film vs CCD

There is a kind of consensus that digicams should have about 10Mp's CCD in order to meet 35 mm film.

I think this is true when you carefully take test pictures of mire's on slow film's and count the lines you can separate. In most actual film photos, however, you do not have this resolution because of film's grain (certainly above ISO 100), motion blur (under 1/125 for hand-held photo's with the standard lens at this level of precision) and when you have it this is only for the parts of the picture which are exactly on focus. On the other hand, we know that the lenses of the digicams (excepting the new Contax) have generally a larger aperture thorough their zooming range and a much larger DOP (you may not like this feature in some cases).

Before my E10 I had many years of slides and negatives and I recently purchased the Nikon LS4000 film scanner. I scanned some of my holydays slides (mostly K64) and of course only the best ones. At full resolution of course the images were much larger than the monitor's 22' screen but the croppings I could have make were not acceptable pictures, not the fault of the scanner, but because grain and blur. In order to match the E10' quality at 80 ISO I had always to reduce the size at 50%, sometimes 33%. For the negative film Superia 400 of Fuji (an excellent film) it was 33% or 25%. At 50% the size of the final image is about 6Mp. This reduction makes you loose some of the readable details, but is necessary to get a good-looking image. I do not want to draw definitive conclusions from that, but I think it is an interesting constatation. --Jacques Bijtebier

You have made an interesting comparison here between film and digital image quality. It does confuse the things somewhat when you bring up the subject of motion blur as a cause of image degradation in film-based images. The same problem occurs in digital, and actually more so since the 80 EI of the E-10/20 is a third stop slower than the fine grain film standard of 100 EI. There is an issue specifically with the E-10/20 that separates it's output from film. Having shot with many 35mm cameras including Nikons and (currently) Leicas, I can tell you that none of the scanned images they produced require the software corrections for color aberrations that the Olympus zoom demands. Anything shot at the 9mm (35mm equiv.) setting has serious barreling and color fringing that even my widest 35mm format lenses never produced. Sure, you can correct some of the barreling using the Camedia fix, but the color fringing can only be tamed using something like the Panorama Tools plug-ins. In order to get any decent wide angle images out of the E-10/20 requires a lot of Photoshop work. Perhaps my three decades as a commercial shooter made me overly picky, but I have yet to see a 16 x 20 print from an E-10/20 that can equal a well scanned same size print from one of my 35mm chromes. If all your output is below 8.5 x x11 and you do not use the widest settings on the zoom, then chances are you won't see what I am talking about. I returned my first E-10 to Olympus for the color fringing problem, they requested samples because they could not see the problem. I sent image samples with enlarged sections of the edges and they conceded it looked bad. The camera was replaced with a new one that is marginally better. The lesson learned is to stick with the better grade of cameras (Nikon or Canon) when it comes to optics. I am sure the film/digital debate will continue, but unless you compare the two with the same quality glass, it is not a fair comparison. Having said all this, the E-10/20 is still a good deal for the price. I hope the last comment will prevent any posts from E-10/20 owners that feel a need to defend their purchase!

Jacques Bijtebier said:

There is a kind of consensus that digicams should have about 10Mp's
CCD in order to meet 35 mm film.
I think this is true when you carefully take test pictures of
mire's on slow film's and count the lines you can separate. In most
actual film photos, however, you do not have this resolution
because of film's grain (certainly above ISO 100), motion blur
(under 1/125 for hand-held photo's with the standard lens at this
level of precision) and when you have it this is only for the parts
of the picture which are exactly on focus. On the other hand, we
know that the lenses of the digicams (excepting the new Contax)
have generally a larger aperture thorough their zooming range and a
much larger DOP (you may not like this feature in some cases).
Before my E10 I had many years of slides and negatives and I
recently purchased the Nikon LS4000 film scanner. I scanned some of
my holydays slides (mostly K64) and of course only the best ones.
At full resolution of course the images were much larger than the
monitor's 22' screen but the croppings I could have make were not
acceptable pictures, not the fault of the scanner, but because
grain and blur. In order to match the E10' quality at 80 ISO I had
always to reduce the size at 50%, sometimes 33%. For the negative
film Superia 400 of Fuji (an excellent film) it was 33% or 25%. At
50% the size of the final image is about 6Mp. This reduction makes
you loose some of the readable details, but is necessary to get a
good-looking image. I do not want to draw definitive conclusions
from that, but I think it is an interesting constatation.
--
Jacques Bijtebier

Click to expand...

