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How much from a 35mm frame?
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robhooley167
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Wow, that's certainly a lot more than I was expecting. How does the Cezanne stack up against a drum scanner?
excalibur2
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Now why can't the Chinese make a scanner to give that result for £250 
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OP
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Now why can't the Chinese make a scanner to give that result for £250
Well I only paid £400 for it ;-)
OP
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It's better than most drum scanner (better than mine anyway) but it only for negatives. The Dmax and flare make transparency scanning a problem. I've got a Fuji Lanovia that is a better flatbed but weighs nearly 300lb and is the size of a piano. I've got a Howtek drum scanner which isn't too big but only managed 4000dpi but I'm getting a Heidelberg Tango in at the end of the year which should manage about 9000dpi (although only microfiche black and white gets that much detail).
So - if you're shooting neg then pro level flatbeds are excellent but only a drum scan does transparencies properly..
Tim
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I have to say, I had no idea a 35mm neg held that level of detail, especially such a high speed film.
I now realise the quality of scans I get are pretty poor, what to do, what to do.
I now realise the quality of scans I get are pretty poor, what to do, what to do.
OP
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Well I do offer a scanning service - but I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that..
Tim
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From some research a colleague 'Henning Serger' performed, Fuji Superia is actually very high resolution. About 100 line pairs per mm - which is about the same resolution as Portra 160 and Portra 400 record.
Fuji Superia 200 or 400 is probably your best bet for really sharp film or Fujicolor 100 which all have 120-130 lines per mm.
Transparency has more resolution than this and can be sharpened further. Provia/Astia/Velvia 100F all have up to 140 line pairs per mm..
The real deal is Adox CMS20 which gets near 300 line pairs per mm.. here's a shot comparing D800E with a Mamiya 7 for black and white. I've also included a comparison using Portra 400 for colour..
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From some research a colleague 'Henning Serger' performed, Fuji Superia is actually very high resolution. About 100 line pairs per mm - which is about the same resolution as Portra 160 and Portra 400 record.
Fuji Superia 200 or 400 is probably your best bet for really sharp film or Fujicolor 100 which all have 120-130 lines per mm.
Transparency has more resolution than this and can be sharpened further. Provia/Astia/Velvia 100F all have up to 140 line pairs per mm..
The real deal is Adox CMS20 which gets near 300 line pairs per mm.. here's a shot comparing D800E with a Mamiya 7 for black and white. I've also included a comparison using Portra 400 for colour..
As Woodsy said very impressive. As far as you offering a scanning service I would be a little careful and suggest you contact the mods about offering your services on a trader basis.
OP
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100lppm is equal to 200pixels per mm which is about 7200px wide which makes 35 megapixels. However this is at the level of extinction (i.e. barely discernable).
Even thought the film may resolve at 24-30 megapixels it will only look the same as about a 12-15 megapixel digital camera because digital excels at edge contrast. However film might record colour textures at the level of a 30 megapixel digital camera.
This all supposed perfect lenses in perfect conditions (Nikkor 50 f/1.8 on a tripod with perfect film register) so for most conditions a film 35mm shot is about 10-12 megapixels or once it gets through a cheap scanner, about 6-8 megapixels.
By all accounts it does actually meet those figures in real tests.
Brocure
Wondered who had won that a friend had asked me if they thought it was a good buy.
Well the manafactuers spec was 11000dpi however I recall in one test a figure of more like 5000dpi ish and a lot of people doubting that the usual arguments centre around the size of its aperatures from a post by Bruce Watson on Large Format info it has a wheel of 25 aperatures the smallest of which is 10microns now conventional drum scanner wisdom would say that limits its optical resolution to about 2500dpi however I did find a page yesterday where someone attempted to explain how it reached its claimed higher resolutions but that is not currently loading and it should be noted that they operated a service using one. Myself I don't see the Tango as the ultimate drum scanner I can however see the attraction from a comercail point of view as you can mount a hell of a lot on that drum and leave it to do its thing.
