Scan of Grain Texture at 11'000ppi

[Steven Lee]

As a side issue, or maybe it's really a central issue, the results in this thread should permanently put to rest the idea that once you get to 4000 ppi you have extracted all of the information the film can give.

"Extracting all information" is not a practical goal. I interpreted the OPs results as a confirmation that for 100% of my use cases 5000dpi is the practical ceiling. Everything above is just tech porn and has no practical value.

• I don't print 25 meter wide panoramas.
• I don't shoot ISO 20 films.
• I do not enjoy staring at well-resolved, oversized grain. And everyone I know in real life doesn't either.

In fact, you don't need a 11,000dpi $50K scanner to come to these conclusions. A $100 microscope from Amazon will give you the same insight for much less. There's a reason for 24-45MP digital sensors dominating new camera sales for the last 10 years. A human eye+brain combo doesn't benefit from more information without resorting to pixel peeping.

That said, I still applaud the OP for building his machine. While 5000ppi is the holy grail for the normies, we still can't easily get it for medium and large formats.

 

[Oren Grad]

As a side issue, or maybe it's really a central issue, the results in this thread should permanently put to rest the idea that once you get to 4000 ppi you have extracted all of the information the film can give.

Apropos of which, the attached images are crops from "scans" of a Tri-X negative that I made with, respectively, the Nikon 9000 I used to own, a Fujifilm GFX 100S in single-shot mode (100 MP), and a Fujifilm GFX 100S in pixel-shift multishot mode (400 MP). Lens used with the GFX was the 75mm Apo-Rodagon-D 1:1.

See also:

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/03/gigabyte-film-scans.html

 

[Oren Grad]

While 5000ppi is the holy grail for the normies, we still can't easily get it for medium and large formats.

A GFX 100S will exceed that with a single-shot capture of a 6x6 cm negative.

EDIT: sorry, this is not correct - that's what happens when I post late at night, was thinking of the long dimension on the GFX sensor when I should have been thinking of the short dimension. Single shot on the 100S will achieve ~4000 ppi (3962 to be precise) on a 56x56 mm negative. The rest of my comments below still hold.

Multi-shot will take you further still. It's certainly not an inexpensive camera, but clean used ones are now available within the price range of the latest 45 MP mirrorless full frame cameras. Yes, you need to add a suitable copy lens, and getting everything in alignment for optimal results with a single shot takes a fair bit of effort. So it's not a quick-and-easy solution, particularly if you're not dedicating the camera to the copy setup. But it is within reach for many serious hobbyists.

The truly hard-core may take some inspiration from Jim Kasson's setup:

Scanning black-and-white negatives with a GFX 100S - the last word

I haven’t posted here in a almost three weeks. That’s a long time for me. There’s a reason for that; I’ve been doing some actual photography. This is a post about what I’m doing, concentrating on how I’m doing it. Most of my posts the past few months have been, uh, focused on testing macro

blog.kasson.com

 

[dokko]

Apropos of which, the attached images are crops from "scans" of a Tri-X negative that I made with, respectively, the Nikon 9000 I used to own, a Fujifilm GFX 100S in single-shot mode (100 MP), and a Fujifilm GFX 100S in pixel-shift multishot mode (400 MP). Lens used with the GFX was the 75mm Apo-Rodagon-D 1:1.

well, the Nikon 9000 will give you close to 4000ppi of real resolution, but with quite a bit of scanner noise which will influence how the grain looks.
the 75mm Apo-Rodagon-D unfortunately is a rather poor lens and will not get you much over 6000ppi no matter what resolution the sensor has, but even so it shows that the Nikon scanner fails to resolve the grain structure properly.

if you print small or like soft looking grain, of course both setups will allow for decent results.

See also:
https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/03/gigabyte-film-scans.html

I don't know if that is a good example, the images in that article to me look rather bad. this image from the link above is supposed to be a 4800ppi scan of T-Max 100 (so the same film as in my first post)

 

[dokko]

"Extracting all information" is not a practical goal. I interpreted the OPs results as a confirmation that for 100% of my use cases 5000dpi is the practical ceiling. Everything above is just tech porn and has no practical value.

for a lot of people these days, the main forum to show their pictures is instagram, so with 1080pixels wide even a 2000ppi Frontier scan will look decent (apart from the color rendering which personally I don't like).

For people who only print up to 50cm wide from a 35mm negative, scanning over 5000ppi will not bring any resolution benefits (even getting full 5000ppi corner to corner is not easy though).

