MF Film scanning with 750

[bibowj]

Hello all- Im James, and this is my first post on here.

Im a recent revert back into MF film, but like many others on this forum, Im still connected to digital when it comes to post processing. Ive scoured the forum for questions relating to my specific needs in order not to re ask the obvious, but the options seems to be very polarized.
At the moment, I run a budding portrait business and I'm integrating MF film into my process via a Hasselblad 500cm setup. I rarely deliver prints over 8 x 10, just the occasional 11 x 17 ish. I would like to be able to hand dev my film, scan here and be able to work the files along with any digital workin PS at the same time, or at least w/o much lag and at the moment at least, I cant afford a coolscan 8000/9000.

For any prints over the above sizes, I will outsource my drum scans.


So my question is , will a epson 750 with a better carrier be enough to be able to get up and running until I can invest in a dedicated film scanner? This question is of course depends on my ability, but lets just assume that I have properly developed and exposed film and decent scanning ability.

I realize that the 9000 or a dedicated drum scanner is the best choice, theres no denying that. However, where I live at, I can go get a 750 today for far cheaper. I just dont want to buy something that will only be able to produce an 8x10 in print size. 11x17 is perfectly fine for my needs, at least for the next 1 to 2 years....

Side question, since I mentioned outsourcing, Ive not found a service that offers what Im looking for. I would like to be able to mail off my film, have it drum scanned AND I would like to be able to choose and download my images. Is there any service that offers this?


Thanks all for reading this, and taking the time to answer.

 

[Pinholemaster]

Try a Better Scanning film holder until you can get a Nikon 8000/9000 film scanner. http://www.betterscanning.com/

I use one on my Epson 750 for 6x12 format images.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

I'm integrating MF film into my process via a Hasselblad 500cm setup. I rarely deliver prints over 8 x 10, just the occasional 11 x 17 ish. I would like to be able to hand dev my film, scan here and be able to work the files along with any digital workin PS at the same time, or at least w/o much lag and at the moment at least, I cant afford a coolscan 8000/9000.

I second the vote for the betterscanning holders ..

You didn't say if you are intending to scan black and white, C-41 or E-6 ... for the first two I think you'll be completely fine. I have a 4990 (and a 4870) and I've found that its really quite good for anything up to x5 enlargements I think your strategy will yeild a good compromise between spending money on gear (lying around and not used at its potential) and quality. Sending out to have drums scans done when only printing to 8x10 I think makes sence.

Have a poke around my blog on optimising scans for C-41 with the Epson. This article for instance is about the Nikon coolscan, but the same principle applies to the epson.

 

[jeffreyg]

I have been using an Epson 4870 for 120 and 4x5 for 5 years with no problems what software are you using to resize? That could make a difference.

 

[bibowj]

I forgot to mention that i would indeed be using the addon from betterscanning...

I wasnt aware that different films scan better, so i hadnt made that choice... I could however do all C41 if it makes a difference.. are there specific films that do well? I would MOSTLY do B/W C41 but I would like to do some Portra NC/VC as well...

For any resizing needed, I would use Gen Factuals 4 for PS, but will I need to resize? Or would it come out of the scanner at at least 11x17 size?

 

[tgphoto]

You need not invest in overpriced "solutions" from betterscanning. It's not the height of the film holder that's the problem, but the inability of the Epson supplied holder to keep the film flat.

Take your film holders into any frame shop and they will custom cut anti-reflective glass to fit inside the plastic bumper of the film holder. It is dirt cheap - around $6-10 for glass to fit the 120/220 holder.

Remove the hinged lid of the holder, position the negative as usual, and cover it with your newly acquired glass insert. That's all there is to it.

NOTE: one side of the glass may be etched. If so, you want to mark the opposite side for reference. If the etched side faces down towards the scanner glass, it may introduce Newton rings. If this happens, just flip the glass over and redo the preview scan.

 

[pellicle]

Hi

I wasnt aware that different films scan better, so i hadnt made that choice... I could however do all C41 if it makes a difference.. are there specific films that do well? I would MOSTLY do B/W C41 but I would like to do some Portra NC/VC as well...

the issue with most scanners (not drum scanners) is that there is no ability to tune the light strength to the film density giving levels that are ideal to the sensor. All film has different density ranges and you'll find that E-6 has quite dense shadow detail areas ... much more so than black and white has density in its hilight areas.

scan without auto- anything and see the histogram to learn more about your film

For any resizing needed, I would use Gen Factuals 4 for PS, but will I need to resize? Or would it come out of the scanner at at least 11x17 size?

Sorry, but I find this sort of thing quite frustrating and it drives me nuts with commercial printers not getting it either.

11x17 whats at what? I'll try to put you onto what I think is the right track for understanding and de-mystifying this...

