Hi all,
First of: I do NOT want to restart all the good discussions about all the differences between drum scanners and high end (CCD based) film scanners like Nikon and Imacon.
There have been plenty of discussions about the inherent better capability of PMT based drum scanners in capturing especially shadow detail in high contrast slide film compared to CCD based designs, and the ability of drum scanners to more-or-less "hide" grain while still capturing high detail.
Instead, I would like to discuss one specific aspect of scanning with these kind of scanners, and that is scanning of color negative film with these two designs.
Please note, I have only used an Imacon Flextight 949 as a high end type film scanner, drum scanning is not widely available anymore in the Netherlands, nor can I afford it.
I must say I have been very impressed with the results of the 949 so far, but have not yet used it for color negative film yet, since most of my work is BW and the few color films I have scanned up to now were slide.
However, I recently shot a film of Kodak Portra 160VC and, even scanned on my simple Canon 9950F scanner, was struck by it's beautiful vibrant colors. Not suitable for all things, but I intend to shoot more of it.
And of course scan it on a high end scanner, most likely the Imacon that I can hire in a professional lab in Amsterdam.
Now to my question and topic of discussion: Since color negative film has a far smaller contrast range than slide, the inherent advantage of drum scanners in dealing with high contrast / DMax seems to be a bit mute. As the contrast range of the color negative film is only a fraction of that of slide film, things like the bit depth used during capture (with 16 or 24 bit / channel of course almost a prerequisite) and the ability of the scanners hardware to accurately capture and separate even small differences in contrast, seems far more important than the overall DMax the scanner can deal with... Also, the ability of both the hard- and software in accurately translating the measured raw data into a user useable color space like AdobeRGB or some even wider gamut color space without introducing additional errors and (electronics caused) noise seems of key importance.
These aspects are of such importance as the measured small differences must be translated to a full scale contrast range ranging from white to black and from completely desaturated to 100% saturated colors.
On these aspects, a CCD based high end film scanner like a Nikon or Imacon could be scoring just as well as any drum scanner, and maybe even beat it.
What are your opinions about this specific aspect of the difference between drum (PMT based) scanners and high end (CCD based) film scannners?
And is there anyone who can comment on this from a practical point of view, having scanned color negative fim on both types of scanner?
First of: I do NOT want to restart all the good discussions about all the differences between drum scanners and high end (CCD based) film scanners like Nikon and Imacon.
There have been plenty of discussions about the inherent better capability of PMT based drum scanners in capturing especially shadow detail in high contrast slide film compared to CCD based designs, and the ability of drum scanners to more-or-less "hide" grain while still capturing high detail.
Instead, I would like to discuss one specific aspect of scanning with these kind of scanners, and that is scanning of color negative film with these two designs.
Please note, I have only used an Imacon Flextight 949 as a high end type film scanner, drum scanning is not widely available anymore in the Netherlands, nor can I afford it.
I must say I have been very impressed with the results of the 949 so far, but have not yet used it for color negative film yet, since most of my work is BW and the few color films I have scanned up to now were slide.
However, I recently shot a film of Kodak Portra 160VC and, even scanned on my simple Canon 9950F scanner, was struck by it's beautiful vibrant colors. Not suitable for all things, but I intend to shoot more of it.
And of course scan it on a high end scanner, most likely the Imacon that I can hire in a professional lab in Amsterdam.
Now to my question and topic of discussion: Since color negative film has a far smaller contrast range than slide, the inherent advantage of drum scanners in dealing with high contrast / DMax seems to be a bit mute. As the contrast range of the color negative film is only a fraction of that of slide film, things like the bit depth used during capture (with 16 or 24 bit / channel of course almost a prerequisite) and the ability of the scanners hardware to accurately capture and separate even small differences in contrast, seems far more important than the overall DMax the scanner can deal with... Also, the ability of both the hard- and software in accurately translating the measured raw data into a user useable color space like AdobeRGB or some even wider gamut color space without introducing additional errors and (electronics caused) noise seems of key importance.
These aspects are of such importance as the measured small differences must be translated to a full scale contrast range ranging from white to black and from completely desaturated to 100% saturated colors.
On these aspects, a CCD based high end film scanner like a Nikon or Imacon could be scoring just as well as any drum scanner, and maybe even beat it.
What are your opinions about this specific aspect of the difference between drum (PMT based) scanners and high end (CCD based) film scannners?
And is there anyone who can comment on this from a practical point of view, having scanned color negative fim on both types of scanner?
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