Defend. No. I am happy to have learned a bit this morning.

Maybe because I am an advanced amatuer (sp) I do not see the same problem. As indicated, the profession has made you an accute observer for these details and they tend to stand out for you.

For me, it is software. Being a programmer I am very picky about software and how it works.

Thanks for providing details on an issue I had not seen before.

TonyK

Nick Zavalishin said:

Jacques Bijtebier said:

There is a kind of consensus that digicams should have about 10Mp's
CCD in order to meet 35 mm film.
I think this is true when you carefully take test pictures of
mire's on slow film's and count the lines you can separate. In most
actual film photos, however, you do not have this resolution
because of film's grain (certainly above ISO 100), motion blur
(under 1/125 for hand-held photo's with the standard lens at this
level of precision) and when you have it this is only for the parts
of the picture which are exactly on focus. On the other hand, we
know that the lenses of the digicams (excepting the new Contax)
have generally a larger aperture thorough their zooming range and a
much larger DOP (you may not like this feature in some cases).
Before my E10 I had many years of slides and negatives and I
recently purchased the Nikon LS4000 film scanner. I scanned some of
my holydays slides (mostly K64) and of course only the best ones.
At full resolution of course the images were much larger than the
monitor's 22' screen but the croppings I could have make were not
acceptable pictures, not the fault of the scanner, but because
grain and blur. In order to match the E10' quality at 80 ISO I had
always to reduce the size at 50%, sometimes 33%. For the negative
film Superia 400 of Fuji (an excellent film) it was 33% or 25%. At
50% the size of the final image is about 6Mp. This reduction makes
you loose some of the readable details, but is necessary to get a
good-looking image. I do not want to draw definitive conclusions
from that, but I think it is an interesting constatation.
--
Jacques Bijtebier

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--TonyK

Nick,

I tend to agree with your observations - up to getting my E20 a couple of months ago I had been a user of the Olympus OM range of cameras and prime lenses. The wide angles I had 21mm, 24mm, 28mm and 35mm were excellent. I think that the distortion and CA experienced on the E20 at 9mm and when using the WCON come are a result of two things:

1) the lens is a zoom - in my experience distortion and CA are more prevalent on zooms - and let's face it the E20 zoom is pushing the limits really 35mm-140mm at f2 (35mm equivalent is going some) and

2) the smaller size of the 'film' makes the wider view much harder to achieve anyway.

I would be interested toi hear from anybody who regularly uses wide angle zooms on 35mm - do they have the same problems.

ps I have used Panarama Tools to correct this and I have been very impressed.

--Alan Scott

TonyK_in_Texas said:

Nick Zavalishin said:

You have made an interesting comparison here between film and
digital image quality. It does confuse the things somewhat when you
bring up the subject of motion blur as a cause of image degradation
in film-based images. The same problem occurs in digital, and
actually more so since the 80 EI of the E-10/20 is a third stop
slower than the fine grain film standard of 100 EI.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I do not say that digicams have no motion blur, simply that the difference in resolution between film and CCD is therefore itself blurred. About the 1/3 stop difference, one can note that the E10 lens opens at 2-2.4 through the whole zoom range (such an wide aperture occurs only with the 50mm lens and with some very expensive fixed lenses of other focus lenghts in the 35mm world). Besides, the large DOF renders this aperture perfectly usable in practice.

