Scanner for 120 film?

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I did try higher resolution on V500 I saw only larger file sizes , nothing else.

I use 2400 ppi that is fine to me.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Not speaking from personal experience here, but the folks over at dpug.org rate the Epson V7xx series higher than 2000 ppi. That's about what my 4990 does, but they claim the V7xx series is good for about 2300 ppi.

A couple years ago I bought an HP 4050 because it claimed to be able to scan up to large format. It was, in a word, horrible. I don't see how HP expected to sell any of those scanners for film scanning. After doing everything I could think of for an entire day to get acceptable scans out of it, I returned it. Oh yeah, I think its max claimed res was somewhere around 4800 ppi, but it couldn't have been more than 1000 if that.

It is true that flatbed scanner resolutions are ridiculously inflated. However, I came across a thread at photo.net a while back, where a guy was reporting that his 4490 was providing more detail when he scanned at max resolution. His conclusion was that, in order to get whatever his scanner's max resolution was, he had to scan at 4800 ppi. Well, I got real curious about this, so I tried it out. And sure enough, even though the resolution didn't appear to be much different, certain features showed more detail. In my case, the most noticeable improvement was that curves no longer had stairsteps ("jaggies"), but were smooth, and they retained this smoothness even when the file was downsized to that corresponding to a 2400 ppi file.

Here's a link to that thread:

http://photo.net/film-and-processing-forum/00YRIk

Ever since coming across that thread, I've been scanning my 35mm images at my 4990's max, which is 4800 ppi. Whatever it takes to squeeze the last bit of image resolution out of my 4990, I'll do it.

This site is also a real eye opener. Scroll down past all the verbiage and you come to a section where you can compare all the most popular flat bed scanners that will handle large format size:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison/

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I can't speak for the latest scanners but for al ong time, all cheaper flatbed scanners had native resolutions of either 300dpi or 600dpi, but they often quoted max res of 1200, 2400 or 4800 dpi, these were interpolated and the scanner achieved them through multiple passes and software.

With a lot of HP flatbeds I used when I worked in DTP, the resolutions higher than the native one were rarely used as the perceived increases in resolution were the result of software tricks and meaningless to us as we were just going to reprint at 300dpi anyways.

We had higher res scanners as well, Epsons and Agfas, but they were multiple thousands of pounds when a HP 300dpi A3 scanner was 450-500.

berraneck · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:22 am Post subject:

cooltouch: sorry you´re right, v750 goes up to ~2300ppi; I used v700 Embarassed

but it´s not a big difference anyway - and most likely it isn´t enough for big prints. if I find it I may post images scanned on v700 and nikon ls9000ed for comparison - I couldn´t believe my eyes when I saw how big difference is there in terms of resolution

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

berraneck · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:04 am Post subject:

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

This is all true but getting back to the topic of this thread, really even my 4990 with its ~2000 ppi of resolution is plenty for medium format. I usually scan my 120 slides or negatives at 2400 ppi, and the resolution is typically good enough for a 36" x 24" print. The 4990 has a D Max of 4.0 which seems to be plenty in most instances, even for Velvia. I haven't shot that much with Velvia yet, so I may run into instances where it falls short, but so far, so good.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Well, I've gone about bought a Minolta Quickscan 35 and an Epson Perfection 1200, both in SCSI, luckily I had a dual channel SCSI card in a cupboard.

So now I can scan 35mm upto 2880ppi on the Minolta and scan 120 and larger on the Epson at upto 1200x2400ppi.

That should do for the time being at least, now I can shoot film to my heart's content...

ludoo · Expire: 2011-12-05

If you have some budget left, get Vuescan: it's reasonably cheap, and will allow you to use a single, great interface to control both scanners. It will also greatly simplify driver installation, etc. as most scanners are directly supported by its native driver.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

I'm gonna have to get Vuescan to be able to use the Minolta, probably the Epson as well, they both predate Win7 by over a decade...

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Ian if you're working with a restricted budget, you can get an Epson 2400 for next to peanuts, practically, and that'll let you scan at an indicated 2400 ppi for your medium format gear. I know a couple of guys on another forum and they claim the 2400 actually does a very good job.

My first Epson was a 3170 that I bought in about 2003. It and its immediate successor, the 3200, aren't worth more than $40-50 these days. And they do a good job with mf. I just dunno if 1200 x 2400 is gonna be sufficient for your mf needs.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Well, I paid 4.99 with 6.99 shipping for the Epson 1200S, it is just intended to be something I can work with to learn how to scan properly, I will have a lot of fun with it I expect while I save my pennies to buy a new scanner that will do all my scanning formats at high res.

The Minolta I paid 35ukp for inc shipping, I thought that ironic for a 35mm scanner...

At those prices I am happy, I really appreciate your suggestions and when I am looking to upgrade in the future I will definitely consult you, I spent a while playing around with your scans of the caboose in Photoshop and it was then I realised what a good job you had done with that so obviously you know of what you speak my friend...

I have two rolls of C-41 35mm film I developed in Microphen to scan, developing a roll of TMAX 100Pro 120 tonight that will also get souped in Microphen, will shoot some more 120 tomorrow if the sun appears, can't wait to get scanning! Just hope the SCSI setup doesn't prove to be a PITA, I might need to buy an external terminator.

ludoo · Expire: 2011-12-05

Terminators are usually not needed. The most likely problems you'll run into with SCSI are:

* different connectors, old scanners may have a SCSI 1 connector, your cable might be SCSI 2, or viceversa

* SCSI ID conflict, just set different IDs on the two scanners

Best thing would be to connect a single scanner each time, disconnecting the other. Less potential conflicts, and if I remember correctly (been a while since I used SCSI) the devices will aut-terminate the SCSI chain. I don't even know if it will be possible to daisy-chain them, my SCSI scanners had only a single in connector, no out connector.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

It's been a while since I've used SCSI on a regular basis too -- a few years, I suppose. I always use a terminator, just to make sure. If your scanner has only a single connector, though, then obviously it has a built-in terminator.

Most SCSI devices I've seen from the '90s and early 2000s are SCSI 2 and use either the standard 25-pin or SCSI 50-pin connector.

Until I finally retired the machine a few years ago, it had an internal tape drive, and three external devices -- two seven-CD changers and a CD burner. All SCSI-2 stuff. Worked great.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18