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Film scanners?



 
 
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  #61  
Old April 19th 17, 09:52 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
Noons
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Posts: 3,245
Default Film scanners?

On 18/04/2017 11:17 @wiz, -hh wrote:

Set up the slide projector at home, with a dSLR on a tripod next
to it ... project, click, project, click ... this is a quick &
dirty way to get a halfway decent quality image quickly, which
is better than nothing.


The slight snag in that technique is that it only works with slide film.
Colour negative and b&w are simply impossible to use for this.
And they are by far the largest amount of film still used - at least in
my case.

I'm perfectly happy with the Coolscan 9000 I got many years ago and the
Plustek Opticfilm120 a couple of years ago.
For the Nikon, I reckon Nikonscan works fine with slides.
But for b&w and colour negative, vuescan walks all over any other
software on both scanners. I won't even mention the utter crap that
comes with the Plustek and makes it so much more expensive as a
result... If only Plustek woke up and started shipping that scanner
WITHOUT that included software, they'd have a product $500+ less
expensive...

I have tried a slide duplicator with a digital camera for slides but am
not happy with all results. The max rez digital camera I have is
16Mpixels and that is not enough for some of the best images. It also
does not have any way of using infra-red scanning for elimination of
scratches and such. Keeping things sufficiently flat is also a huge
challenge. But it does a satisfactory job for average slides - that are
the majority of the stuff I have on that film base.

What I've found that it really comes down to is that it is
still a challenge to make the time to grind through the film
collection, and when I finally do, two things hold me up:


Indeed. Line scanners are all very slow and no one has done a good job
of using a simple digital camera sensor scanner. Even though it should
be relatively simple to get a good 20Mpixel scanner system based on
those and not necessarily over-expensive. Not sure about the infra-red
scratch removal, though.

The few scanners around that use digital sensors are useless in that
they barely reach 5Mpixels in rez, have poor focusing systems and
flatness support and produce results only as jpgs instead of RAW. That
makes them useless for any needed post-processing adjustments.
  #62  
Old April 19th 17, 12:34 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
-hh
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Posts: 838
Default Film scanners?

On Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 3:06:58 AM UTC-4, Sandman wrote:
-hh wrote:

Set up the slide projector at home, with a dSLR on a tripod next
to it ... project, click, project, click ... this is a quick &
dirty way to get a halfway decent quality image quickly, which
is better than nothing.


Problem with this is of course that you are limited to the resolving power of
the slide projector lens, which usually is really crappy. Also, the
smoothness of the projector surface, which unless it's a movie-grade
projection screen usually is really poor.


Very true, which is why I referred to this approach as "quick & dirty"
as well as "halfway decent".

Point is simply that it is, however slight, still "better than nothing", and
gets there without a huge personal time/effort investment.


-hh
  #63  
Old April 19th 17, 12:44 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
-hh
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Posts: 838
Default Film scanners?

On Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 4:52:25 AM UTC-4, Noons wrote:
On 18/04/2017 11:17 @wiz, -hh wrote:

Set up the slide projector at home, with a dSLR on a tripod next
to it ... project, click, project, click ... this is a quick &
dirty way to get a halfway decent quality image quickly, which
is better than nothing.


The slight snag in that technique is that it only works with slide film.


Pragmatically, true enough.

And it only works for those slides for which have been mounted.

I raise this point because for a lot of my old UW photography images,
the local ("next day") E6 processing was done by hand and you got
back the uncut strip, unmounted (the service of slide mounting simply
wasn't offered at these dive resorts & Liveaboards,

But because the overall photgraphic yield was also typically quite low,
it wasn't considered to be a particularly big deal for the photographer
to spend an hour at a light box and cutting up the strips by hand and
hand-mounting the ~4 keepers per roll. Plus, it was slightly cheaper.

In retrospect, the savings was trivial, but at the time, a couple of bucks
per roll, times 20 rolls would pay for another full day of scuba diving.

Colour negative and b&w are simply impossible to use for this.
And they are by far the largest amount of film still used - at least in
my case.

I'm perfectly happy with the Coolscan 9000 I got many years ago
and the Plustek Opticfilm120 a couple of years ago.
For the Nikon, I reckon Nikonscan works fine with slides.
But for b&w and colour negative, vuescan walks all over any other
software on both scanners. I won't even mention the utter crap that
comes with the Plustek and makes it so much more expensive as a
result... If only Plustek woke up and started shipping that scanner
WITHOUT that included software, they'd have a product $500+ less
expensive...

I have tried a slide duplicator with a digital camera for slides but am
not happy with all results. The max rez digital camera I have is
16Mpixels and that is not enough for some of the best images. It also
does not have any way of using infra-red scanning for elimination of
scratches and such. Keeping things sufficiently flat is also a huge
challenge. But it does a satisfactory job for average slides - that are
the majority of the stuff I have on that film base.

What I've found that it really comes down to is that it is
still a challenge to make the time to grind through the film
collection, and when I finally do, two things hold me up:


Indeed. Line scanners are all very slow and no one has done a good job
of using a simple digital camera sensor scanner. Even though it should
be relatively simple to get a good 20Mpixel scanner system based on
those and not necessarily over-expensive. Not sure about the infra-red
scratch removal, though.

The few scanners around that use digital sensors are useless in that
they barely reach 5Mpixels in rez, have poor focusing systems and
flatness support and produce results only as jpgs instead of RAW. That
makes them useless for any needed post-processing adjustments.


My brother has one of these and their general appeal is similar to
the slide projector process I mentioned: they're a "quick & dirty".
For some people (& uses) that's adequate, but when the user is more
meticulous, there's going to be a lot of time spent in post-processing
no matter what, so starting with a better scan becomes more beneficial.


