I need help please

[davidjosephmadrid]

Hi,

I am new to the site but have been struggling with hybrid photography for about 3 months by and large in scanning. I own an epson v700 and reflecta RPS 7200 but neither are up to much in scanning 35mm especially in black and white..grain exxageration (due to a non diffuse light source ?) seems to be the biggest problem. So in a last ditch attempt to stay with 35mm film I am going to look at getting another scanner. I shoot MF also but its covered adequatley ( although with room for improvement especially in the "fiddle and flatten time") by the V700.

I have the possibility to get an Imacon Precision III for what i consider to be a decent price , its had little use was it was a a backup and apart from being unsure how to get new bulbs for it , it seems a viable but relatively expensive option. I will bring some home developed tri-x to check it out on the scanner but have seen its scan of Ilford 3200 and that scan seemed to represent the grain of the film reasonably well ( ie it was not exxagerated ). The downside of course is no ICE and no batch scanning. I am uncertain oh how easy it is for this scanner to go " out of focus " as there is no autofocus, it came on later models .. was it a problem on this model , not sure why they ship it with a focus calibration target.

Next in my sights is the Nikon 9000, I have been unable to find many b/w images on flickr esp in tri-x and similar sized grain films and have been unable to get a clear picture of how much fiddling is required to flatten 35mm film and get a scan , ie to get those guru looking scans in 35mm is it from a film loading / focussing straight forward or a real drag in workflow.. I understand that the scanner is on the slowish side compared to MF. I take it no glass is available or indeed needed ( having to load glass would seem a bit of a drag anyway ).

Then there is the Coolscan 5000 , no MF but does it offer anything superior in 35mm and does it have a light source which doesnt exxagerate grain in black and white film. It would appear to be reasonably fast and the color negative results I have seen appear good, sharp and film like . It appears the 5000 is more expensive than the 9000 .. Is there a jump in quality that is easily obtainable ( ie less fiddling with film / glass / masks ) and is it that potential jump in ease only that justifies it being more expensive.

I have read the threads in this section as best I can and searched for examples on flickr but hoped to hear from people who are focussed on hybrid photography where workflow is an aspect to be considered. Any thoughts you have on my decision would be most appreciated.

 

[glhs116]

I am a huge fan of the Coolscan 9000 ED. I think it is at a very sweet price performance point. The next real step up in image quality is at an almost 10x premium in price (unless looking at very old professional equipment which is huge and requires maintaining a vintage computer alongside). It also batches and has great ICE.

If your film is fairly flat the standard holders will hold it entirely flat and you will need nothing else. There are glass holders available if you need them. This is a scanner where many different holders are available although cheaper from third parties than from Nikon.

To my eye, the bad news is that the scanner does exaggerate grain somewhat. The 9000 is better than the 5000 in this regard because there is a more diffuse light source in the 9000 but it is still pretty concentrated. I have been looking for a solution to better diffuse the light source in my 9000. Something like the Scanhancer (they say they are deliberating whether to do a run of 9000 parts. It would hinge on enough people showing interest).

Finally, this scanner has great ICE. I lived with an ICE-less scanner for a time when I was between 9000s and it nearly drove me potty. I like to scan a whole roll of 35mm and evaluate the scans, that is just too much spotting. I can see if I shot slides and I already knew the "keepers" how I might put up with it but good ICE will still give you a better result.

 

[Rudeofus]

The biggest advantage of the 5000 is that it can scan a whole roll of 35mm film in one single batch run. Since ease of use seems to be a major concern for you, you should look into this. The 5000 is no longer made, so you can only get it used, and it should be cheaper than the 9000.

 

[fingerprinz]

I have both, the Nikon 5000 for 35 and the 9000 for MF. I prefer the 5000 in terms of handling and speed. All my Leica/Tri-x work is processed with the Nikon 5000 - no problem with grain. I use Vuescan as software, because I had problems with Nikons Scan on my Mac. As for settings in Vuescan, I use b/w neg, 16bit grey, and save as tif. I don't make any adjustments in Vuescan - just make sure, I don't clip the the high-lights/shadows. All other post processing is done in Lightroom. Have a look at the results at the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fingerprinz/sets/72157622073641680/

 

[Diapositivo]

I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000 which I use with VueScan.

