Alan Edward Klein
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It might be easier to go back to all chemical.
It might be easier to go back to all chemical.I'm in a similar position to the OP, developing photography facilities for students. We also have a set of V800/V850s and a flextight X1. The flextight is now unsupported and will eventually break down or become unsustainable, so looking to the future, I am thinking along similar lines to yourself.
In general, it's clear that camera capture is likely to be the only way forward in the long term, but building a system which is workable in a University/student setting is not easy. Getting something which can reliably produce scans of the same quality as the Flextight is not trivial. Having done quite a bit of testing myself, I remain unconvinced that any of the current off-the-shelf solutions within a reasonable budget would provide the quality and consistency we would like when operated by students.
For 35mm, the 5DS R (50mp) which I have tested does produce more or less the same quality as the Flextight (max res 6300ppi) within the focal plane, but keeping the entire frame on the focal plane is difficult to say the least. If you want to achieve the highest resolution, you need to be shooting at f5.6 or even f4 to avoid diffraction. The only way I've managed to get the entire frame sharp at these apertures is by sandwiching the film between two sheets of ANR glass, which unfortunately produced newton's rings. Although the Negative Supply holders look pretty good, I seriously doubt that they will be capable of keeping the film this flat - especially with frames at the end of a strip. For me at least, any solution needs to be able to deal with cut strips because that's how film tends to be handled.
Without an extremely high precision system, I'd say it's more realistic to aim for more like 3200ppi on average across the frame, which is still substantially better than an Epson, but even this would be quite hard to maintain with student operators. It doesn't take much for the resolution to drop to below what you would get with the Epson. It would probably be best to recommend shooting at f11, which would limit the maximum resolution in favour of consistency.
In medium format, assuming a single-shot workflow, you would be hard-pushed to get any better than the flatbed with anything larger than 645. Using a 5DS R to shoot 6x6, 6x7 or 6x9, the theoretical maximum resolution is around 2600ppi - realistically you would be getting less than this, and the Epson gives you around 2400ppi. Multi-shot stitching is a possibility but I would not have confidence that many students would a) want to go to this trouble, or b) be capable of doing it properly. 645 could work well, however - with a theoretical max res of around 3500ppi. Because of the lower magnification and subsequent greater depth of field, it might be realistic to get a consistent 3000ppi, which roughly equals the Flextight (3150ppi).
So my thinking at the moment is that it would be feasible to set something up which could consistently get better results than the Epsons for 35mm, but at present I can't see a solution which could reliably get close to the Flextight. For 645, a high-res camera-based system could potentially equal the Flextight (though this is only moderately better than the Epson anyway). For MF 6x6 and above, I don't really see a solution. For large format, the Epsons are probably already the best option.
To be honest, given the above, I think it might be worth considering the Plustek 8200i for 35mm, since it's a self-contained unit, requires very little setup or maintenance and does the negative conversion for you. The optical resolution is around 4000ppi and it's a lot cheaper than a camera setup with good components. It would be a lot slower than a well set-up camera system however, so it depends on whether you want to prioritise batch-scanning or getting the best out of a few frames.
On the subject of control, personally I would not want to attempt a camera setup without live view, which is invaluable for levelling and checking focus. So I'm not sure that using the H3D is a good idea - also its firewire interface will even make tethering a problem going forward.
Anyway, there are some thoughts from someone in a similar position to yourself - sorry I can't really offer any solutions. I'm sure there is a way to make the camera scanning thing work, but I think people generally underestimate how hard it is to get something that works consistently well with operators that don't know what they're doing (students). If you do go down this route, I'll be really interested to hear how it goes.
My new V850 seems to attract more dust than my old V600 did. Maybe it's the extra glass in the film holder. In any case, there's just more of it.I honestly think that too many scanning threads get ruined by focusing on irrelevant variables, particularly resolution. User experience, consistency, throughput, tonality and colors are much more important, in my humble experience. If you want your students to enjoy photography, eliminate agony & torture first, THEN think about fringe variables like resolution. Scanners = Agony+Torture. Silverfast = Agony+Torture. Give them the most pleasant method of shooting film and posting gorgeous-looking results on Instagram. That's what they want.
I have already provided some medium format samples above, the kind that you can get by scanning a 12-shot roll in 3 minutes, and be done in less than 15. Here's a 35-mm scan and another one, these your students can get at a rate of 5-7 rolls per hour, using modern software tools, with minimal color corrections, as compared to something like Silverfast. Look at the kids in the corner of the 2nd shot. Do you honestly believe there's anything else you can squeeze out of a 35mm negative that your students can't live without? I can keep producing (and sharing) results of scanning cheap consumer films like this or this by a hundred per hour, knowing that scanner operators get that kind of output only after monumental amount of suffering, because I used to be one.
