Ulysses
perhaps your sharpening technique is out?
I've read that the Microtek is in the same ballpark as the Epsons so perhaps the Microtek does some default sharpening you have not yet discovered (lurking in the bowels of its configuration).
I'm not saying the Microtek is not a superior machine to the V750, but that it will be small margins. After that I say we could talk about your sharpening technique.
First of all, I'm a hothead. I think that in this case that fact got in the way of a rational evaluation of the Canon scanner by me in the first place. Second, I tend toward verbose, so this is long but I think it does have a point. Let me start by saying that, in at least one sense, I was wrong. I read the blog post you referred to and I have to say that I pretty much agree, and in fact had recently come to the same conclusion on my own. Here's how that happened:
I own two pieces of Canon equipment that have been giving me fits. I'm not going to pick on Canon. They make fine products and I own other products they make that are a joy to use. It happens that one of the products I was struggling with was the Canon scanner. I bought it a couple of years ago and was really unhappy with the quality of the scans I was getting from film. I shoot 35mm and 120, and digital, too. I previously owned a Minolta film scanner and I was happy with the results I got from it. It died after many years of use, and when I went to replace it I decided I needed to be able to scan 120 film as well. The only current-production dedicated film scanner that could do 120 was the Nikon 9000, which was more than I wanted spend. I read Canon's statement that flatbed scanners were good enough that dedicated film scanners are no longer necessary, read some reviews and decided to get the Canon 9950F flatbed film scanner. From the first, my scans seemed soft (out of focus was how they looked to me) and I contacted Canon support for assistance. They weren't much help, and I stubbornly insisted that the scanner was incapable of providing quality film scans. Life interfered and I ended up dropping it. Recently, I have been spending more time on photography, particularly film photography, and the issue was resurrected. Somewhere in the interim -- after giving up on the 9950 -- I found a Microtek 120tf on eBay for a reasonable price. After bit of a struggle and a software upgrade (to the latest version of SilverFast) I was happy with the scans.
Recently I ran into a problem with the second piece of Canon equipment, and fired off an email in the direction of Canon USA CEO Joe Adachi, in which I added a rant about the scanner to the primary complaint. I don't know if he got it, but *somebody* at Canon did, and I was all of the sudden getting a lot of attention from them. They made a very gracious offer to resolve the problem with the second piece of equipment, and offered to have the scanner shipped to them for testing. All they asked was that I document the problem and include some scans that demonstrate the poor quality of the scans. That's where the fun began.
I selected several 35mm slides, and B&W and color negs in both 35mm and 120, then started scanning, first on the Canon, then on the Microtek. Several hours later, and I'm seriously considering *not* returning the scanner to them. Looking at the scanned image files, I am forced to conclude that the information content in them is similar (allowing for the differences in maximum scanning resolution.) In other words, the Canon scanner performs as advertised. There are, however, differences in the resulting images that to some extent follow the differences in the digital camera images and drum scans of film discussed and shown in the blog you provided the link to.
Here's what I think I see:
- The amount of visible detail in the two scans is roughly the same
- The scan from the MicroTek looks more like a film image -- it clearly shows the grain from the film
- The scan from the Canon scanner looks more like a digital image -- there's no grain, although there is some "noise" and transitions are "smoother" which contributes, in my perception, to softness of the image
- Since I was looking for a digital representation of the film image (as opposed to the original image), what was produced by the Canon scanner was not to my liking
I had it in my head, and to some extent I still do, that I wanted the scanned image to be a pure capture of what's on the film, including what is introduced by the film medium itself. I still think that the dedicated film scanners I have used (and probably drum scanners as well) do a "better" job at achieving that. If that's your goal, and I confess that it is mine, at least some of the time, then a flatbed scanner won't make you happy. If your goal is the best representation of the image you saw when you pressed the shutter, independent of the medium you are using to record it, it's up in the air which is better (or for that matter whether film or digital is better.) It's a choice you have to make based on your experience, vision and creative intent. If you see it as VHS versus DVD or cassette tape versus CD, you'll only see it as the new being "better" than the old. But that's not always true: consider CD versus MP3 where the latter is more convenient even if it's a less accurate representation of the original sound recording.
I like film. I tend to think about photography in terms of film as the medium, and film influences what I shoot and how I shoot it. I also like the enormous convenience of digital. That's why I use both, and want to continue to use both. I expect that, now that I've calmed down about it and done a more objective review, there is a place in my toolkit for the Canon scanner. Plus, it's nice to know that I can still learn, after all these years.
