Flat bed vs DSLR scanning

brbo · Jul 5, 2022

Helge said:
A scanner lens could be very simple if you use a super strong backlight to get a small aperture and use a peaky RGB backlight exposing sequentially, combined with a monochrome sensor, so remaining CA is more easily corrected in software.

You just invented... a drum scanner!!!

MattKing said:
Scanner lenses are probably much easier to design, because they don't need to work with a wide range of magnifications and they are only required to image to and from a really small field.
The film and scanning head transports are more of a challenge.

The hard thing in a scanner (and that hasn't changed significantly with the advancement in sensor and lighting technology) is to ensure perfect alignment and no vibration (with all the transport and autofocusing mechanisms in place) at all time during scanning.

Some folks at Plustek thought they solved this by using a lens with smaller aperture to get larger dof (so to be able to get rid of AF, get fixed film plane). It didn't work out that great. In their second version of 120 scanner they still needed to enable some manual adjustments of film plane to get acceptable resolution. And smaller aperture in scanning lens meant less resolution which they needed to compensate with sensor with more pixels which brought a problem of needing to scan at native sensor resolution to get half of that (oversampling) in the end as real/effective resolution.

Helge · Jul 5, 2022

brbo said:
You just invented... a drum scanner!!!

The hard thing in a scanner (and that hasn't changed significantly with the advancement in sensor and lighting technology) is to ensure perfect alignment and no vibration (with all the transport and autofocusing mechanisms in place) at all time during scanning.

Some folks at Plustek thought they solved this by using a lens with smaller aperture to get larger dof (so to be able to get rid of AF, get fixed film plane). It didn't work out that great. In their second version of 120 scanner they still needed to enable some manual adjustments of film plane to get acceptable resolution. And smaller aperture in scanning lens meant less resolution which they needed to compensate with sensor with more pixels which brought a problem of needing to scan at native sensor resolution to get half of that (oversampling) in the end as real/effective resolution.

But no drum that requires a hysteric priesthood of a low cult to protect and use. And no insanely expensive PMT. And no pinhole optics that Gaussian blurs smaller formats more than needed.

What introduces vibration and wobble is motors, sheer size and lack of rigidity.
A small and simple scanner will be good exactly because it is simple and small.

Lock the film in place clamped between two pieces of AN glass and have a fixed focus lens with a small aperture (not too small of course) and a mobile phone type monochrome sensor be manually stepped over the film, with super bright RGB LEDs for backlight.
There. That is the recipe for a cheap and very good scanner.

brbo · Jul 5, 2022

I didn't say that you made a drum scanner. Just invented it.

Helge · Jul 5, 2022

brbo said:
I didn't say that you made a drum scanner. Just invented it.

Figure speech both of them I'm sure. And basically synonyms.

Andrew O'Neill · Jul 5, 2022

Years ago I tried scanning my 8x10 negatives with a DSLR...then stitch everything in PS. It was a lot of work, and I wasn't thrilled with the results. It's too easy laying down the negative on a flatbed, with AN glass on top. When I'm feeling not so lazy, I wet mount.

250swb · Jul 5, 2022

brbo said:
You just invented... a drum scanner!!!

The hard thing in a scanner (and that hasn't changed significantly with the advancement in sensor and lighting technology) is to ensure perfect alignment and no vibration (with all the transport and autofocusing mechanisms in place) at all time during scanning.

Some folks at Plustek thought they solved this by using a lens with smaller aperture to get larger dof (so to be able to get rid of AF, get fixed film plane). It didn't work out that great. In their second version of 120 scanner they still needed to enable some manual adjustments of film plane to get acceptable resolution. And smaller aperture in scanning lens meant less resolution which they needed to compensate with sensor with more pixels which brought a problem of needing to scan at native sensor resolution to get half of that (oversampling) in the end as real/effective resolution.

I think Plustek were drawn into a situation where they paid attention to whiners with curly negatives and spoilt an otherwise great 120 scanner. It wasn't even like the original negative carriers were bad for keeping film flat, just that idiots couldn't grasp the importance of lining everything up flat.

McDiesel · Jul 5, 2022

250swb said:
I think Plustek were drawn into a situation where they paid attention to whiners with curly negatives and spoilt an otherwise great 120 scanner. It wasn't even like the original negative carriers were bad for keeping film flat, just that idiots couldn't grasp the importance of lining everything up flat.