I always activate 16x sampling and multiexposure. That means the slide is "read" 32 times. The 16x sampling helps reducing noise. ("Grain" in uniform areas of scanned film is typically scanner noise). This might help with your disappointment about this aspect.

Multiexposure is an option whereby the scanner scans a second time the film with a higher lamp intensity, so that the shadows can be read with less noise. VueScan will blend the two images into one. A very nice feature that requires a scanner able to support it. The cs 5000 does it well. NikonScan does not have this feature and this is one of the reasons why I prefer VueScan.

I use infrared-assisted scratch reduction as implemented by VueScan. Not "ICE" technically but something of, I think, equally good results. The sharpness you trade is not much in comparison to the time you save.

If you don't use multisampling and multiexposure this scanner is very fast, something like 25 seconds per mounted slide.

If you use VueScan (and also Nikonscan I do believe) you can do "batch scanning" of a stripe of 6. This is very nice. If you buy it second hand, check that it comes with the stripe film holder.

As an accessory you can find an automatic loader for mounted slides. This is very good for batch scanning but is known to jam easily with cardboard-framed slides.

Overall the Coolscan 5000 is a very valid scanner. The very best Minolta for 35 mm are said to have a small advantage in resolution, but the Nikon is certainly faster.

If you plan to do some medium format in the long run, then I suggest you go for the 9000.

Fabrizio

 

[davidjosephmadrid]

Thank you for the answers to date, just to confirm the glass in the nikon 9000 is for MF , not 35mm ? Aret the standard holders " solid " and easy to use, i dont need a silver spoon but to put it in context the v700 35mm holders i consider very messy with a lot of fiddling to load the film flat and even then it can challenge you.


Has anybody compared output / use of the imacons versus the nikons and arrived at a conclusion especially as relates to the light source for tri-x or grainy films .. the flickr is very short of imacon examples , i think overall there are about 40 photos tagged imacon on all of flickr? The Precision 3 can run on a windows XP machine either SCSI or Ratoc. I dont think this is a problem in a way nor is size its output. I spoke with the seller of the imacon and he lowered the price close to the coolscan 9000 ( on that people are talking about a shortage , i have found about 20 new in the US and 15 stocked in the UK )

Fingerprinz, thats a nice set you have going there on the year with the leica artistically . Can i ask what sort of pp was used there and was one objective to try and reduce grain, the grain doesnt seem exxagerated but i wonder what happened when you tried to apply sharpening.. as i suspect there is low sharpening on the images.

Thank you for the replies and fingerprinz for such a fountain of examples of tri-x .. great project!

 

[glhs116]

The great thing about 9000 output is that it does not require sharpening. If you are used to flatbeds then prepare to be pleasantly surprised. Of the current Flextight models one of the few advantages of the more expensive model is its diffuse light source.

The stock Nikon holders are all glassless and all will hold your film perfectly flat if properly used if your film is not badly curled.

 

[pschwart]

The stock Nikon holders are all glassless and all will hold your film perfectly flat if properly used if your film is not badly curled.

Then you have been lucky. In my experience, scans of negs with no curl are not consistently sharp across the entire neg using the stock glassless holder. Adding Focal Point glass provides scans that are sharp edge-to-edge.

 

[glhs116]

Well, funnily enough I have just done a sort of a test due to giving up on some Newton Rings and rescanning the same strip glassless after using the Focal Point glass inserts. The film is Kodak Ektar 100 negative. I was using the AN glass on the top with the textured surface against the back of the film. The plain glass underneath (facing the emulsion). I should point out that I don't usually get Newton Rings with this arrangement but I was having trouble with this strip.

The rescan was with the same exact settings. I then processed both exactly the same in Lightroom.

With glass:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samagnew/5192931916/

Without:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samagnew/5192948574/

What I see:
I see better sharpness across the frame without the glass. The glass one looks fine, until you see the other one. I possibly see the slightest hair better microcontrast also on the glassless one. I see virtually no other difference whatsoever.

I'm really keen to do anything like this that will improve my results but whatever it is that is unique about my setup is reproducible here. No improvement for glass for me. Possibly for others too.

Bottom line: Run your own tests. The glass from Focal Point is cheap enough and well made.

 

[pschwart]

Bottom line: Run your own tests. The glass from Focal Point is cheap enough and well made.

Good advice