A scanner scans a bit of film ... flatbeds like the Epson can scan an entire A4 sheet, so the input size is quite flexible. Further scanners and printers both have density settings to enable you to scan your target at anything from 100dpi to over 4800 dpi. and print your file at anything from 100dpi through to 600dpi (depeneding) DPI being Dots Per Inch

so if you have a bit of film which is (around) 2.25 inches x 2.25 inches (recalling you're using a 120 film in a square format) you can get pixel dimensions of 225 x 225 pixels through to 10800 x 10800 pixels

either of these can be used to make a print of 11x17 (lets say) inches.

its just that the more pixels you have in your final print the more detailed it will be.

If you want to print at 300dpi then you'll need 3300 x 5100pixels to make a 11x17 inch print

if you like to think in something consistent I find that thinking in DPI and enlargement helps to simplify it. Keep your negative and your print destination size in mind when working this out and it will be less 'fuzzy'

Eg, if you have 2.25 inches wide, and you want to print that to 17 inches wide you will need to be able to enlarge x7 right?

So, if you scan your 120 film source at 3000 dpi then you will be able to make a x10 enlargement, or in other words you will will be able to print 22 inches at 300 dpi at the printer.

Naturally if you scan at a lower density (like 1600dpi) you will have less pixels and be printing smaller at 300dpi on the printer.

Since your initial post suggested 8x10 then 1600dpi scans of 2.25inch square film will get you enough pixels to print at 300 and be within the ability of the Epson to give acceptably sharp scans.

Now, if you want to print 17 inch wide from a blad negative you'll be best off using another scanner ... like the drum scans you mentioned. But with that strategy there is no need to be using fractal technology for resampling any of this.

 

[David Henderson]

The Betterscanning holder ( and AN glass) are great but IMO they don't raise the performance of the V7xx scanners to the point that I'd want to sell prints from them. They're fine for viewing on screen , fine for making small prints for your own purposes and to show friends. But not if you're trying to build business on the back of the scans, and certainly not if you're printing to 17"

I have a V700 now, I owned a Coolscan 9000ED for a couple of years, have recently had a few hundred scans made from MF on an Imacon, and i've previously has a couple of hundred drum scans made by West Coast Imaging, who I think many people would place very near the top of the tree on scan quality.

My perpective would be that for prints of the sizes you have quoted then you don't need drum scans. That either the Imacon or Coolscan 9000 are able to provide scans good enough ( actually more than good enough) for your purpose.

The make or buy decision is possibly more important than which of the film scanners you use. You'd need a lot of volume to supprt the purchase of an Imacon and there has been no meaningful reduction in the pricing of the Coolscans either. The right decision for you is likely to be based on volume and speed, but if you do it yourself on a Coolscan be aware that scanning is somewhat tedious and has something of a learning curve. There's a difference between owning the box and getting the best from it. If, as I understand you have a young business , I guess my advice would be to buy in until your business grows big enough to justify a capital purchase. That way you'll also be establishing a quality baseline for your own scans if that point comes.

Can you buy them in? Sure, certainly here in the UK and globally there are lots of businesses, some very small, that offer film scanning . Rates are hugely variable, as are timescales and I don't know where you are or how quickly you need scans made and in what batch size. As a guide I'm paying 6.50 for 16/8 bit Imacon scans from 6x6, cleaned in Photoshop (not Ice) at a size bigger than you'll need. But they take maybe three weeks and I've got that. But that sort of price/quality explains why I sold my Coolscan in favour of outsourcing

 

[pellicle]

James .. thought I'd add a few more bits here (rather than edit my last post)

since you said its your first post here I'm wondering how much experience you have. I don't want to make any assumptions (like speaking down to an expert or leaving you wondering what I'm talking about if your a novice)

Particularly since you mentioned you didn't think different films scanned differently. It may be a mouthful, but take a look at my page here.

Particularly understanding the ranges of useful exposure on film (clear unexposed but developed and really dense exposures.


firstly with black and white, scans of a fully exposed negative and unexposed negative give histograms like this in my Epson software

so from this you can work out the potential density range of your exposures

scanning some of your negatives will then give you some idea of how well you're technique is making use of your scanner. Especially if you are not printing traditionally you may wish then to taylor your exposure / development to get the most of the available range.

My ADOX negatives often look like this:

which sits like this inside the films density range:

This translates to less noise and less posterisation possibility of stretching the data that the scanner captures to fit the range you'd like to print (assuming there is a wide range in the subject and desired print)

C-41 scans quite differently

with clearly different density for each R, G and B levels as seen in photoshop of this 120 6x9 negative

I find that I learn more about my film scanning negative as if it was positive and not letting the software make dumb choices on how to deal with the data.