And don't get me started on ICE. Dust is yet another reason why scanners are painful. I stopped using scanners, I stopped seeing dust, because apparently films don't attract much of it by themselves. Scanners do.
I didn't know that you could scan directly into Lightroom. I have always believed that you need separate scanner software like Vuescan or Silverfast. No? (That would save me some nice money.) Do you use one of these? At what settings in that software?I scan directly into Lightroom, select a RAW image, press Ctrl+Alt+N to invoke the NLP plugin. Usually I start with a "Soft Lab" preset, set the white balance to "none" or "standard" and that gives me 90% of the final look. I like to adjust some brightness, then correct Portra warmth in the shadows by adding a bit of cyan there, set "soft highlights", and sometimes apply the Fronter LUT as I like how it improves mid-blues. Then I just export to JPEG using one of the presets that I have for different negative sizes. I find that this gentle method preserves the natural emulsion look without making it looking overly color-corrected.
Absolutely massive boost in visible resolution, especially if your lens can render it onto the sensor.
The number one film that comes through my lab for processing is..... *drum roll*..... Kodak Colorplus 200, followed by Gold 200, and Ultramax 400. Most of the images are shot on crap point and shoot cameras they picked up at a garage sale, or on a camera they had in storage for the last 20 years and pulled out, or was given to them by their parents. A huge number of the images aren't exposed correctly, have a way too slow shutter speed to stop motion, and/or aren't in focus because the camera either doesn't autofocus, or they haven't figured out how to focus the camera yet, and in general are what you would expect to see if a complete amateur was shooting it, which is actually what is happening.
. . .
I'm sure the old guys on here would totally choke if they saw what comes through my lab. The younger generation by and large doesn't give a flying nit about the stuff many of the older folks on here hold near and dear to their heart. They care about turnaround time, and file size. If you can't turn and burn in less than a week, you aren't going to get their business.
I mean you run a lab, you try to manage scanning costs and be able to provide a good product. Can you do that with DSLR scanning? Sure the capture is fast but when it comes to color negative comversion, there is no way you can have human intervention on every frame for the prices you charge. Even if you provide them the lowest scan resolutions! If the majority of scans the OP will be doing are of color negatives, then I am reasonably certain that's not sustainable in a school environment.
you try to manage scanning costs and be able to provide a good product. Can you do that with DSLR scanning? Sure the capture is fast but when it comes to color negative comversion, there is no way you can have human intervention on every frame for the prices you charge.
Medium format 6x6Is this 35mm or one of the medium format sizes?
Medium format 6x6
Never had banding with iSRD, I use always standard settings. The IR scan is really fast compared to Epson digital ICE...That is faster than my Nikon scanner, although I do always use the 'fine' mode, otherwise the Coolscan 9000 is prone to banding.
Well now you're just into relativist territory.Ah! The same old bullshit with exotics like "The Spur Orthopan film, developed in Nano Edge" comes out. You could have used a better known edge case like CMS20. All right, let me just stitch two shots then, by adding 30 seconds to my workflow. But most importantly is that nobody here shoots "spur orthopan", on a tripod, with $5K lens at optimal resolution, developed in some kind of nano edge. Gold 200, HP5+, Delta/T-Max 100, HP5+ and Delta 400, all CN 400 films, developed in Xtol, D76, or Flexicolor - everything the real world people shoot, comfortably falls within capture capabilities of any 24MP sensor manufactured within last 5 years. Which is very different from your stated BS of "Even an 8x10 print will show of the deficiencies and artefacts." I posted full-size scans. Print them at 8x10" or even bigger, like I did. They're more than enough to prove my point. This is something that is enjoyable and available to anyone in their own home, approximately nobody in the world is interested in "spur orthopan developed in nano edge and printed in a darkroom".
I scan directly into Lightroom, select a RAW image, press Ctrl+Alt+N to invoke the NLP plugin. Usually I start with a "Soft Lab" preset, set the white balance to "none" or "standard" and that gives me 90% of the final look. I like to adjust some brightness, then correct Portra warmth in the shadows by adding a bit of cyan there, set "soft highlights", and sometimes apply the Fronter LUT as I like how it improves mid-blues. Then I just export to JPEG using one of the presets that I have for different negative sizes. I find that this gentle method preserves the natural emulsion look without making it looking overly color-corrected.
