[wombat2go]

nice workstation you got there ;-)

Thanks, that is the "Dust-proof Hutch" with downflow of filtered air.

[Lowell Goudge]

As I mentioned, I believe the curl or lack of flatness seems to be a major problem area. A negative carrier will pretty much flatten(being of metal) any negative and I always used a grain magnifier to get the best from a given negative. I can't use that with a scanner...wish I could. I've never read anything about being able to adjust the focus on either of the scanners I have. Even if you could, there's no "live view" to see what you're doing.

I use a Minolta Dimage II for my slide and negative scans. It is limited to 35mm so it may not be of help, but it does have a focus adjustment built in, which helps in the event that the frame is not 100% flat

My biggest issue with curl is when I have a single negative frame, usually because it is at the end of a strip. The Minolta carrier has clamping bars that pinch the negative strip between frames as well as the ends of the strip, so the strip collectively has 7 clamps that press the strip flat. But a single frame is not always cut with excess to really press it flat so it tends to bow in the centre

Slides are not an issue because they are mounted, and that seems,mover time to result in good flat frames. I scanned all 20,000 of my film shots with this scanner and never had focus and sharpness issues with the scans, you could at 2880dpi see the grain quite well,

[wombat2go]

35mm negs can be mounted in Gepe glassless mounts which have an accurate thin stainless clamp.
These are re-usable and available for about $13 per 100

[ColColt]

I bought the ANR glass from betterscanning.com for the V600 and while it may have helped, with Tri-X the negatives can be so curled the weight of the glass is not enough to press the negatives down enough. That's the main reason I decided to go wit a dedicated 35mm scanner such as the Plustek 8200i. While it does better you still have to have a relatively flat negative so, I've gotten to the point of after drying a roll to cut them and place in sleeves and just let the weight of half a dozen books sit on them for a couple days.

[desertscape]

Scanning seems to be 75% art and 25% machine capability. I use the Plustek 120 for both 35mm and 6x7 work. It has magnetic film trays that hold the film flat but there is some finesse involved. Before closing the tray, one must make sure the curl is bent flat. I do this with a wooden tongue depressor. I don't have flatness issues. However it is next to impossible to exactly replicate what was on film unless you have the artistic ability (in SilverFast, etc) and the machine has the ability to capture the detail of the slide. This is a tall order. The Plustek 120 was my solution, short of spending $20,000 on the Hasselblad X5. There are reliability issues with this machine (Plustek) though.

[ColColt]

75% art, that I'll agree. I haven't been scanning photos/negatives but a few months now. The Plustek seems to do a better job but I'm wondering if it's all my method. Maybe I should do like I once did focusing on the enlarger when I used a grain magnifier. Maybe I should enlarge the photos to 100% in pp, sharpen till the "grain" is sharp and then go back to 30-50% and do any last minute tweaks like resizing. I haven't been doing that but I think I'll try it. I've read no where exactly how to get the best sharpness other than a flat negative which seems many times to be an illusive butterfly.

[stevebrot]

75% art, that I'll agree

+3 on that point. Ironically, it helps to have some background doing wet darkroom prints.


Steve

[ColColt]

I started doing darkroom work in 1977. With the aid of Dektol, Beers Formula and other developers, Oriental Seagull, Ilford and Kodak papers and the good ol' Besler 23CII I had quite a bit of experience under the belt. These scanners are a horse of a different color.

[K David]

Scanning is the only way to upload photos to the internet for posterity or for sharing so what do you do?

I use my K-3, a macro bellows, and slide copier for 35mm film. I have a home-made copy stand and use a macro lens with back-lit negatives for medium- and large-format film. Works superbly.

Medium format:


35mm:


Here are some tutorials I did a long time ago. Now I use macro tubes to enclose the space between the enlarger lens and negative.

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[Pioneer]

I rarely get to concerned about ultimate sharpness for my first time scans. I use the scan more like a light box. Once I find a photo I want to work with I then put my effort into my scans. Usually I use my Epson to scan using the glass holder. If it isn't flat enough, and this is usually the case, then I tape that little sucker down tight. I have also used pennies to adjust the height of my holder. I have even focused stacked using this method and combined the result in Photoshop.