-hh
  #64  
Old April 19th 17, 01:40 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
nospam
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Posts: 24,165
Default Film scanners?

In article , Russell D.
wrote:

buy a used nikon coolscan, scan all of your film, then sell it when
you're done, as you won't be needing it anymore.

Exactly what I was thinking when I bought my CoolScan. Then I got bored
with digital and started shooting film again.

bored with digital? there's so much more it can do versus film.

Why do I need it to do more?


why limit yourself?


I'm not.


you definitely are if you're using film.

if you're satisfied with mediocre, go for it.

Mediocre is relative.


relative to what?

how can anyone be bored with it?

Pretty easily. And many do.


not that many and fewer every day.

False. Film sales are increasing.


that must explain why kodak went bankrupt and almost no film cameras
are made anymore. it also explains why so many camera stores have
closed, mainly the ones that made their money with film processing. it
also explains why kodachrome processing is no more.

Try it you'll like it.


i did. digital is way the hell better.

you should try it sometime, and with an open mind.

Oh, wait your not a photographer, just a talker.


insults means you have nothing
  #65  
Old April 19th 17, 01:40 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
nospam
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Posts: 24,165
Default Film scanners?

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:


Try it you'll like it. Oh, wait your not a photographer, just a talker.


It's not like nospam needs my help, but your criticism is unfair.
There are two sides to photography - technical and artistic. Nospam
has never joined in any threads regarding any photos that anyone has
posted. He has never criticized any photo from an artistic viewpoint -
it's just not what he does here. He clearly has vast technical
knowledge on many photography related subjects, and the technical side
is all he *ever* posts on. And that says absolutely nothing about his
photographic skills. He could be a star, and he might suck. Who knows,
and who cares? Any criticism of his technical comments are certainly
understandable, right or wrong, but commenting on his skills as a
photographer makes no sense at all.

While your point is somewhat valid, but nospam commenting on artistic
choice makes no sense. And, shooting film is an artistic choice.

For him to say that capturing on film is "mediocre" is like telling an
artist who paints with water colors that the choice of water colors
will yield a mediocre result compared to using oil. Or that an
charcoal sketch is a mediocre painting compared to trompe l'oeil.


I disagree. The way I see it, his comments on film vs digital are
strictly technical. To me he is saying that there is *nothing* you can
do with film that you cannot do with digital, so there is no artistic
choice to be make in the first place.


No, the difference is not technical. From an artistic point of view,
how you get there is part of the artistic effort. The film experience
goes from taking the photograph, to processing the negative, to making
prints. That whole experience is what the film photographer enjoys.


you don't speak for all film photographers (or any, actually) and you
have *no* idea why any given film photographer chooses film.

i also wasn't talking about some fuzzy unquantifiable 'experience'.

the problem is that film photographers claim the impossible. they claim
film can do things that digital cannot which is flat out false.

they claim things such as digital doesn't have 'the film look' without
ever saying which film (i.e., it's completely meaningless). they don't
realize that digital can have whatever 'film look' they want, all from
the same capture. velvia today, kodachrome tomorrow. it's all there.

digital is far more capable than film ever was and can do everything
film can do and quite a bit more. this is a mathematically provable
fact.

people are welcome to choose whatever they want, but should do based on
facts. most film photographers do so based on myths.
  #66  
Old April 19th 17, 01:40 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
nospam
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Posts: 24,165
Default Film scanners?

In article , Noons
wrote:

The only aspect where digital blows away film is in sensitivity- or ISO,
if you prefer that terminology.


nope. digital blows away film in *every* metric.


Disagree completely and I have the facts and results to prove it.


no you don't, since no such facts exist.

Note that I never said I don't use digital.


apparently you don't know how to use digital to its maximum performance.
  #67  
Old April 19th 17, 10:48 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Eric Stevens
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Posts: 13,611
Default Film scanners?

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 08:40:34 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Noons
wrote:

The only aspect where digital blows away film is in sensitivity- or ISO,
if you prefer that terminology.

nope. digital blows away film in *every* metric.


Disagree completely and I have the facts and results to prove it.


no you don't, since no such facts exist.

Note that I never said I don't use digital.


apparently you don't know how to use digital to its maximum performance.


Probably nobody does.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens
  #68  
Old April 19th 17, 10:56 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24,165
Default Film scanners?

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


Note that I never said I don't use digital.


apparently you don't know how to use digital to its maximum performance.


Probably nobody does.


plenty of people do.
  #69  
Old April 19th 17, 11:56 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Savageduck[_3_]
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Posts: 16,487
Default Film scanners?

On 2017-04-19 21:48:02 +0000, Eric Stevens said:

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 08:40:34 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Noons
wrote:

The only aspect where digital blows away film is in sensitivity- or ISO,
if you prefer that terminology.

nope. digital blows away film in *every* metric.

Disagree completely and I have the facts and results to prove it.


no you don't, since no such facts exist.

Note that I never said I don't use digital.


apparently you don't know how to use digital to its maximum performance.


Probably nobody does.


With a new camera with features, capability, and performance I am
unfamiliar with it is all a continuing education.
....and this is week one.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

  #70  
Old April 20th 17, 09:28 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
Eric Stevens
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Posts: 13,611
Default Film scanners?

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 17:56:39 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


Note that I never said I don't use digital.

apparently you don't know how to use digital to its maximum performance.


Probably nobody does.


plenty of people do.


Do you mean there is nothing new to be still discovered or invented?

Come now ...
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens
 




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