Lots of interesting debate on the merits of the Tango on LFInfo when its back up latter I'll post the links.
It's often informative / amusing to see how scanning services base their range of services around the limitations of the equitement they are using.
Are you finding the limitations of the Scanmaster 4500 irritating Tim ? They are certainly capable of good results but I found some of its limitations irritating with 10x8 and its build quality is in my opinion no where close to say the Optronics Colorgetters or Dianippion Screen scanners and I'm aware of others who switched to the Scanmate line. Just about every drum scanner has some annoying limitation hidden away in the specs.
As to size of files.
I did some mucking around with some 20 year old 35mm and a 6000dpi well ok 5950dpi (seeing as I was being anal earlier) came out about 300Mb for a 8000dpi scan the file was about 500Mb.
I don't normally scan 35mm. Size for a 5x4 scanned at 3200dpi is about 1Gb you can scan higher but I think Bruce Watson about has it right in this disscusion on photo.net
For a 10x8 a 1600doi scan is about 1Gb I did do a stiched 3200dpi a couple of weeks ago which is where you find out that Tiff only suports upto 4Gb so I ennded up with a 9Gb PSD
Now here are some I did earlier or rather I went hunting for old negs etc, first attempt at scanning negs usinng the Screen Negacolour software which seems to have done an ok job the scans are horrible because I just nailed them to the drum currently in there and these are 20 odd years old not very well stored negatives you can click on them to get the all sizes and download the originals subject matter isn't thrilling either if I find better conditiion one I'll have a go at it later.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abbandon/8923072709/ <-- 6000dpi or thereabouts Kodack Ektar 25 pro around 1990 so a Nikon FM2n and 35mm F1.4Ai RSM fieldtrip think its Tulle in the Limousin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abbandon/8923069819/lightbox/ <-- same again at a Gold mine in the area
I haven't upped the 8000dpi scan as it got attacked by the dreaded Magenta Tinge of doom which I should probably look into.
Somewhere I should have some Kodachrome 25 from around the same time but I haven't unearthed that yet so the one below acccoring to the stamp in the mount is from Aug 84 which would probably be a Nikkormat Ftn and a 50mm F2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abbandon/8923074939/ <-- ok so I was never a fan of Kodachrome
I would say the Cezanne went for about the going rate a Howtek 4500 went for about 280 the other day I paid 685 for one in Nov 08 with mounting station and two drums and a large quantity of consumables (must get round to fixing the poxy thing).
Optronics ColorGetter II Pro was 123 can at least do 4000dpi across its whole drum but the software I have for it is 8bit and the 16bit software for it by the time you get vat and shippinng on it new would be about 850
Dianippion Screen DT-S1045AI 250 buy it now exchanged some services for another drum and a mounting station and also ended up with a mint set of Konica Hexagons as well.
The Howtek was about 20 000 new the colorgetter 36 000 and the screen 56 000 Tim's Cezanne I believe was marketted for 18 000 when it was new the precision enginerring and high quality components in these is just never going to be cheap back when they could sell 500 - 2000 it was possible for firms to make these profittably now only IGC and Aztek claim to offer new Drum scanners prices believed to be about 20 - 30 000. I could be wrong but I don't think any of the pro flatbeds are still in production either. Three HV psu's and the photomultipliers new in small quantities would likely cost 3000 +
Drum scanners get given away / scrapped not infrequently fewer people know what they are or have the inclination to try then I saw 3 colorgetters II Pro's plus 2 parts machines go for less than $20 in the US a couple of years ago there was a buy it now on an 11 000dpi screen for under $500 that machine got scrapped and the seller was trying to sell the boards and manuals.
Most of these are laughingly called desktop drum scanners average ish sort of size is 4 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot and say 100Kg its a bit bigger than an Epson V750 as are the pro flatbeds I know what I would get whats a V750 now ? 650ish now that I am happy with the Screen I pobabaly haven't used the V750 since Febuary.
