Short scaners test - Noritsu vs Plustek vs Frontier

PhantomLord · Joined: 08 Apr 2013 Posts: 476 Location: Szczecin, Poland

Hello

Some time ago I bought second-hand Plustek OpticFilm 7600i scanner and after some trials and errors I found workflow for scanning that I am satisfied with.
Before I bought the scanner I was giving my negatives to scan to the Lab with either Noritsu or Frontier scanner. When I was buying cheap Plustek I was hoping that I could achieve not too much worst quality than scans on those professional machines.
However, now when I worked out my wokrflow that is reliable, I've decided to directly compare those scanners. Of course it's not scientific comparison, but I was curious how my cheap scanner is doing in comparison with expensive, professional machines.

I gave two negatives to scan:
Agfa Vista Plus 200 to scan on Noritsu QSS-32_33
Fuji Superia X-TRA 400 to scan on Frontier SP-30000
next I scanned them on my Plustek at 3600dpi and later on resized to match exact resolution of lab scans.
Of course those negatives aren't known for their great sharpness Wink

, but I like them anyway.

I present here only a few frames, as I think there's no need for more. Click on the images for full-resolution.

#01 - Noritsu

#01 - Plustek

#01 - 100% Crops (Noritsu left, Plustek right)

#02 - Noritsu

#02 - Plustek

#02 - 100% Crops (Noritsu left, Plustek right)
Plustek resolved even bits of grass on the building (on the right side of the image), while on Noritsu scan you have to guess there's grass in there. Also the details of ladder are better on Plustek scan.

#03 - Noritsu

#03 - Plustek

#03 - 100% Crops (Noritsu left, Plustek right)
Here you could easily read sign on Plustek scan, while on Noritsu it's completely messed up.
OBIEKT W RUINIE
WEJŚCIE GROZI
NIEBEZPIECZEŃSTWEM
WSTĘP WZBRONIONY

#04 - Frontier
They put up shadows too much and result is completely different than when I was shooting.

#04 - Plustek
Shadows are where they should be and it looks like in nature.

#04 - 100% Crops (Frontier left, Plustek right)
When I saw Frontier scan first I thought I messed up with focus or maybe shutter speed was too slow and lack of sharpness is due to movement, but it turned out ok at Plustek scan.

Conclusion
In my opinion cheap Plustek scanner is doing very well, visibly better than Frontier scans and a bit better than Noritsu. Not to mention that it resolves a lot more detail in highlights and shadows than Noritsu and Frontier and you have control over whole scanning process. Of course it's a lot more time consuming (scanning 36 frames at 3600dpi with IR scan for dust reduction takes about 1:10h in comparison to about 0:05-0:10 for professional scanners) and downside is that IR dust reduction of professional scanners is a lot more efficient.
Lab with Noritsu machine does really good job with scanning and operator is very experienced at scanning but I'm sure they could've done even better if they try harder, but as it's not going to happen I think self scans are simply better in terms of saved dynamic range and sharpness.
All in all I'm very very happy for my Plustek scanner.

antico · Joined: 25 May 2015 Posts: 175 Location: Argentina

Useful comparison

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Well that's a surprising result..thank you

PhantomLord · Joined: 08 Apr 2013 Posts: 476 Location: Szczecin, Poland

Thank you guys, as I wrote I'm sure that there are labs that could do better scanning but this one with Noritsu was the best one in my town and I think he's pretty good. Too much contrast and probably too strong noise reduction were the main problems of those scans.
However my idea was to show that with relatively cheap scanner you could do as well as with professional grade ones (if you've time to spare though 😉)