The common thought that goes around is "sensors have advanced faster than scanners". And, in the case of film scanners, there hasn't been a huge amount of movement
besides moving to camera scanning due to those benefits and speed.
On the other hand, matching film scanners' perf on medium format is harder because you can't match their resolution in a single shot, not without some effort. Maybe make a quick and dirty setup to compare a frame you scan on the Coolscan at maximum resolution to a camera you already have or can be lent? That's what I did with a friend as a first attempt at "scanning" anything I shot.
Note that I originally conducted this test to see just how good an SMC Pentax-M 50mm F4 macro lens that I bought used for so cheap. I found out then it will not keep me from attaining detail on the film.
I shot a test target using 35mm Kodak Techpan @ ISO25 developed in Kodak Tehnidol and scanned using a Pentax K20D (14.6MP 4672 x 3104) and Nikon D800 (36MP 7360 x 4912) compared to the Coolscan 4000dpi (21.4MP 5669 x 3780) shown below. Resized full target at bottom left and 100% crops from the DSLRs and Coolscan above it. Even though the D800 applies more pixels then a 4000dpi scan, you can see they're almost the same in actual detail achieved but with a slight advantage to the Coolscan. However, as you can see from the 4.5X optical magnification crop on the right, clearly there's much more actual detail captured on this 35mm film then can be resolved by these methods.
Resolution testing my SMC Pentax-M 50mm F4 macro lens by
Les DMess, on Flickr
With the Panasonic S1R (47MP 8368 x 5584), it would be expected to achieve more detail then the D800 and Coolscan and would be interesting to see just how much more actual detail can it resolve from this 35mm film. With medium format film, the Coolscan 8000 still applies 4000dpi across the whole area so a 6X7 format will result in 104MP 11000 X 9449 which is substantially more then what the S1R has. And because the aspect ratio of MF is different, the resulting scan from the S1R will effectively be about 2400dpi. Of course you take multiple shots and stitch together for more pixels.
Ah, I've always liked this test of yours! Have you messed around with that setup since for other examples? I saw you have some Velvia examples without that setup, I'm curious how something like it would come out. Or other films, comparisons, etc. You make me want to try similar things out myself!
I actually need to put together a similar setup to transfer some Minox film, but I always wonder what's the trade-off of using a particular macro lens at very high magnifications. When can you say the lens is finally limited, at what extent? And also, if there are certain lenses that perform far better at high magnification (above 2x, at least).
In the meantime, my friend has a Canon 90d (APS-C, 32mp) and a Laowa 2x macro which would make Minox fill the frame and he's eager to try it. With that firepower, I should probably start cutting down some CMS 20 and Velvia if I hope to make use of it!!
You won't get better quality than the 8000 unless you stitch multiple frames together. A few years back I did some experiments and to really resolve the grain of the film and get the color accurate you need at least 11,000-14,000 ppi. You can do the math if the Panasonic will let you achieve that. Don't forget the lens has to be pretty spectacular to resolve that level of detail as well. In the end it is up to you to decide whether it is worth the grief. If you want ultimate quality then taking the time to do camera scans and stitching will give it to you.
Was that for any particular film? I like trying to capture film magnified to that extent but I don't have many good means to do it. I might try the high-magnification approach as Les' has.
What lenses are you talking about? The lens in the 8000 is spectacular by itself. You'd need a lens like a Printing Nikkor or equivalent to match it, and a bellows to use it. Don't forget about a light source that is appropriate and a copy stand that is super solid as well as a negative carrier that holds the neg perfectly flat, otherwise, why go through all that grief in the first place? Your 8000 takes care of all that for you. Like I mentioned earlier, if you want to get the absolute best, then camera scans can work for you. You seem like you want to spend a lot of money and you won't get much in the way of improvement unless you want to devote the time and energy to do it. I am not saying don't do it. I'm saying be realistic. The 8000 is already damn good.
From my point of view, camera scans for 35mm make sense but as you get larger the other options are simpler and easier to achieve a good result.
While some of the scanner and cine printing lenses have excellent performance, doesn't Les' demonstration above prove you don't need that? You can just go ultra-high magnification with a macro setup using bellows. There is a limit to the resolution by increasing magnification, but compared to the near-perfect reproduction at a far lower resolution (because of the lower magnification), it doesn't rely on a very special lens.
Of course you'd need to do it in sections with a bellows setup. Hmm, now I'm wondering if anyone has used a scanner camera (a flatbed scanner adapted to the rear of a large format camera) for scanning film.
Kodak 160VC-036 Adobe AI vs Coolscan ICE by Les DMess, on Flickr