I mainly designed my scanner for large prints, but also for scanning full rolls at high enough resolution so I have a digital backup if something should happen to the originals. apart from resolution, that also involved a better workflow (raw scans and processed scans), contact sheets, and most importantly better color rendering than I got from other solutions.

 

[warden]

… I still applaud the OP for building his machine. While 5000ppi is the holy grail for the normies, we still can't easily get it for medium and large formats.

Much applause here too. It’s great that we get to see this output from the machine.

I’d be delighted with high quality 5000ppi across a medium format negative from a reasonably priced, durable scanner. I don’t want to go the route of a copy stand and high end digital camera/lens setup for non-professional use.

 

[Oren Grad]

there is a copy stand scanning solution from PhaseOne, which sells around 100'000EUR, and it doesn't reach 10'000ppi (to be fair it's designed more for versatility in mind than highest resolution)

As you will know, it's based on the IQ4 back system. The IQ4 150 records single-shot captures of 14204 x 10652 pixels and cannot do pixel-shift. So if faithful recording of grain structure to the kind of standard we're discussing here is the criterion, the Phase One system can't do it even for 6 x 9 cm, let alone larger formats. A GFX 100/100S/100II in multi-shot mode can do better with a good lens and sufficient attention to mounting and alignment, at a fraction of the cost. The value proposition of the Phase One system is more for institutions that need efficient throughput of "good enough" captures of a wide range of original materials.

 

[Oren Grad]

the 75mm Apo-Rodagon-D unfortunately is a rather poor lens and will not get you much over 6000ppi no matter what resolution the sensor has

Sure, if I had the budget I'd get the 105 HR Digaron macro to eke out a bit more. But there's never going to be a lens that's good enough to record grain-faithful captures of medium-to-large film originals using a digital camera in either single- or multi-shot mode. If that's the goal there will be no way to avoid either stitching of multiple digital-camera captures, or a scanner setup in which a high-quality lens with a small field of view is moved across the film and the data recorded line-by-line - like existing film and flatbed scanners except with a better lens, higher-precision mechanics, and a larger scan area. I imagine some version of the latter is what you're doing.

 

[Steven Lee]

GFX is a good platform for scanning film, but it's undermined by having to adapt last century manual focus lenses. I am waiting for Fujifilm to release a 1:1 autofocus macro for the GF mount. If they manage to build one as good as Sigma Art full frame macros, I am getting a GFX camera again and sending it to have the color filter stripped. For me that will be the final destination.

 

[Oren Grad]

GFX is a good platform for scanning film, but it's undermined by having to adapt last century manual focus lenses. I am waiting for Fujifilm to release a 1:1 autofocus macro for the GF mount.

Yes, that would be nice. It might be a good niche for Sigma to fill if they get to the point where they can spare some development and production capacity to do a GF-mount lens.

 

[Helge]

that's an interesting question. what I've found is that the appearance of the grain in films depends on a lot of factors...

for example, even on fully analog prints, grain will look different on different print sizes, different enlargers (condenser vs diffusor box) and to some extent even on different papers.

or for film scans, it will look different when viewed on an older 96ppi screen or a newer retina screens, or when printed on a lightjet or on a inkjet.

with scans, the tricky bit is to differentiate which details are coming from the film itself, and which are from the scanning method, ie noise, aliasing, synthetic pixel pattern.

as an example:
I scanned with an Epson V850 for a long time, which has quite soft optics, so scanning higher than 2400ppi didn't give me any more detail of the image, but it introduces a small synthetic pixel pattern that could be mistaken for image detail because it looked less soft.
similarly, drum scanners add quite a bit of noise that people often mistake for grain texture.
and the Imacon/Hasselblad scanners are very good at assembling the pixels so that the grain looks sharp and detailed, but it's quite edgy and not really the original shape of the grain.


in the examples of the T-Max 100 and Delta 100 scans above, if you open the images in a software that allows you to view them at 100%, you will see the true grain structure with practically zero noise or synthetic digital pixel pattern at this specific resolution.
there will always be some aliasing in any digitally sampled image (or sound for that matter), but if the frequency is high enough it's not going to be visible (that's the concept of oversampling).

I'll see that I can scan a detail in 20'000 and 40'000ppi next time I've set up the system for that resolution (takes quite a bit of time to adjust). at 40'000ppi the grain in many films (specially grainy color negative) starts to become less defined and more like clouds, so while we could say that is the "true" shape of grain, it's not how we usually perceive it (those who have seen images of films under a microscope will know what I mean).