Here is the Fuji 400H Pro scan stitched from 2 shots (Ctrl+N in Lightrooom gives you a stitched DNG), 6555x6555 pixels, so over 42MP which is way more than 99.95% of people will ever need. Looking at this I find Helge's comments about "insufficient for actual prints" laughable. In software industry we say "show me your code or go home". I showed my scans, and I suspect they print beautifully at all sizes Helge ever tried. The sample above will print and look great at 30x30" (and I have never met anyone in person who ever printed anything at 30x30")
My point is, camera scanning gives people better scans that they know what to do with, at a fraction of a time compared to a scanner, and without agony+suffering associated with scanning that potentially turns folks away from film.
Helge, I provided not one but about 10 examples, both 35mm and 6x6. Scroll up, download, print and see for yourself. Apologies for making them hard-to-notice hyperlinks instead of using the attachment feature, but that's the only way I know how to post full-size scans here.
I am agreeing with you that there are emulsions out there with amazing resolution potential (my personal experience is limited only to CMS20 in that regard), I am just pointing out that:
* The films we actually shoot are nothing like that.
* One cannot buy a new scanner with an effective resolution higher than a modern digital camera.
* Your remark about "drug store print quality" is wildly off and borderline offensive.
* Resolution is overrated anyway, as most people do not print and even when they do, that's rarely bigger than 11x14" or so.
Even Ektar in 35mm doesn't begin to stress the capabilities of a Fuji's 24MP sensor. I did not observe any additional detail from Plustek 120 Pro 35mm scans vs a DSLR, even after adjusting the focus. Therefore I have settled to downsampling all of my 35mm scans to 5000x3400px to keep the file size reasonable, and even that feels excessive for 99% of my pictures as they simply don't have 17MP of useful detail.
Wise words. Moreover, people should count their own eyes as a part of the system. I am always suspicious of people demanding 300dpi for a 16x20" print.
Wise words. Moreover, people should count their own eyes as a part of the system. I am always suspicious of people demanding 300dpi for a 16x20" print.
For a photography workshop at an university we're looking to upgrade some of our scanners. I'm struggling with finding the best solution and I hope you'll share your experiences with certrain methods of scanning.
Does anyone have experience with dSLR scanning in a shared environment? People apparently get great results with these scans when equipment is properly assembled and used, but I would wonder if a long stream of students using such a setup would tend to knock the equipment out of alignment routinely.
Does anyone have experience with dSLR scanning in a shared environment? People apparently get great results with these scans when equipment is properly assembled and used, but I would wonder if a long stream of students using such a setup would tend to knock the equipment out of alignment routinely.
lol... yeah... it’s nice to have that as a standard, but the reality is 8-10MP will look totally fine printed on an 8x10, a 16x20, and a 32x40 at any reasonable viewing distance for each respective size. If you want to get up close and inspect a giant print from a few inches away... well, all you’re doing at that point Is the equivalent of pixel peeping. That’s kind of like going up to a giant billboard or movie theater screen and complaining that the picture is soft.
Single problem of the V850 is that it requires attention from a good operator to get a top notch result.
As graph bellow shows, if you miss focus by a 1.5mm (curling) then you may get 1/3 of the line resolution and 1/9 of the area resolution. (See the case you go from 3mm to 1.5mm)
Additionally, a top notch Epson scan also requires a careful image optimization (in Photoshop or the like) not everyone is able to perform.
But those people being able to operate the V850 properly do obtain an amazing yield. If you want the students learn to squeeze all the performance an scanner may yield then retrofitting the V850 with BetterScaning holders would be a choice, specially for MF and up.
If you want the students get perfect scans directly, without asking, then the Epsons are a bad idea.
My personal experience is consistent with this review: https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/16000-photo-scanner-vs-500-scanner/ , but YMMV
View attachment 263771
Several years ago, I took an 8MP image from my EOS 30D, and had it printed at 16x20, framed and mounted for my mother. I believe the DPI on the final print is either 125 or 150. No one, and I mean no one, has ever had anything but positive comments about it-- even at the shop where I had it framed.
Several years ago, I took an 8MP image from my EOS 30D, and had it printed at 16x20, framed and mounted for my mother. I believe the DPI on the final print is either 125 or 150. No one, and I mean no one, has ever had anything but positive comments about it-- even at the shop where I had it framed.
Several years ago, I took an 8MP image from my EOS 30D, and had it printed at 16x20, framed and mounted for my mother. I believe the DPI on the final print is either 125 or 150. No one, and I mean no one, has ever had anything but positive comments about it-- even at the shop where I had it framed.
A 27" Full HD monitor has 2 MPix, and it does not llok bad at all... also resolution is probably overvalued many times...
Still, the trained eye may enjoy a gorgeous sharp print, some images may benefit from that, others won't.
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