Flextight Precision II for 700

[Required]

I’m hope for some help in deciding if this might be a good path.

I shoot some 35mm but far more medium formats such as 6x6 up to 6x9. Nothing larger although I would love to take the step into 6x12/17 sometime.

Anyway I’ve been offered a Flextight Precision ii with missing masks but otherwise it’s said to be complete.
They are asking 700€ for it.
So I would need a few neg masks and a scsi card or fw-adapter. I already have some old Macs I can use.

I know the Pii is not a speedy scanner and today I already have a Primefilm 120 for my MF negs and a Minolta Elite II for 35mm.

Is the Flextight a good way to go for the cost or will it end up being a slow and costly imaginary project?

 

[brbo]

It's a steal at 700 EUR. Take it (FAST!) if you have a way of checking it's in good condition.

 

[Required]

Thanks for the swift reply.
It's said to be in good condition. Owned by a studio photographer but haven't been used in many years. Will do my best to verify it's condition.
Will be picking it up in a few hours.

 

[koraks]

Is the Flextight a good way to go for the cost or will it end up being a slow and costly imaginary project?

I have a Precision II sitting here and sometimes use it; most of the time for 35mm I use a Minolta Scan Dual IV which isn't too dissimilar from your Minolta.

You're essentially facing the question how much the higher resolution of the PII adds in the real world on top of what you already have. For many images and situations, there's not a very strong use case for having more than the 2850dpi you're already getting on 35mm and the comparable real-world resolution that the PrimeFilm 120 is giving you for medium format. Mind you, the Precision II will give you better scans - the question is whether the differences is practically meaningful. In many cases, I personally find this is really not the case.

Whether or not makes this scanner worth €700 for you I couldn't say. I also don't know how easy or difficult or costly it is to find the masks, or whether it's feasible to DIY them in some way.

 

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comparable real-world resolution that the PrimeFilm 120 is giving you for medium format. Mind you, the Precision II will give you better scans - the question is whether the differences is practically meaningful. In many cases, I personally find this is really not the case.

Thank you for your valuable insight.
In medium format I mainly shoot architecture and some landscape and almost always with PanF or Delta 100/400.
The challenge with the PF 120 is that I feel I lack that final detail and deeper blacks which I've seen my negs can deliver the times I've had them scanned professionally with Imacons.

The masks are available and not that expensive.

I'll begin with a visit and have a look at its condition and sellers keenness on offloading it.

 

[koraks]

'Deeper blacks' is a term I often hear, but it's never quite clear to me what people mean by it.
Technically speaking, in the digital realm, black = RGB 0,0,0. It doesn't matter how an image is acquired, it's always possible to set the black point to that absolute black. Scanners do not differentiate in this regard.

So with that out of the way, I can imagine that 'deeper blacks' refers to either (1) differentiation in the shadow areas or (2) the exact opposite; i.e. allowing large part of the image sink into absolute black. Either of these are determined by curve adjustments that are applied to scans. Again, scanners do not meaningfully differ in this regard; any scanner out there will be easily capable of picking up even subtle gradations in the lighter parts of a B&W negative, i.e. the deep shadows in the final image.

Hence, I think we need to set aside the issue of the 'deeper blacks' as one that mostly relates to post processing and has no bearing on the choice of a scanner. It is conceivable that the 'out of the box' curve adjustments you got from your commercially-made PII scans were pleasing to your eye; I don't contest that, but it's more a matter of competence and taste in post processing than a clear determinant in choosing between scanners (of any type).

As to fine detail: the Precision II will outresolve the Minolta on 35mm (evidently other formats are beyond scope of that particular comparison), but I personally find the relevance is only there if you end up enlarging the image substantially - think of prints larger than 30x40cm. At that point, differences will start to become apparent, but in all frankness, if your photography relies heavily on very fine detail rendering, I doubt you're enlarging 35mm that far as the format is just insufficient for really crisp detail rendering at such enlargements. However, there is a real difference between the Precision II's 5000 dpi (ca.) and the Minolta's 2800dpi. The difference IMO is only relevant if you look at finer-grained, high-resolving films in the 100-speed range (or slower) and fine-grained faster films like Delta or TMAX400. For coarser grained films like Double X, HP5+ etc. I personally see very limited/marginal advantage in scanning at full resolution on the Precision II vs. the Minolta. The speed difference of course is very real, so I virtually always use the Minolta as it's a heck of a lot faster.

For medium format I can only say so much as I don't have hands-on experience with the 120 format scanner you use. I understand it effectively resolves around 3000dpi and that's about what the PII will also give you on medium format (unless you resort to strip-scanning as if it's 35mm and then stitching back together). Also here I doubt the resolution difference is all that relevant, but there will again likely be a marginal benefit for the PII.

The PII does come with a couple of caveats like you know; it practically works best on older hardware, which means you generally end up having to dedicate a separate machine to run it, which takes up space. It's also a very slow scanner, and while they are very robust, there's always the odds of defects on the 25+-year old hardware and it will have to be seen if those defects are repairable if/when they occur (of course, this is also true for your Minolta).

If you're presently looking to set up an alternative way of scanning your medium format and 35mm film and you're looking at a technically high-performing approach, I really doubt if I would recommend something like the PII. I'd sooner lean towards some form of camera scanning, even though a high-performance setup may end up costing significantly more than the €700 base price for the PII that you've been offered (depending on what kind of digital cameras and lenses you may already own).

 

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Thanks koraks.
I appreciate your valuable input.

Yes deeper black is badly worded.
It’s more in regard to higher dynamic range and cleaner and more detailed shadows. The PF120 is good but contrast and range wise I feel it lacks and the resolution could be better.

My intention was to scan MF formats with the PII and not 35. Mostly due to the smooth workflow of the Minolta.

As you say, perhaps I’m ending up in a never ending sunk cost trap.

I’ll begin with a visit and see the state of it and if I would be able to work on the price in any way.

 

[koraks]

It’s more in regard to higher dynamic range and cleaner and more detailed shadows.

As said, no scanner on the market struggles with shadows on a negative since these are the low densities on the film. They always scan fine. It's a matter of how you handle those areas in post processing. Dynamic range is also not really a bottleneck unless you're dealing with very, very thoroughly overcooked negatives. In these cases you can end up with poor differentiation and graininess in the highlights - and in fact both of your present scanners should be able to handle even these challenging situations very well indeed. So my guess is that you're running into post-processing preferences, not scanning issues. The consequence is that operating your own Precision II scanner may not automatically yield the benefits you're looking for unless you learn how to use it well. In that case it's a great tool, but in all honesty, so is the little Minolta scanner!

For medium format specifically I doubt the PII has all that much advantage over your present scanner. The simple fact of life is that the horizontal resolution of the PII is fixed (as it is on any scanner) and it simply projects the whole negative width onto the fixed-width scanning sensor. Hence, the maximum resolution reduces as you increase negative size and it's around 3000dpi for medium format. You should be able to get a pretty clean & crisp 3000dpi from your present scanner as well - but faster scan times and an easier workflow.

Mind you, the PII is a formidable scanner and the scans are great, but IMO you need to be realistic about the net benefit and be very aware of which part of the workflow is responsible for which part of the final image quality. In my experience if you scan your film as a positive and ensure that the entire dynamic range of the film is actually scanned, and you optimize the focus on your existing film scanners, the output can be dramatically improved over what the scanning software may yield with its default settings (esp. the Minolta).