This is thread is gold! Fantastic setup and results.

Whether one personally thinks it’s important or even necessary to scan at such resolutions is really secondary to the knowledge that this is possible.

I encourage anyone to look at their film under a reasonably good microscope. It will tell you much of what you need to know about what is possible and necessary with your photos.

Personally I was shocked to see what even Portra 400 held that wasn’t visible in scans or DSLR scans.

It also tells us that getting 8000 dpi is not as difficult as some try to make it sound in this thread.
If a relatively inexpensive microscope lens can do it, it’s possible by other means

 

[dokko]

This is thread is gold! Fantastic setup and results.

thanks for the kind words!

It also tell us that getting 8000 dpi is not as difficult as some try to make it sound in this thread.
If a relatively inexpensive microscope lens can do it, it’s possible by other means

it it were easy then an affordable scanner would already exist
a inexpensive microscope lens is usually only sharp in the center, not terribly convenient for a system where corner to corner sharpness is desirable. also, flatness of the film becomes an issue because the depth of field becomes quite small at 8000ppi and tiny if you go over 10'000ppi.

edit:
posted posted some images but need to double check the film emulsion tomorrow to make sure I didn't confuse things.

 

[Helge]

it it were easy then an affordable scanner would already exist
a inexpensive microscope lens is usually only sharp in the center, not terribly convenient for a system where corner to corner sharpness is desirable. also, flatness of the film becomes an issue because the depth of field becomes quite small at 8000ppi and tiny if you go over 10'000ppi.

edit:
posted posted some images but need to double check the film emulsion tomorrow to make sure I didn't confuse things.

That is not a given. Most scanners was designed when 8000 dpi was far in excess of what most digital cameras did and what would comfortably fit on most home machines.
It’s was simply deemed overkill.

Apparitions can to some extent be corrected in software. Especially if the lens is only transmitting one band at a time.
If the lens is to be considered the limiting factor, then lens design can be simplified greatly by liquid submersion, in this case scanner liquid.
Which before anyone starts, is not as difficult a problems to tackle as it sounds and would fix a lot of other issues at the same time. Scratches, AN rings from flat glass holders and refractive index difference scattering.

The fact that below 1:1 macro is quite possible and that optics of enlargers works as well as they do tells us a thing or two.

 

[tom43]

Have you ever compared it to the Apollon 14k scan service from Silbersalz?

 

[dokko]

Have you ever compared it to the Apollon 14k scan service from Silbersalz?

yes, I had handful of rolls scanned since I was always impressed by the color rendering of their earlier scanner (a Blackmagic Cintel, which is a motion picture scanner).

I didn't like the results of the Apollo 14K scanner though - colors looked very synthetic to me and the grain was mangled by what I can only assume are debayering artefacts.

I'll see if I can find the time to set up a direct comparison for resolution, but as for colors everybody can make up their own mind by looking at the galleries on their and on my website.

 

[dokko]

since there was the question if high resolution is only of benefit on microfilms, below a scan of a Kodak T-Max 100 negative, shot handheld with a Mamiya7.
first the full image for the overview:

and here three crops of 11'000ppi at 200% for retina sceens (best to open in a separate browser tab to see in full size):

I'll see if I can get a scan made on an Imacon next week and also try to make a zoomable image.


for those who don't mind a 470MB download, here is also a crop of a large area of the original scan in an uncompressed 8bit tif file (full size is 4.4GB in 16bit):

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

or for a quick peak, as a twenty times compressed jpeg :

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[PhilBurton]

that's unfortunately rather unlikely...

just the bare parts needed to build it cost around 50'000 euros. If I would factor in R&D, assembly, polishing up the software, warranty, training and support and still be able to pay rent, I'd probably have to charge a fortune for it :/

besides, it would turn into a manufacturing/sales business, which I'm not very good at. I enjoy the process of making really nice scans of good images much more.

btw, I just read through your comparison of the X5/IQ3/A7RIV at:

Comparing Imacon X5, Creo iQ3 and Sony A7R IV scans

This thread is derived from this one, where I was comparing the ease of inverting color using camera and Imacon scans. Some of you have asked to see the full-sized crops to evaluate the available resolution. WARNING: I am not a resolution aficionado. Back in my digital days I never felt the...

www.photrio.com

shipping over the atlantic is always a hassle, but if you're interested feel welcome to send me your negatives and I'll run it through my dokko scanner.