Try reading my other blog posts (suggested before) to see if that helps your understanding

 

[timbo10ca]

In simple terms, slide film cannot be scanned well without possibly getting the multiexposure edition of Silverfast. For professional use, I would say not many people would be happy with the results. If you're using B&W film or C41, they both have quite good dynamic ranges that scan quite well. This scanner would likely give you results you'd be happy with at 8x10 and even 11x17, but it depends how picky you or your clients are. It's the age old toss-up between quality and price. I have the v750 and have been very happy with it for B&W film (I don't use c41). I also scan MF, 4x5 and 5x7 chromes. Detail is fine, but the exposure is tough to get right (I don't have the multiexposure edition- just the one that came with the v750 pro). This doesn't sound like it will effect you though.

As far as which scanner to get, the v750 is essentially the v700 with a fluid mount station. If you're not going to use it and are getting the Betterscanning holders, you're wasting your money on the v700. A caveat however: look at the version of Silverfast you get with each scanner- not sure if it's better or the same with the V750. You also get a color target and software, but I would say the ones from Wolff Faust are better anyway. I looked at Doug's design and read up all over the net on how people use flatbeds and adapted my wetmount station to essentially do what the Betterscan holders do. I can't imagine that I have a loss in quality doing it my way.

Tim

 

[pellicle]

Tim

In simple terms, slide film cannot be scanned well without possibly getting the multiexposure edition of Silverfast. For professional use

not sure if you're on for an experiement, but I've found two things which may be of use to you.

1) covering the calibration area with a neutral density gel (say 1 or 2 stops density) causes the scanner to turn up the gain a little. You can see my plots of this here.

2) adjusting the sliders in the histogram to nail more over into the dark area seems to also effect scan time with no other change. I have noticed better dark penetration there. You need to click on the histogram tool in Epson scan to access this and I think you must also be in "professional mode", with the right settings for colour management.


It is not linear in behaviour, but then neither is the way my Nikon behaves when doing multi-scanning or adjusting gain controls

I found that on a test 35mm slide I could get nearly the same shadow penetration from the Epson as my LS-4000 does.


I'll be interested to know how it goes if you try it.

 

[timbo10ca]

Chris- I'm *definitely* up for some experimentation!

So for the 1st test, I just use a piece of unexposed developed film as my ND filter? What do you think would be better for this- 35mm film (FP4 which is quite a bit darker and purple) or sheet film (not much density/color at all)? My FP4 sheet film is developed in Pyrocat HD- will the stain make a difference or should I use a sheet developed in Rodinal or HC110 (I have both that I use for D100 and HP5 respectively)?

For 2nd test, are you saying to just move the black slider over to the edge beyond the black end of the histogram and leave the white slider alone, or move them both over equally (If so, would this not clip the whites?)? You say sliders (plural), so I'm not exactly sure what to move where.... And what are "the right settings for color management"? I haven't played with the more in-depth functions in Silverfast for quite a while because I found I was able to get better results with a straight scan and using Photoshop for processing.

Tim

 

[pellicle]

Hi Tim

Chris- I'm *definitely* up for some experimentation!

bewdy ... wonder if anyone will ever find this stuff ... anyway ...

So for the 1st test, I just use a piece of unexposed developed film as my ND filter? What do you think would be better for this- 35mm film (FP4 which is quite a bit darker and purple)

I used some acetate sheet at first but then went to using one of my Cokin P nd filters. If your cover has irregularities it will make for an ugly scan. Dust will give streaks too.

For 2nd test, are you saying to just move the black slider over to the edge beyond the black end of the histogram and leave the white slider alone, or move them both over equally (If so, would this not clip the whites?)? You say sliders (plural), so I'm not exactly sure what to move where....

yeah, sorry about that ... firstly if you can get to see this stage in the scanner software

then what you need to to is select a specific colour channel (the radio button beside the colour) and then move the black slider at the bottom of the histogram to the left. I've found that moving the blue one alone will be enough. When you select each colour the histogram will then change to showing only that component of the scan (R G or B). Especially for negative film I tune this with good results. You can see most of my workflow here. You'll notice from that page the histogram of the Red and the blue are quite different. This is not unexpected as the density levels of each of the layers in C-41 are different. This is taken from a C-41 the makers spec sheet (Fuji I think)

and shows the density range of the film (with respect to its responce to exposure). As the chart shows, for a given range of luminance (light, brightness) the red density covers a greater range than the blue. This is reflected in the more compressed histogram of the blue light in the scanner software

So blue will always be denser.

Anway, I always put 0 in the output (bottom) section of the histogram adjustment area too ... I don't know if this is a significant component.

However, having only moved the dark end of the scale slider for the blue along to hard left (as in this image

that my scan times change ... instead of going "bzzzzzzzzzzz"
it goes "b er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er" and takes longer by nearly double.

I can only assume this means that it is allowing a longer time to expose or perhaps even taking a second sample (I have no way of knowing which)