Strong language here... The 120 / Pro was awful. Terrible build quality, noisy CCD, poor quality control, poor integration with Silverfast. An absolute and utter garbage. No wonder it's been pulled from every reputable retailer. If you insist on finding an indiot in this story, look at Plustek.

albireo · Jul 6, 2022

McDiesel said:
Strong language here... The 120 / Pro was awful. Terrible build quality, noisy CCD, poor quality control

And that's why one must not trust every guy on the internet. Just because you had poor QC it doesn't mean it was a bad design overall.

In a similarly anecdotal way, I know three photographers in my flickr circle who use it proficiently, without any issues. Their results are uniformly excellent.

Also, Old Gregg, why do you periodically delete your account and rejoin Photrio with a different username? You have posted some excellent content in the past, it's getting difficult to engage with all these personas.

250swb · Jul 6, 2022

McDiesel said:
Strong language here... The 120 / Pro was awful. Terrible build quality, noisy CCD, poor quality control, poor integration with Silverfast. An absolute and utter garbage. No wonder it's been pulled from every reputable retailer. If you insist on finding an indiot in this story, look at Plustek.

I don't know if you are talking from experience but I have a Plustek 120 Pro and can't recognise in it anything you accuse it of. The original batch of film holders were manufactured to the wrong tolerance and people like to dine out on the story despite this being quickly remedied by Plustek. There was no more noise generated by the CCD than any other scanner I've used which includes a Minolta Multi Pro and Nikon 9000 (both of which failed). As for the poor integration with Silverfast who in their right mind would care, it's an awful set of software and Vuescan is much better. That said it's sitting on the shelf and I may never use it again, a Nikon Z7 has taken it's place as my scanner of choice.

brbo · Jul 6, 2022

250swb said:
I think Plustek were drawn into a situation where they paid attention to whiners with curly negatives and spoilt an otherwise great 120 scanner. It wasn't even like the original negative carriers were bad for keeping film flat, just that idiots couldn't grasp the importance of lining everything up flat.

A Plustek marketing guy waltzed into rangefinderforum.com a while ago asking what would people like in a top-sh*t MF scanner. The dream collective came up with the usual modest requirements (simple, cheap, fast, 5000+-down-to-the-grain dpi, 4.8DRange, no-nonsense-no-Silverfast software...). Barely some time passed and that guy comes back with "mission completed, stay tuned". Then a lot of time passed before finally Plustek 120 made every other scanner obsolete. Except it didn't.

True story.

unwantedfocus · Jul 6, 2022

brbo said:
A Plustek marketing guy waltzed into rangefinderforum.com a while ago asking what would people like in a top-sh*t MF scanner. The dream collective came up with the usual modest requirements (simple, cheap, fast, 5000+-down-to-the-grain dpi, 4.8DRange, no-nonsense-no-Silverfast software...). Barely some time passed and that guy comes back with "mission completed, stay tuned". Then a lot of time passed before finally Plustek 120 made every other scanner obsolete. Except it didn't.

True story.

Comes with a price. Which is probably the reason why other scanners aren't obsolete. Thats Leica money
Edit: people are probably also bothered that it doesn't feed the whole film through like on the old ones.

Paul Ozzello · Jul 6, 2022

250swb said:
don't know if you are talking from experience but I have a Plustek 120 Pro and can't recognise in it anything you accuse it of.

Is the Pro the updated version of the Opticfilm 120 with autofocus ? Is it better than the older fixed focus model? How does it compare to the Nikon coolscan 9000?

250swb · Jul 7, 2022

Paul Ozzello said:
Is the Pro the updated version of the Opticfilm 120 with autofocus ? Is it better than the older fixed focus model? How does it compare to the Nikon coolscan 9000?

I was wrong to use 'Pro' (it can become infectious, but Plustek did market it as a 'pro' model), mine is just the original 120 fixed focus model. But rescanning a few of the same negatives that I'd scanned with the Nikon 9000 show no appreciable difference in quality, and the Nikon was only a fraction better than my Minolta Multi Pro). And although my Plustek has a fixed focus lens, unlike the newer Pro, I didn't ever have a negative scan that was out of focus.

brbo · Jul 7, 2022

The new 120 Pro doesn't have autofocus either. Just an option to manually adjust it for optimum sharpness.

Eric Rose · Jul 24, 2022

Thanks darr

madNbad · Jul 24, 2022

darr said:
I recently post Part 3 of my digitizing experience to anyone interested.

Best,
darr

My Skier Copybox II developed a short and would turn off in the middle of a scan. After this happened a number of times, I gave it to one of the local repair shops and went with Negative Supply.

madNbad · Jul 24, 2022

darr said:
I recently post Part 3 of my digitizing experience to anyone interested.