There is an

TonyK_in_Texas said:

TonyK_in_Texas said:

issue specifically with the E-10/20 that separates it's output from
film. Having shot with many 35mm cameras including Nikons and
(currently) Leicas, I can tell you that none of the scanned images
they produced require the software corrections for color
aberrations that the Olympus zoom demands. Anything shot at the 9mm
(35mm equiv.) setting has serious barreling and color fringing that
even my widest 35mm format lenses never produced.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I noticed some color fringing at 35mm, near the borders in very contrasted details (like dark branches over a bright sky), but not in ordinary pictures. I took that with philosophy, like the reflections inside the lenses when they point near the direction of the sun, in film as in CCD photo. I am not sure that the color fringing is a chromatic aberration of the lens itself or a problem of light rays falling too oblically on the CCD.

but I have yet to see

TonyK_in_Texas said:

TonyK_in_Texas said:

a 16 x 20 print from an E-10/20 that can equal a well scanned same
size print from one of my 35mm chromes. If all your output is below
8.5 x x11 and you do not use the widest settings on the zoom, then
chances are you won't see what I am talking about.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I have recently ordered a 30X40cm print and a A4 print from a 4Mp picture on photographic film (not an inkjet printing). Years ago, I had printed myself some of my best K25 slides on 30X40 Cibachrome (all a weekend in the labo). Frankly, I do not find these recent printings inferior to my cibachromes. The two techniques were thus evaluated on an equal footing, as they were in my comparison between scanned slides and digicam images, inspected on the monitor's screen at various sizes.

My conclusion is not that digicams are superior to film camera's, (in fact I would consider that they are two different media, like cinema is not photography, even if you can print photo's out of a movie). It is that, in most cases, the actual conditions of the shooting do not allow to exploit the difference in definition.--Jacques Bijtebier

Jacques,

An interesting comparison. You might be interested in:

http://normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF.html

Very thorough discussion on sharpness. It starts with film and lenses and then graduates to digitial/film comparisons.

Take care,

F.J.

-------------------See with eyes and heart, create with heart, hands, and mind. --Frank

I do not intend to start or continue a mile long thread here! My observations are based on experience, not conjecture. Since I have worked for many years with formats including 8 x10 on down to 35mm, I feel that I have a decent grasp of the term resolution. I also have K25 chromes as well as KII and K64 for comparison. I have also tested many of the films for Kodak and Fuji before they hit the market. There are a few points that I would like to clarify:

Jacques Bijtebier said:

I do not say that digicams have no motion blur, simply that the
difference in resolution between film and CCD is therefore itself
blurred. About the 1/3 stop difference, one can note that the E10
lens opens at 2-2.4 through the whole zoom range (such an wide
aperture occurs only with the 50mm lens and with some very
expensive fixed lenses of other focus lenghts in the 35mm world).
Besides, the large DOF renders this aperture perfectly usable in
practice.

Click to expand...

Yes the E-10/20 zoom starts at f2 and drops to f2.4. Most of the lenses that fall into the discussed problem category are in the normal to wide angle range. The lenses that I use in my 35mm systems (and mentioning here) are in the f1.2 to f2 range. I am not discussing the cost of these lenses, just comparing quality of final images. A lens at f2 at EI 100 is still a 1/3 stop faster than a lens at f2 at EI 80.

Jacques Bijtebier said:

I noticed some color fringing at 35mm, near the borders in very
contrasted details (like dark branches over a bright sky), but not
in ordinary pictures. I took that with philosophy, like the
reflections inside the lenses when they point near the direction of
the sun, in film as in CCD photo. I am not sure that the color
fringing is a chromatic aberration of the lens itself or a problem
of light rays falling too oblically on the CCD.

Click to expand...

I can not accept this color fringing philosophically. It is there and is a flaw that does not haunt better grade optical systems. I am fully aware of the Olympus white papers stating their lens is specifically computed and built to avoid the oblique angle rays you are mentioning. Either they (Olympus) are lying, or there is a serious problem with the lens design.

While anyone can avoid ghosts and flare with a lens hood, and/or by keeping that point source of light out of the frame, there is no solution other than the software that I mentioned for the color aberrations. They are in the image at any contrast level since all three primary colors do not focus on the same point, but I don't want to start a discussion on optical theory here. They may be more pronounced in high contrast scenes, but are are stil there in all scenes. My tests for the color aberrations were all conducted at f5.6 rather than f2 on the Olympus zoom to give it every advantage of an optimum aperture.

