodak Gold 200 might be more grainy than Fuji Sensia 200? I guess one can't compare negative and slide film like that?<br>

Basicly, I want to know how much more resolution/sharpness I will get if I buy an Epson V700?<br>

I have seen amazing scans from a Nikon film scanner - but OMG they are very expensive. The film grain shows up clearly - that must be a sign of good resolution?<br>

4800 dpi or maybe even 3200 dpi is fine for me if the image is sharp. The scans from my 8400F looks like a good scan that just went through a blur filter and then a little pixelation afterwards if you know what I mean.<br>

The Epson V700 is expensive for me so I would be glad to know how much I can expect from the scanner.<br>

Do you think I expect too high resolution from the film or is the scanner the main limitation?</p>

<div></div>

<p>Thanks for all the responses so far.<br>

I can invert the image and remove the orange mask in my raw 48-bit scans using Silverfast. The problem is, Silverfast doing too much guessing how I want the image to look - even when I'm not using auto adjusting. Changing the crop area of an image is enough to make a world of difference. I do not trust that. That means that pictures taken at the same scene, the same day at the same time will have different color temperature and so on. That is the software problem.<br>

I might be satisfied with the quality of the scanner, if the software stop messing up my images.<br>

Simply, I need a tool that can invert the image, remove the orange mask and restore the contrast, without doing any guessing and auto adjusting. Of course I want some kind of auto adjusting, but not with that much difference between images that should look the same.<br>

Some of the images look cold with some kind of magenta color cast - others will be warm and have a yellow/green cast. I begin thinking that it is completely random how SilverFast HDR is converting my images.</p>

<p>If it is true that my Canon scanner is fine, then it must be a software problem. Silverfast HDR post processing software is not doing what I want.<br>

Of course I could by the Epson V700 and scan twice as much in a batch, get a little more resolution and so on. But I will still have the post processing problems unless I get some better software.<br>

I have tried UFRaw - I don't think it will let me do negative to positive conversion - I found out that it will not open 48 bit TIFF as well.</p>

<p>I thought of making a little automated script with imagemagick to take the raw 24-bit scans and convert them into 24bit positive looking like the print. Then refine it, and then use that script for ALL pictures shot with Kodak Gold 200. Then I could make another with slight changes that will work for other films as needed. Simply bypassing Silverfast's NegaFix and such. But I think it will be too complicated for me.<br>

Is it possible that you could send me some scans you made with the Epson V700? I would really like to see what this scanner can do with negatives. I don't care about slides because I know they will look just fine. Maybe I'm asking for too much... I would love too see what the Epson can do with normal color negatives.<br>

I actually use a combination of Windows XP, Linux (newest Ubuntu) and Mac OS X.</p>

<p>I haven't tried Vuescan. I do not own a copy of Photoshop - usually, I use GIMP. GIMP does not support 24bit, so I need something else.<br>

What I really want is a automated process that will make the scans look like the prints, except higher resolution and higher dynamic range. I don't want to do small adjustment to each picture - the prints are fine and made automatically I assume. I want about the same solution - for digital images files instead of prints. One could say "Why don't you just scan the prints?" - My answer will be loss of dynamic range and low resolution.<br>

I have a lot of film to scan - I feel like I'm wasting my time because the quality doesn't match the prints.<br>

I understand it is hard to see the grain at the standard 10x15cm print size - I except to see film grain at my scans, and I do - but the grain is some kind of amplified with some really nasty red/purple noise. The prints look smooth, sharp and with solid colors - not flat and noisy at all.<br>

It cannot be true that I will need a dedicated high priced film scanner or a VERY expensive drum scanner to make scans that match the prints. If that's true - it's not worth it for me.<br>

If the Epson V700 scanner does the job, I will get that one and be able to scan a lot more in a batch. I would like to continue using Silverfast making the 48-bit scans and then use something else, fully automated for post processing making consistent results. I have tried Silverfast HDR for post processing, but it does not give me consistent results. Two almost identical frames can have different color temperature, contrast, you name it - while the prints are just fine.<br>

The reason I mention the Epson V700, is that I believe from reviews, that it is the best filmscanner for the money - flatbed or not. To get a little higher quality, you will need some of the very expensive Nikons, but it is not worth the extra price unless you will make really large prints. If that's not true - please correct me.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thank you so much for your replies. I will try to give some more information:<br>

The optical resolution of the scanner is 3200 dpi. Mechanical resolution of 6400 dpi. I still think the images are soft at 100% both 3200 dpi and 6400 dpi. The problem for me is not the resolution. It is still better than the prints and that's good enough for me.<br>

The problem is, that many of the scans (48 bit negative) is very dark with 80% of the histogram being totally without data. Sure, it is a color negative scan, the original negative is low contrast. Only 20% of the scan is usable for generating a digital positive image with normal contrast. That's not enough - and flat colors and a lot of noise shows up.<br>

Multi-exposure should be able to take two exposures - a normal and a lighter one? Then combine the two to get more information from the original negative. I doesn't look better.<br>

I suspect the scanner to have bad dynamic range and somehow quite noisy CCD's.<br>

I have problems with underexposured slides as well - if the slides are exposured correctly, there is no problems because slides have normal contrast and will give a full histogram - does not need much post-processing and so on.<br>

Is it better to use a slide copier setup with a DSLR, macro lens, take 5 exposures of each frame and combine them? It could be used for both negatives and slides. Or - will it be better using a better scanner? I need som advice.<br>

Again, the resolution is fine for me. 10MP or higher is fine for 35mm. It is noise and bad dynamic range that's my problem.</p>

<p>I have scanned a lot of negatives and slides (all 35mm) with my Canon 8400F using SilverFast SE Plus.<br>

I have tried a lot of different scanning options to get rid of noise - especially multi-sampling and multi-exposure.<br>

The noise problems are very visible on negative scans. Mostly in lighter areas. If the negative is very dark (overexposure) I get VERY noisy pictures - looks very grainy with "incomplete" colors. In scans of positives, I sometimes have problems with noise in the darker areas - underexposures get very noisy, but not as bad as the overexposured negatives.<br>

I think the negative scans really looks like a digital picture converted to a low contrast picture and back to a normal contrast picture. That gives a whole lot of distortion.<br>

Even if I use 16x multi-exposure, I still have noise problems for some of the "hard to scan" photos - the prints made at the time of processing is just fine. No grain, no noise. Another problem with 16x multi-exposure is the long waiting time and sometimes softer image because of scanner vibration/bad alignment.<br>

Do I need a new scanner or will it just be slightly better?<br>

I want better quality than the prints.<br>

Most of the pictures are from Kodak Gold 200 film. Cheap, standard film - but I suppose the quality of the film is a LOT better than the 8400F can give me. The prints does not look grainy or noisy at all.<br>

I would like to be able to scan as many frames in a batch as possible. With 8400F, 12 frames is max. 11 for me, because there is a scratch on the glass surface.<br>

The Epson V700 (or V750) will let me do a batch scan of 24 frames - that's really interesting if the quality is a BIG step up from Canon 8400F?</p>

<p> </p>