Best,
darr

Thank you for the link. I did find moving to an autofocus macro lens really made a difference in accuracy and speed when scanning.

madNbad · Jul 24, 2022

darr said:
I know three photographers that have been using a Skier Copy Box (plus oodles more in a Facebook Group) for a couple of years now, none have complained about electrical problems with their box.
Just did a quick search for reviews, a few came up, but no negative reviews. I cannot complain as it works very well for my needs, and I never would have upgraded if I did not think it was a solid, robust box.
Your box must have gotten damaged somehow. Since it looks like you are shooting 35mm only, you have many choices. As a medium format, pano and 4x5" shooter, the choices for film holders is not as much.

best to you!

It was most likely a loose connection after using it for a couple of years. I was very pleased with the construction and versatility as compared to other systems. The film holders always kept the film flat and I liked simply flipping the 135 holder over, there was a slide holder. The adjustability of the 120 was a great design choice. I thought about having it fixed but mostly, I was ready to move to Negative Supply.

Paul Ozzello · Jul 24, 2022

My experience with DSLR scanning has been mixed. For years I've had my negatives drum scanned by Cone Editions and the quality is exceptional. Last year I had a few sample scans done by a local shop in Montreal that offers DSLR scanning with a Phase One setup (copy table Schneider Macro lens and 150MP back). The quality is good, but not exceptional, and is still inferior to a drum scan.

Personally I find the best compromise to be a Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED with a custom fluid mount negative holder. The main problem with the Nikon has been getting the negative perfectly flat. The basic mount is terrible and you will never get the film flat enough across the entire frame, especially when using a bigger format like 617. The nikon glass holder is very good for B&W and transparencies, but color negatives are too smooth and can often create newton rings. With the custom fluid mount holder the entire negative can be properly focused down to the grain and gives fantastic results and no newton rings.

PhotoPham · Aug 17, 2022

Coming from a Wet-scanning Epson V850 & w/ Negative Lab Pro inversion, My workflow moved to camera scanning and has definitely sped up in comparison with a significant increase in baseline sharpness, no more doing unsharp masking for every single darn photo. I scanned my friend's films too for testing and they are in love with the results. At the same time, I know people who sent their film to be camera scanned from labs with terrible results like unfocused. It is a much more technical process and prone to user error if you don't double-check the periodic results with tethering.

I've gone to the point of now testing 3d printed film holders to fit my workflow better and adding electronics to the holders to speed it up and create fewer user errors.

AsdaFan · Sep 12, 2022

I have to admit that scanning on my camera gets quite mundane and I don't enjoy the thought of having to setup my gear to do it so I'm going to look at used scanners.

Quality wise, I've got no complaints. Lovely and sharp, hi res images. My tip for camera scanning is to focus on the grain and use manual focus.

Adrian Bacon · Sep 13, 2022

AsdaFan said:
My tip for camera scanning is to focus on the grain and use manual focus.

If you're a Canon user, get a body that has dual pixel AF and just focus in life view. It never misses, as long as the negative has enough light shining through it. Canon's dual pixel AF is killer. The 70D, 80D, 90D, and RF series cameras have it, and I think the 6DII, and 5DIV have it as well as the 1DXIII (and maybe 1DXII). Manual focus is fine and all, but the dual pixel AF is extremely fast, and extremely accurate and does actually focus on the film grain. Basically every pixel on the sensor is a phase detect focus point. I've been doing that since ~2018 over many thousands of rolls, and it just simply does not miss focus.

Best pixel density bang for the buck is the 90D at 6900x4600 pixels. If you want to go super resolution, the R5 is the next best thing at 8192x5462 pixels. Both paired with the Sigma 70mm ART macro lens. Hard to beat.

grat · Sep 14, 2022

What do you think of the R7? Same density as the 90D, but for pirates. Arrr.

Eric Rose · Sep 14, 2022

I use a Nikon D800e semi permanently dedicated to neg scanning. I have it attached to a sturdy copy stand and have a light table shining through the negs. I use an Omega neg carrier to hold the negs.

Quality is light years better than my Epson 750 Pro.

Adrian Bacon · Sep 14, 2022

grat said:
What do you think of the R7? Same density as the 90D, but for pirates. Arrr.

The sensor is a revised version of the sensor in the 90D. It has a little less noise and a little more DR at base ISO and revised micro lenses that are optimized for the mirrorless flange distance, but otherwise I'd expect basically the same image performance as the 90D. If you're going to use the camera for other things besides scanning, it's a solid mirrorless entry, but otherwise has a lot of features that you'd be paying for but not using if dedicated to just scanning, for example, IBIS, 2 card slots, etc.

Flat bed vs DSLR scanning

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