Jacques Bijtebier said:

I have recently ordered a 30X40cm print and a A4 print from a 4Mp
picture on photographic film (not an inkjet printing). Years ago, I
had printed myself some of my best K25 slides on 30X40 Cibachrome
(all a weekend in the labo). Frankly, I do not find these recent
printings inferior to my cibachromes. The two techniques were thus
evaluated on an equal footing, as they were in my comparison
between scanned slides and digicam images, inspected on the
monitor's screen at various sizes.

Click to expand...

My calculations show that a 29.63 x 39.51cm output from an E-10 TIFF file would be only 144ppi. I don't know how you are getting a decent print of that size at 144ppi. If you are interpolating up to get a decent ppi, then you are playing with pixels that the CCD never saw. The image I get from a scanned slide only has what the film saw, not a software guess. The files are also in the 50-150mb range depending on scan resolution; a far cry from the 11mb of the E-10. I do not rely on a 72-130dpi monitor image to show all the differences in those images. The only way is a side-by-side, same size print comparison.

Jacques Bijtebier said:

My conclusion is not that digicams are superior to film camera's,
(in fact I would consider that they are two different media, like
cinema is not photography, even if you can print photo's out of a
movie). It is that, in most cases, the actual conditions of the
shooting do not allow to exploit the difference in definition.
--

Click to expand...

I completely agree that you can not compare an image viewed for only 1/24 or 1/30 of a second (film/video frame rates) to one that is studied for as long as one wishes to. But in our discussion, I was only comparing still images that when laid side-by-side, can be studied and technical flaws can be readily seen. While they are different media, the final image form (printed) is the same and can be judged by the same criteria. Color fidelity, sharpness, and detail all equally affect a print whether it is produced from a film scan or digital original.

In fact, as a commercial photographer, I always saw my film images as a step to the final digital image needed for print use. Before digital cameras, my studio lab produced Cibachromes and C-prints. E-6 was run daily in the lab in addition to C-41 and B&W. Enlargements were made from 4 x 5 down to 35mm film and the best APO enlarging lenses used. The enlarger was laser-aligned monthly to maintain accuracy. I mention this only to emphasize that I take my imaging very seriously.

Please take this discussion as a point of view, and I in no way mean to say your opinion is invalid. Indeed, it is the airing of differing opinions that gives us an opportunity to learn from each other.

Nick

Jacques

I'm not sure where you got your idea that 10MP is the magic figure.

If you hunt around the forums here you will see that there appears to be no real consensus - figures seem to vary from around 6MP to around 100MP to equal a 35mm frame!

I think the answer is more complex - there is a big difference between a fast color negative film and Technical Pan!

Generally, the best assessments I have seen seem to suggest that something like 6MP from a pro digicam is roughly equivalent to general purpose colour neg film. Slow Black and white will require a lot more.

Jacques Bijtebier said:

There is a kind of consensus that digicams should have about 10Mp's
CCD in order to meet 35 mm film.
I think this is true when you carefully take test pictures of
mire's on slow film's and count the lines you can separate. In most
actual film photos, however, you do not have this resolution
because of film's grain (certainly above ISO 100), motion blur
(under 1/125 for hand-held photo's with the standard lens at this
level of precision) and when you have it this is only for the parts
of the picture which are exactly on focus. On the other hand, we
know that the lenses of the digicams (excepting the new Contax)
have generally a larger aperture thorough their zooming range and a
much larger DOP (you may not like this feature in some cases).
Before my E10 I had many years of slides and negatives and I
recently purchased the Nikon LS4000 film scanner. I scanned some of
my holydays slides (mostly K64) and of course only the best ones.
At full resolution of course the images were much larger than the
monitor's 22' screen but the croppings I could have make were not
acceptable pictures, not the fault of the scanner, but because
grain and blur. In order to match the E10' quality at 80 ISO I had
always to reduce the size at 50%, sometimes 33%. For the negative
film Superia 400 of Fuji (an excellent film) it was 33% or 25%. At
50% the size of the final image is about 6Mp. This reduction makes
you loose some of the readable details, but is necessary to get a
good-looking image. I do not want to draw definitive conclusions
from that, but I think it is an interesting constatation.
--
Jacques Bijtebier

Click to expand...

