Kodak HR500 Scans

braxus · May 21, 2022

I'll admit for lab scans, Im used to Noritsu film scanners and the coloring they produce. But a lab I have available to me locally, only goes up to a 69mb file size for high rez. They do offer a Kodak HR-500 scanner option which goes up to 109mb file size for high rez. Cost is $9 a shot or $45 for the entire roll if uncut. Anyone get scans off of this particular Kodak unit, and how do they measure up against the Noritsu? I also have a flatbed Epson V850, but I'd assume the pro unit from the lab would beat anything I'd get off the Epson. Im looking for best sharpness and grain resolution, as I plan to send them a 120 roll of Fuji Acros 100 shot on my Pentax 67 camera kit. Anyone comment? My other lab uses equipment not mentioned for their scans and their pricing per shot is through the roof for the same quality. I do not have the capability at this time to do camera scans, and I need this work done soon, not later.

BCM · May 21, 2022

I'd disagree with your assessment of the V850. Use a fluid mount kit and set up the focus properly and you'll be surprised at how good the scans can be. Even using the Epson holders (which aren't the greatest) and adjusting focus can produce better scans than the HR-500.

gone · May 21, 2022

braxus said:
I also have a flatbed Epson V850, but I'd assume the pro unit from the lab would beat anything I'd get off the Epson.

Maybe, maybe not. In comparison scans w/ the same neg using an ancient Epson 2450 flatbed and a dedicated Nikon film scanner of 4000 resolution, about the only differences I saw were the file sizes. You can change the settings to make a straight scan, or one that was optimized.

I favored the straight B&W scan (the color setting on the Nikon just increased the file size w/o making the results any better) and tuned things up in PS7 later. An auto level adjustment nearly always did the trick. That old 2450 was a workhorse, the 2450 rez TIFF scans of 4x5 slides were huge, and very nice. 13x19 inkjet prints were possible using 35mm film. You did see a little bit of difference at that size, but unless you had two prints side by side it wasn't noticeable.

braxus · May 21, 2022

It's been a common complaint that flatbed scans are soft compared to film scanner files. I havent played with the sharpness adjustment on my Epson film holders, but half the time I'm battling just getting the neg to sit completely flat in their lousy design holder. I'd be curious as to what the files from the HR500 would look like compared to the Epson

McDiesel · May 21, 2022

braxus said:
I'll admit for lab scans, Im used to Noritsu film scanners and the coloring they produce. But a lab I have available to me locally, only goes up to a 69mb file size for high rez.

File size in bytes has very little to do with image quality. It's like judging the quality of a painting by volume of paint used. A well-made 69MB JPEG file can contain enormous amount of detail and the dynamic range you need to produce a spectacular 16x20" print or bigger. At the same time, a badly-made 69MP JPEG file may not be enough even for a web page.

braxus said:
They do offer a Kodak HR-500 scanner option which goes up to 109mb file size for high rez. Cost is $9 a shot or $45 for the entire roll if uncut. Anyone get scans off of this particular Kodak unit, and how do they measure up against the Noritsu? I also have a flatbed Epson V850, but I'd assume the pro unit from the lab would beat anything I'd get off the Epson. Im looking for best sharpness and grain resolution, as I plan to send them a 120 roll of Fuji Acros 100 shot on my Pentax 67 camera kit. Anyone comment?

You need to look into the real (vs claimed) specs of Kodak HR-500 to answer this question. File size is useless/irrelevant. You need to know optical DPI, sensor resolution and signal-to-noise ratio.

Also, the "pro" prefix does not guarantee anything in regards to quality of output. It could simply be refer to features required for commercial volume scanning such as robust physical construction, scanning speed, and automatic color conversion. The results may still be crap, pro or not.

Two of my local labs use Noritsu and one uses Noritsu and a Flextight. The results are wildly different between all of them, suggesting that a human opearting the scanner on a given day is more important than hardware.

braxus · May 21, 2022

Their Noritsu machine is a 3101 which dates back to 2004. The Kodak is 2001. I do know the Kodak has auto focus, which really should help things for sharpness. The optical rez of the Kodak is higher then the Noritsu, but how sharp the lens is, I can't say. Other then that, I can't comment further.

JerseyDoug · May 21, 2022

braxus said:
It's been a common complaint that flatbed scans are soft compared to film scanner files. I havent played with the sharpness adjustment on my Epson film holders, but half the time I'm battling just getting the neg to sit completely flat in their lousy design holder. I'd be curious as to what the files from the HR500 would look like compared to the Epson

I scan medium format negatives with my Epson V600. When I changed from the OEM film holder to a Lomography DigitaLIZA 120 Scanning Mask the film is noticeably flatter as seen by reflected room light and the scans are sharper. The best $45 I've spent in a long while.

BCM · May 21, 2022

braxus said:
It's been a common complaint that flatbed scans are soft compared to film scanner files. I havent played with the sharpness adjustment on my Epson film holders, but half the time I'm battling just getting the neg to sit completely flat in their lousy design holder. I'd be curious as to what the files from the HR500 would look like compared to the Epson

That adjustment does an amazing amount of benefit for the Epson. It is well worth the 30-45 minutes of playing with the adjustments.

Jon Buffington · Jun 1, 2022

The HR500 is a fine scanner. If you shoot any color negs, your gonna get superior output than anything consumer. The output for color negs is different and arguably better/more accurate (but different and I know trends change). A dedicated lab scanner, IME, has always produced better files with real resolution vs claimed in consumer flatbeds. Of course, I am somewhat biased as I have a kodak lab scanner at home (pakon f135+). Back when prices were cheaper, I almost jumped on a hr500 and waited/hesitated...prices went WAY up.