Health warning you may end up exposing yourself to the horror known as Mac OS9 its not nice and I never thought it was pretty myself and MAC hardware is suprisingly a lot more incompatable than people might think if people get tempted for something that will only run on OS9 and a lot of drum scanners fall into that catorgory you need to be aware that you need a Mac that will natively boot OS9 running in classic will not cut it as it will not talk to the SCCI or GPIB interface you usually need as a few pointers G4 Power Macs are a usefull buy but don't get one with a third party upgraded processor they generally need OSX best bet is the Mirrored Drive Door models as its Dram and larger drives are suported but note that the firewire 800 one of then will not natively boot OS9.
Now go crash your browser on a 10x8
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Thanks. Very useful to know.
OP
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It needed dismantling, lubing and cleaning but it came with a G5 with OSX all configured so it worked out a good deal in the end. Not great Dmax though (nowhere near as good as the Lanovia I'm using).
Well there's certainly a lot of bad mouthing about resolution and apertures around the Heidelberg and my reasons are mostly to do with its great Dmax, lack of grain/noise and the overall handling of multiple drums (I'm getting the 8400).
However I've done quite a few tests on scanners such as the Aztek Premiere and for regular films (i.e. excluding microfiche film for the moment) all the smaller apertures did was increase noise which masked detail and hence you didn't actually get anything extra out and from what I could see you actually lose detail. It turns out that the best resolution was had at about 10 micron which gave near pixel level detail on a 8000dpi scan - according to the aperture=resolution rule this is impossible. It just so happens that 10 micron is the smallest aperture on the Primescan - I wonder why!
However I haven't tested this on a microfiche film such as Adox CMS20 so I don't know if the smaller aperture would help here as this film has no grain that I can tell.
As you mention it's mostly a problem with getting a volume of work through the door and I can always live with a bit more shadow detail and resolution
The Howtek is very good having compared it with commercial labs using ICGs - it reinforces the adage that a scanner is only as good as it's operator. A good operator can't get more out of the scanner than it's capable of a bad one can certainly get a lot less!
I'd agree with that although I've seen that you can minimise the look of grain by oversampling negatives.
Yes I did that for the Big Camera Comparison - a 4000dpi scan of a Provia 10x8 - amazingly it still had pixel level detail!
I've got G5 with OSX Tiger running the Lanovia and the Cezanne and the Howtek is running Windows XP (I run Aztek DPL for negs - just raw scans - and Silverfast for chromes, I don't know why but silverfast focuses the Howtek more reliably).
I'll take a look at the scans in a sec
Tim
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I am jus gonna say, holy Jesus! Impressive stuff
The 35mm's i posted are a bit horrible but they are the full scales so you can see the sort of size you can get. I still haven't found where the Kodachromes from the nineties have got to but I have chucked an Agfachrome RS50 on the scanner and will have a go at doing it at a few different resolutions.
If you want to print big though Bruce Watsons point about film real eastate is a good one.
Definetly a good deal I can leave with OSX its the pecuilaritiiers of OS9 that drive me up the wall I was more pointing it out in case anyone is interested enough to look into getting a drum scanner.
I found the link to the info on the Tango I'm not entirely convinced on the optical resolution claimes but that is neither here nor there with regards to imagine quality for a range of reasons it doesn't pay to scan at the maxium resolution often enough.
I have no direct experiece with the Premier and certainly people are happy with Lenny Eigers work with one but I must say that the scans from it are to me one of the weakest in the colaborative scan comparrion.
The sort of word on the streets for shadow detail is the Colorgetter III Pro not the birds of prey range as it has a nasty beast of a Xeon lamp its one of the reasons I have kept the Colorgetter II Pro about it shares the same lamp the downside of which is a 160 or so replacement cost and not an especailly long life you can at least get the one for a Howtek for 20 and the Screens is 5.
The Tango should make your life a lot easier with the larger drum its the main reason I like my screen so much with an A3 drum you can mouint two 10x8's or eight 5x4's or combinations and leave it batch scanning while you are asleep / at work or whatever.