Nick

There was a thread awhile back by an optical engineer/lens designer evaluating the E10 lens. If I remember correctly he said that the ED element contributed no significant quality to the lens and was there simply as a marketing ploy. But he also said the lens was of high quality and that was at its worst at the tele end not the short end!

As for colour fringing, I've seen it too on my E10. It occurs when you shoot into the light (such as around the edges of tree branches sillhoutted agianst the sky). This seems to be a problem that affects most digicams to some extent. However, for me it's been a rare problem.

Nick

I'd be interested in some scanning tips!

As an amateur enthusiast I'm not in a position to throw loads of money at my hobby so I'm trying to make the best I can of relatively budget equipment.

I have an E10 and it has transformed my photography - the combination of the convenience of the digicam and the wonderfulness of digital editing has made me get rid of my black and white home darkroom and I have no interest in pursuing chemical printing any more.

But I do have quite a backlog of 35mm B&W negs colour, slides and some medium format negs that I would like to scan. I'll also still be using my 4*5 for B&W landscapes.

I have an Acer Scanwit 2720S scanner for 35mm and an Epson 1640SU flatbed (which works well for medium format and 4*5).

I've had some success with the flatbed - last week I scanned and printed (on A3) an image from a friend's Mamiya TLR. When we compared the quality of the print to a commercially produced 12*12 inch print (cost £10) it was obvious that the scanned print was far superior. No doubt that this is simply a condemnation of the quality of the commercial print but that is a common problem in itself.

It's with scanning 35mm that I have real problems. I just cannot get scans that are remotely as good as E10 shots. There are 3 basic problems:

1) Lack of sharpness

2) Terrible colour casts

3) Grain (E10 produces no noticible grain at A4 size, scanner produces grain like a Kodak Disk Camera)

I've taken to using Vuescan because of it's anti grain filter and multipass scanning but even with the max grain filter and 10x multipasses the grain looks like that 3000 asa B*W polaroid film...

It's interesting to compare shots at A3 size from the E10 and the scanner. They both have roughly equal detail and sharpness (after a lot of editing work - often as long as 2 hours per image on the scans) but the E10 images are far smoother and grainless.

I've seen some fine results from scanners (see http://www.normankoren.com for instance who uses the inexpensive HP S20) but I can't get even half decent results! Is this because the Acer is best suited as an (expensive)doorstop or is there some subtlety I'm missing?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions

Regards

Dave Millier

Dave,

I can fully understand your desire to embrace the glow of a monitor over stumbling around in a dark (occasionally smelly) darkroom. Working with ink and paper and leaving caustic and toxic chemicals behind is very appealing. With it though, comes a learning curve as steep as, if not more than the most intense Zone System study you can imagine.

The most important thing you need to accept is that a flatbed scanner designed for reflective (print) scans will never equal a quality film scanner. The smaller the format (35mm & 120 film) the more important it is to use a high quality film scanner. Better scanners such as the Polaroid 120 Sprint, or the Nikon 8000 and a few others that produce true 4000dpi images will give you very good scans that will go beyond 16 x 20 inch format prints. The key here is a non-interpolated 4000dpi. There are many scanners with a native dpi of only 1200 or so that claim output of up to 9600dpi. Those are bogus pixels and actually degrade the image rather than improve it. The scanners I mentioned also have great software that removes dust, scratches, and even grain on some of them. Like anything in photography, if you want quality, you will have to spend some money. The scanners I mentioned are available for under $3000 US. A few years ago, the equivalent was unatainable under $50,000!

DMillier said:

Nick

I'd be interested in some scanning tips!

As an amateur enthusiast I'm not in a position to throw loads of
money at my hobby so I'm trying to make the best I can of
relatively budget equipment.

I have an E10 and it has transformed my photography - the
combination of the convenience of the digicam and the wonderfulness
of digital editing has made me get rid of my black and white home
darkroom and I have no interest in pursuing chemical printing any
more.

But I do have quite a backlog of 35mm B&W negs colour, slides and
some medium format negs that I would like to scan. I'll also still
be using my 4*5 for B&W landscapes.