Maybe you can set up a low volume scanning service.

 

[dokko]

Maybe you can set up a low volume scanning service.

yes, that's what I'm doing. mainly scanning for exhibitions of photographers and artists.


I scanned the negative on a Imacon 848 yesterday. I scanned it three times at the same resolution as 3f and exported with identical settings. three passes in order to show the problems with distortions and focus. I also exported as RGB to show problems with color fringing.

I then upscaled and tried to match the images as well as time allowed.

here some gif animations of the results, as always, best to open in a new browser tab to view larger:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53304027654_9081c7717e_o.gif

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53302733437_c115647da4_o.gif

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53302733442_7f325975fc_o.gif

I also did a pass on an epson V850 at 2400ppi

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53303595431_38794ff992_o.gif

if anybody is interested in looking at the original unprocessed 3f scans send me a message and I'll send a link.

 

[Jon Buffington]

yes, that's what I'm doing. mainly scanning for exhibitions of photographers and artists.


I scanned the negative on a Imacon 848 yesterday. I scanned it three times at the same resolution as 3f and exported with identical settings. three passes in order to show the problems with distortions and focus. I also exported as RGB to show problems with color fringing.

I then upscaled and tried to match the images as well as time allowed.

here some gif animations of the results, as always, best to open in a new browser tab to view larger:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53304027654_9081c7717e_o.gif

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53302733437_c115647da4_o.gif

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53302733442_7f325975fc_o.gif

I also did a pass on an epson V850 at 2400ppi

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53303595431_38794ff992_o.gif

if anybody is interested in looking at the original unprocessed 3f scans send me a message and I'll send a link.

Amazing results you are getting from your scanner! I appreciate you sharing here.

 

[snusmumriken]

To my eyes, the scans from your dokkoscan clearly capture more detail and sharper, but the "graininess" is also much more apparent in featureless parts of the image. Presumably you have either not sharpened the images you have posted here, or have applied the same sharpening to all?

 

[grain elevator]

Amazing scans, it's great to know your services are out there, should I ever have the negative of a lifetime that I want printed real large.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

It would be great to see a comparison of colour negative scans from your Dokko scanner and some drum scanners. I already know Imacon scanners aren't that impressive.

I'd love to see a tripod-mounted Mamiya 7 colour neg scanned on a Screen SG-8060P Mark II next to your scan. Incidentally there's one quite close to you!

 

[dokko]

To my eyes, the scans from your dokkoscan clearly capture more detail and sharper, but the "graininess" is also much more apparent in featureless parts of the image. Presumably you have either not sharpened the images you have posted here, or have applied the same sharpening to all?

yes, if we scan at higher true resolution, grain will become more visible - there's no way around that, since the detail in analog film consists of grain.

personally I like grain texture as long it doesn't look like a digital pattern, but for those who don't, the solution would be to use document type film like Adox CMS20 II or shoot larger formats (or simply not print big).

all the examples in this thread are without sharpening after scanning. as mentioned the Imacon always applies some sharpening even with the sharpening turned off, so it actually has more digital sharpening applied, but the lower resolution make it look much softer.

If I reduce the resolution of the dokko scan, grain will be less apparent as well, since this basically acts as a low-pass filter, similar to a blur effect. I'll see that I can post an example later.

 

[dokko]

I already know Imacon scanners aren't that impressive.

well, I find drum scanners not that impressive either - I mean, they were 20 years ago, but it's not too surprising that they don't hold up to the possibilities to todays technology since they never got updated.

I've never done a direct comparison with a Screen SG-8060P Mark II, but I've re-scanned some films that had been scanned on other drum scanners and those never got anywhere near 11000ppi (more like 5000ppi with a lot of noise from the tube amplifiers).

Unfortunately I'm not at liberty to share those images since they're not mine, but it would be more telling if an independent party would run the comparison anyway, as I'm most likely biased.

So if anybody has a 11'000ppi drum scan and is interested in a comparison, send me a message.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

well, I find drum scanners not that impressive either - I mean, they were 20 years ago, but it's not too surprising that they don't hold up to the possibilities to todays technology since they never got updated.

So, not to press the point too much, but I find this a little disingenuous. You're quite quick to say your scanner beats any drum scanner, pointing to their age as the main factor. The Mamiya 7 is 20 years old, but you seem perfectly ok using that as your test camera.

I'm not trying to insinuate that your scans aren't good, your examples are impressive. But your prices are also quite high, even in comparison to the best drum scan I could possibly get.