I have a G4 digitail Audio set up for the Colorgetter a G4 Mdd for the Screen and when the Howtek was behaving itself that was DPL under XP I did try Silverfast but as with the V750 and a Nikon LS2000 I don't really get on with it I also have a PC and Dongle for Trident 3.71 I think it is which runs on NT.
The Screen did come as a complete set up but the ancient Mac 8600 decided to shuffle off this mortal coil after a day and the cost of replacing the PSU it was just quickier easier and cheaper to set up a G4 one of the few good things I have to say about OS9 is it is at least easy just to copy instaklled programs and have them work
Brocure for the screen in case anyones interested
Even this sadly has exagerations as no drum scanner I am aware of at least is truly 16bit like most the A/D's are 12bit you have to wonder if the enginerring staff winced when they saw marketting claims like this for the record it does seem that any signal processing paths after the A/D's are 16bit at least from the functional description in the service manual.
I noticed your articles about scanning RAW I have mostly been doing this with transparency and Black and White the negatives where done more under the scanners software it did at least have a preset for Ektar 100 that seems to have done ok I am not 100% sure USM is off for these but it is for the transparency and B&W i.e no sharpening.
If you want to print big though Bruce Watsons point about film real eastate is a good one.
Definetly a good deal
I can leave with OSX its the pecuilaritiiers of OS9 that drive me up the wall I was more pointing it out in case anyone is interested enough to look into getting a drum scanner.I found the link to the info on the Tango I'm not entirely convinced on the optical resolution claimes but that is neither here nor there with regards to imagine quality for a range of reasons it doesn't pay to scan at the maxium resolution often enough.
I have no direct experiece with the Premier and certainly people are happy with Lenny Eigers work with one but I must say that the scans from it are to me one of the weakest in the colaborative scan comparrion.
As you mention it's mostly a problem with getting a volume of work through the door and I can always live with a bit more shadow detail and resolution
The Howtek is very good having compared it with commercial labs using ICGs - it reinforces the adage that a scanner is only as good as it's operator. A good operator can't get more out of the scanner than it's capable of a bad one can certainly get a lot less!
The sort of word on the streets for shadow detail is the Colorgetter III Pro not the birds of prey range as it has a nasty beast of a Xeon lamp its one of the reasons I have kept the Colorgetter II Pro about it shares the same lamp the downside of which is a 160 or so replacement cost and not an especailly long life you can at least get the one for a Howtek for 20 and the Screens is 5.
The Tango should make your life a lot easier with the larger drum its the main reason I like my screen so much with an A3 drum you can mouint two 10x8's or eight 5x4's or combinations and leave it batch scanning while you are asleep / at work or whatever.
I have a G4 digitail Audio set up for the Colorgetter a G4 Mdd for the Screen and when the Howtek was behaving itself that was DPL under XP I did try Silverfast but as with the V750 and a Nikon LS2000 I don't really get on with it I also have a PC and Dongle for Trident 3.71 I think it is which runs on NT.
The Screen did come as a complete set up but the ancient Mac 8600 decided to shuffle off this mortal coil after a day and the cost of replacing the PSU it was just quickier easier and cheaper to set up a G4 one of the few good things I have to say about OS9 is it is at least easy just to copy instaklled programs and have them work
Brocure for the screen in case anyones interested
Even this sadly has exagerations as no drum scanner I am aware of at least is truly 16bit like most the A/D's are 12bit you have to wonder if the enginerring staff winced when they saw marketting claims like this for the record it does seem that any signal processing paths after the A/D's are 16bit at least from the functional description in the service manual.
I noticed your articles about scanning RAW I have mostly been doing this with transparency and Black and White the negatives where done more under the scanners software it did at least have a preset for Ektar 100 that seems to have done ok I am not 100% sure USM is off for these but it is for the transparency and B&W i.e no sharpening.
excalibur2
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Hello Abbandon..how good is the Fuji frontier at the supermarkets as I believe they can scan at least to a true 3000 dpi.
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Thanks indeed. That is really useful information.
Next time when a digital user laugh at my film resolution, I would him those figures.
