I Almost Bought a Scanner

Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by jojobas on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @05:45PM (#34525220)

That's odd. A sub $1000 Epson scanner with 35mm and 120 film adapters can resolve professional film grain, can't do better then that.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by whitemary on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @05:51PM (#34525283)

The epson consumer scanners are good. Really good. But they are nothing like drum scanners and other professional scanners.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by jojobas on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @06:54PM (#34525924)

Again, how? Once you get to the grain there's no more information to extract.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by s800 on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @07:28PM (#34526229)

I have an Epson V800 and a Flextight, the output is much better on the flex tight. There's more to it than just the manufacturer's DPI flex.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by whitemary on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @07:06PM (#34526050)

What do you mean by “get”? I have an Epson V700. I have done plenty of side by side comparisons. The sharpness of the grain in the scan is what matters, not merely “getting” the grain. To speak of the resolution of a film exposure is incoherent. Grain != pixels. The V700 is also inconsistent because of the floppy plastic mounts and because they lack a mechanism to really keep the film flat.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by jojobas on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @07:53PM (#34526399)

If you can see individual grains you are already limited by the film itself, anything beyond that is noise. Sharper grain is just a higher spatial frequency noise.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by chrstphrknwtn on Thursday January 26, 2023 @01:54PM (#34536779)

It sounds like you haven't done a lot of film scanning besides perhaps an Epson.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by chrstphrknwtn on Thursday January 26, 2023 @01:53PM (#34536753)

Because Epson scanners don't actually resolve the grain. Low resolution scans tend to exaggerate grain... which can make you think you're resolving the grain.

Also, photos aren't only about resolution and sharpness. Colour and tone reproduction is also important. And consumer scanners are acceptable, but nowhere near as good as drum scanners. Even minilab scanners (Fuji Frontier, Noritsu) are no match for drum scanners.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by chrstphrknwtn on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @05:57PM (#34525343)

You can do quite a bit better than Epson flatbed scanners.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by cratermoon on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @06:09PM (#34525462)

Side-by-side with my Nikon Coolscan and a professional "Premium" scan from a high-end lab it's clear the Coolscan beats flatbed even now.

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Re:I Almost Bought a Scanner by buster3000 on Thursday January 26, 2023 @07:49AM (#34531016)

It can't. It really can't. Even with betterscanning.com holders you can't beat dedicated film scanners or dlsr scans. Drum-scan obviously being the best. I've never wet mounted on flatbeds so can't comment.

My almost 2decades old Nikon V-ED, which I bought when it came out, still outperforms the most expensive flatbed you can buy now (V850-pro), which I also have.

If you're interested https://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html... educate you without having to buy anything to find out for yourself.

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