Adrian Bacon · Jun 11, 2022

braxus said:
I'll admit for lab scans, Im used to Noritsu film scanners and the coloring they produce. But a lab I have available to me locally, only goes up to a 69mb file size for high rez. They do offer a Kodak HR-500 scanner option which goes up to 109mb file size for high rez. Cost is $9 a shot or $45 for the entire roll if uncut. Anyone get scans off of this particular Kodak unit, and how do they measure up against the Noritsu? I also have a flatbed Epson V850, but I'd assume the pro unit from the lab would beat anything I'd get off the Epson. Im looking for best sharpness and grain resolution, as I plan to send them a 120 roll of Fuji Acros 100 shot on my Pentax 67 camera kit. Anyone comment? My other lab uses equipment not mentioned for their scans and their pricing per shot is through the roof for the same quality. I do not have the capability at this time to do camera scans, and I need this work done soon, not later.

Just out of curiosity, why are you referring to scans by file size? That means nothing. Even if referring to the same file format (i.e. all jpgs or all tiffs), that still means nothing. You can easily have two different scans that have the same file size but are of vastly different quality in terms of both resolution and sharpness. I guess I'm just being critical here, but nothing drives me more nuts than somebody calling my business wanting to get a large print and telling me they have a 20MB file, and asking me if that's enough resolution for the print they're trying to to get. Geez, I don't know. Is it a jpeg or a tiff file? What are the pixel dimensions? A file size of 20MB tells me nothing about how well it'll print except that maybe if it's an exceptionally large file I can assume that it's a pretty good amount of resolution.

MattKing · Jun 11, 2022

Adrian Bacon said:
Just out of curiosity, why are you referring to scans by file size?

I can guess.
braxus used to work in a smallish photo lab. That was how a lot of labs around here used to list their scanning services, and some of them still do.
As an example, one of the two labs around here that still do pro quality work and optical prints:

Adrian Bacon · Jun 12, 2022

MattKing said:
I can guess.
braxus used to work in a smallish photo lab. That was how a lot of labs around here used to list their scanning services, and some of them still do.
As an example, one of the two labs around here that still do pro quality work and optical prints:
View attachment 307886

fair enough, and if everything being equal, the file size could be a rough estimate of picture quality, though, the reality is, everything isn't equal, as evidenced by the right hand side under the premium high-res scan. How can a premium high-res scan be higher quality at 5MB than the 6MB Econo scanning on the left? It's exactly this kind of tom-foolery with file sizes that causes so much confusion with end users. If an end user cared enough about resolution to be asking about it, they should be putting enough effort in to learn about Megapixels and pixel bit depth, not Megabytes, because Megabytes is not an accurate predictor for image quality and never will be.

Kodachromeguy · Jun 12, 2022

braxus said:
I'll admit for lab scans, Im used to Noritsu film scanners and the coloring they produce. But a lab I have available to me locally, only goes up to a 69mb file size for high rez. They do offer a Kodak HR-500 scanner option which goes up to 109mb file size for high rez. Cost is $9 a shot or $45 for the entire roll if uncut. Anyone get scans off of this particular Kodak unit, and how do they measure up against the Noritsu? I also have a flatbed Epson V850, but I'd assume the pro unit from the lab would beat anything I'd get off the Epson. Im looking for best sharpness and grain resolution, as I plan to send them a 120 roll of Fuji Acros 100 shot on my Pentax 67 camera kit. Anyone comment? My other lab uses equipment not mentioned for their scans and their pricing per shot is through the roof for the same quality. I do not have the capability at this time to do camera scans, and I need this work done soon, not later.

JPEG or Tiff files? 8 bit? If JPEG, what degree of compression? Can you have the lab do a sample scan for you?

braxus · Jun 17, 2022

Matt has it right, but I was also oversimplifying my explanation of the whole thing. The lab I was looking at getting it done was ABC here in Vancouver. They are much cheaper then The Lab, also in the same city. ABC has the Kodak 500. They also use Noritsu. My lab scans at the lab I used to work at, I had the channel set to TIFF at 16 base for my scans. I know Noritsu goes higher then that. I still haven't gotten to sending out the negs yet, as the video its for is in limbo at the moment. Trying to get a camera purchase set for the weekend first.

dvhasker · Mar 1, 2023

Our lab has both and there is no comparison between the HR500 scans and any Noritsu scanner. Part of it unfortunately is the the way the Noritsu QSS software handles the file between scan and file rendering, other part is the scan itself. The kodak can either be driven by a twain driver in PS or through Kodak DP2 software but either way the HR500 is superior to the Noritsu.

braxus · Mar 1, 2023

I actually liked the scans off the Noritsu I used. It works the color very well. The Kodak seems to give more of a raw scan, where you have to work with it later. Problem is the Noritsu rez doesn't go high enough.

dvhasker · Mar 1, 2023

I like the scans from Noritsu as well. To me Noritsu scans are good, quick, efficient and help us meet a price point that people want. HR500 scans are sharper, and do need more work but in the end if you really want to do something with a file (enlarge, edit, manipulate) you have a cleaner file. There is always this noise in a Noritsu scan that you cannot get rid of and I suspect that is is caused by the proprietary Noritsu format that the files go into prior to being rendered (written) as a tiff or jpg.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 2, 2023

Here's a comparison of my V850 (4x5 Tmax 100) with someone else's Howtek 8000 drum scanner. The Epson scan favored pretty well.

Howtek 8000 Drum vs. Epson V850 flatbed scanners

Here's a comparison between Howtek HiResolve 8000 drum scanner and Epson V850 flatbed. Negative is mine, Tmax 100, processed normal by North Coast Photo dip and dunk with Clayton F76+ developer (similar to Kodak D76). Taken on a Chamonix 45H-1, Schneider Symmar APO 150mm with B+W orange...

www.largeformatphotography.info

Kodak HR500 Scans

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