If all this fails, and sometimes it does, then I very closely review the negative on a light table with the magnifier. Most times I find that these negatives are just subtly unsharp and no amount of scan work will make them right. This is what I have found to be the ultimate fault in all but one of the cases where I could not get a sharp scan from my own setup. When I review my notes I have found the great majority of these exposures were made without a tripod or monopod at moderate shutter speeds.

For me, though obviously not for all, I am not steady enough to hold my camera as still as it needs to be even at speeds that are 1/focal length, or sometimes even 2/focal length. Other times there is excessive blurring caused by breezes I did not fully consider when taking the photo. I have found that the best thing that I can do is use a tripod if I really intend to make large prints of anything I photograph.

I rarely send out 35mm negatives for a drum scan unless I intend to enlarge quite a bit. Even then I find I have wasted my money is about 75% of the cases. 35mm is no less sensitive to accurate focus today than it has been in the past. Scanning technology has not changed that fact one little bit.

[Alex645]

Late to the conversation, but here's my two cents: I've done side by side comparisons between excellent Epson flatbed scanners and an old Minolta Dimage MultiScan Pro film scanner using VueScan on a Mac. The film scanner is distinctly better. I've also found some films scan beautifully (Ilford XP2 and Kodak Ektar) and others less. When shooting medium format, there is a glass carrier to help keep the film flat. The higher the level of dust and scratch removal on the software settings, the softer the image.

I still develop my own black & white, but if I need C-41 processing, I've had really good experience with the FINDlab in Utah for both developing and scanning 35mm and 120 film.

Honestly I've never been satisfied with slide scans, either old Kodachrome or Fujichrome Velvia. If you've ever made your own Ciba or Ilfochromes, going digital doesn't come close. And I'm fortunate enough to have access to both a darkroom and a digital media lab. A well done gelatin silver print is still superior to a high res digital scan and print. I think it has to do with the digital scan and print is essentially rows and columns of pixels and dots, but when you go from one random analog silver grain arrangement to another one on the paper emulsion, the end result is aesthetically superior. I think of it as the ultimate uncompressed or raw file.

No doubt technology, even digital, can and will improve. The Pentax K3ii has a nice pixel shifting feature that truly enhances resolution of still digital images.

And for sharpening, I used to use a lot of Unsharp Mask on PS6, but never liked the increased 'grain'. So now I make a duplicate layer, filter-other-high pass, (3-5 pixels), then instead of 'normal' on the layer, change it to 'overlay', then merge down. Helps with sharpness without adding 'grain'.

[ColColt]

Maybe it's just me and that's quite possible but, no scan I've attempted to date whether color/B&W or whether it's 35mm or 120 can compare with an enlarger made print in tone and sharpness. I find it most frustrating. I use a stand along Plustek 8200i and while it does better than the V600 I can't use it for 120.

For Internet sharing via Flickr or some other method I just cant seem to get them sharp enough. They may look pretty good prior to uploading to Flickr but afterwards not so much. Photobucket is even worse.

[tuco]

This is what I'm typically getting from my Nikon 9000ED scanner. This one I have a cropped section to post. It's a handhold shot from my Pentax 67 and 400TMY I've posted before. You can almost read the building address in her reflection. I'd think I should do a crop from one of my Fuji GSW690III for the record and of one with finer 100ACR film instead of 400 film.

[gofour3]

Honestly I've never been satisfied with slide scans, either old Kodachrome

Silverfast scanning s/w has a Kodachrome profile that is very good for scanning your old Kodachrome slides. The problem I have is scanning my Fuji slides, these results are not than good.

Phil.

[Jonathan Mac]

I have a V500 and have never been happy with the quality from it, though I have to admit others fare much better with the same or similar equipment.

For B&W I "scan" using a DSLR with macro lens and the results are far superior. I can't do this for colour though due to the orange mask (though there are was around this the involve lots of work and expensive software).