Re: [APML] APML Film Scanner Dillema

["Jose I. Alarcon" <JIALARCON@telefonica.net>]

Thank you all for your comments.

Jerry, thank you very much for your feedback. If you use the LS-2000 I think
that the CoolScan IV will be fine for me.
How is your CD-book getting on?

Jose I. Alarcon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Lodriguss" <jml@astropix.com>
To: <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 10:32 PM
Subject: Re: [APML] APML Film Scanner Dillema



>I intend to  use the Film Scanner only for 35mm slides and negatives.
>Maximum size prints will be 20 x 30 cm (roughly 8 x 12 inches), so a
>resolution of 2800 ppp should be fine for an ink-jet printer.

Hi Jose,

You seem to have this analysis well in hand. If you shoot high speed color
neg film, you won't need 4000ppi of resolution either.  If you shoot fine
grain stuff like E200 or techpan, you might want more resolution.


 >>- For dark slides scanning can be very tricky. Noise and streaks can
build up. Noise can be treated by multi-scanning techniques and
"analog-gain" adjustments, some scanners have this facility. I have not
found solutions for streaks.

The solution is to correctly expose the slides so that the sky background
is not black, but has some color and tone in it.  Then you should not have
any trouble scanning it.



>- Nikon CoolScan IV ED:  2900 dpi (enough for me), 12 bit (but very low
>noise scanner) , software interface powerful but difficult to use (you can
>always use SilverFast or ScanVue), no multiscanning but "analog gain
>adjustment" (I think that multiscanning can be implemented with
>SilverFast). LED light sources: will this be a problem?. Very well priced.

SilverFast is expensive but good. VueScan is very inexpensive and pretty
good.  You can also do multi-scanning with VueScan even if the scanner
doesn't support single-pass multi-scanning. You can always do multi-pass
multi-scanning if the scanner does not produce repeatable registration
problems.

For very dark detail on very dark slides, multi-scanning at a high bit
depth does offer significant benefits. If you have many slides that are
very dark, you might consider a single-pass multi-scan scanner like the
high end Nikon.

The Nikons have very good hardware, but the color-management in the Nikon
Scan software has problems.




>- Nikon CoolScan 4000: 4000 dpi, 14 bit and also very low noise
>electronics, multi scanning up to 16X, analog gain adjustment, improved
>software interface, but again we find the scary LED light sources. Price
>is very near the limit.

There is nothing to worry about with the LED light sources. They emphasize
sharpness, and also grain and dust, but you can smooth the grain later, and
remove the dust with ICE.


>What I havenīt found is real feed-back from real film scan users of
>AstroPhotos for the aboved mentioned scanners.


I use a Nikon LS2000 for astro, and it works fine.  Several other noted
astrophotographers use the Polaroids with great success.

At the level of hardware you are looking at, it will come down mostly to
operator expertise.

In the old APML scanner tests (
http://www.vdbs.com/~blakney/scantest/results.html ), the surprising result
(to me at least) was that a very wide range of scanners, from very
inexpensive to expensive, all gave good scans if the operator knew what
they were doing.

Jerry






Astronomical photography: http://www.astropix.com





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