Interesting, the 8200i review on the same site states it's resolution is 3250dpi as opposed to 3800dpi on the 8100?
True... I guess that something is flawed in that 8200i rating, taking a flawed rating from the former 7600i, when the 7400i rating also used for the (successor) 8100i reaches 3800dpi effective, resolving element 6.2 for sure.
Scan times per frame is 4 minutes without iSRD and almost 10 minutes with iSRD enabled.
You are right, but in practice for most of the situations you won't notice any enhacement from scanning beyond 3600dpi (taking 1:25min), usually images in the negative have other limitations. First the situations where the film itself can record more than 50lp/mm at extintion are totally exceptional, then we shot 35mm handheld, we are in the DOF rather in perfect focus...
Of course a shot can be exceptionally sharp, and bebefiting from scanning with the plustek at 4800, but any enhacement beyond that point will really small.
Yes, the Plustek is slow at 7200 dpi, but the situations where you do that are exceptional, not everyday everyone makes a 1m high quality print in a lightjet. But the day you want that the Plustek throws 3800dpi effective, which is amazing for such a cheap and trouble-free machine.
Instead the Coolscan is a very pro machine delivering a very optimized image where every bit of information transmitted through the cable is significative, drawback is cost and difficult/expensive service of an ancient machine.
Of course the Plustek lacks the Pro level of the Coolscan, but amazingly it delivers Pro results when required.
That site also reviewed the Epson V800/850 and conclude that you need to scan at 4800dpi in order to achieve 2300dpi and that scanning at 6400dpi doesn't achieve any more detail.
The Epson resolves 2900 dpi effective in the horizontal axis and 2300 in the vertical axis, as every flatbed resolving power is lower in carriage motion direction. In the Epson film flatness and optimal holder height adjustment is critical for optimal results. The new holders V800 have ANR glass to ensure flatness and adjustable height, an accurate scanning allows great results. Think that if the film height falls only 1.2mm from the optimal position you loss 50% of the resolving power.
So if as you said that your V850 is able to take absolutely all image quality the film has - except b&w, then why would you get the Plustek that takes considerably longer to make a scan and requires manual intervention to advance the filmholder for each frame? Couldn't you just apply more sharpening as needed?
Not only the V850, even the V700 is able to take all Image Quality of Kodak Portra 160, this has been demonstrated and if you want we can debate that. Color negative films were optimized nearly two decades ago to be very easy to scan in high production digital Labs and Minilabs.
Sharpening never increases resolving power, just it makes the image look better.
Many Pro scanners have very smart digital procedures to deliver a very well optimized image, sometimes those features connot even be disabled, those features are essential for productivity in a commercial environement. The Epson case is different, this is not Pro gear, it is prosumer gear, you always need to refine sharpening, but not to increase resolving power, you do that to manually refine the image like Pro machines do automaticly.
I have the Plustek. Truly amazing device for 35mm, only slightly bettered by my Minolta Scan Dual IV which produces comparable resolution with much smaller file sizes.
Yes... The Plustek 120 is very expensive, but the 35mm is a total steal, of course it's not pro gear, but delivering Pro results when required.