I have an Acer Scanwit 2720S scanner for 35mm and an Epson 1640SU
flatbed (which works well for medium format and 4*5).

I've had some success with the flatbed - last week I scanned and
printed (on A3) an image from a friend's Mamiya TLR. When we
compared the quality of the print to a commercially produced 12*12
inch print (cost £10) it was obvious that the scanned print was far
superior. No doubt that this is simply a condemnation of the
quality of the commercial print but that is a common problem in
itself.

It's with scanning 35mm that I have real problems. I just cannot
get scans that are remotely as good as E10 shots. There are 3 basic
problems:

1) Lack of sharpness

2) Terrible colour casts

3) Grain (E10 produces no noticible grain at A4 size, scanner
produces grain like a Kodak Disk Camera)

I've taken to using Vuescan because of it's anti grain filter and
multipass scanning but even with the max grain filter and 10x
multipasses the grain looks like that 3000 asa B*W polaroid film...

It's interesting to compare shots at A3 size from the E10 and the
scanner. They both have roughly equal detail and sharpness (after a
lot of editing work - often as long as 2 hours per image on the
scans) but the E10 images are far smoother and grainless.

I've seen some fine results from scanners (see
http://www.normankoren.com for instance who uses the inexpensive HP
S20) but I can't get even half decent results! Is this because the
Acer is best suited as an (expensive)doorstop or is there some
subtlety I'm missing?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions

Regards

Dave Millier

Click to expand...

Dave,

check out the link http://www.normankoren.com - this site has a load of tutorials covering all sorts of topics and I'm sure that scanning is one them.

--Alan Scott

I don't doubt anything you say. I know you were pretty specific with what you are comparing, but just for the sake of argument*:

With film I use very cheap glass and 200 print film. I get my film developed at whichever place is convinient on a given day, even WalMart. I also have very little reason to go much above 8x10.

My E-10 produces results that are at least as good and usually better than what I get with film.

My point is that for some of us the E-10/20 was actually a step up from film. I don't plan on getting a new camera for at least 3 years. At that time I should be able to get a 10 or 12 MP camera that will make me totally forget that I ever had a film camera.

Note - The word argument is used not as an attack on your point of view, but as the statement of another point of view to be used as the basis for thoughtful discussion. End of Politically Correct Statement.

Nick Zavalishin said:

Jacques Bijtebier said:

There is a kind of consensus that digicams should have about 10Mp's
CCD in order to meet 35 mm film.
I think this is true when you carefully take test pictures of
mire's on slow film's and count the lines you can separate. In most
actual film photos, however, you do not have this resolution
because of film's grain (certainly above ISO 100), motion blur
(under 1/125 for hand-held photo's with the standard lens at this
level of precision) and when you have it this is only for the parts
of the picture which are exactly on focus. On the other hand, we
know that the lenses of the digicams (excepting the new Contax)
have generally a larger aperture thorough their zooming range and a
much larger DOP (you may not like this feature in some cases).
Before my E10 I had many years of slides and negatives and I
recently purchased the Nikon LS4000 film scanner. I scanned some of
my holydays slides (mostly K64) and of course only the best ones.
At full resolution of course the images were much larger than the
monitor's 22' screen but the croppings I could have make were not
acceptable pictures, not the fault of the scanner, but because
grain and blur. In order to match the E10' quality at 80 ISO I had
always to reduce the size at 50%, sometimes 33%. For the negative
film Superia 400 of Fuji (an excellent film) it was 33% or 25%. At
50% the size of the final image is about 6Mp. This reduction makes
you loose some of the readable details, but is necessary to get a
good-looking image. I do not want to draw definitive conclusions
from that, but I think it is an interesting constatation.
--
Jacques Bijtebier

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Nick

Unfortunately good as an expensive scanner would undoubtably be, it is just not an option for me.

What I'm looking to do is to produce 10*8 inch prints from my Acer scanner that are as good in terms of colour and grain as you would expect to get from snaps processed at the local chemist, that's all.

My main problem is that when I scan 35mm colour negs on my acer (which is a true dedicated 2700dpi film scanner) I get terrible, completely unusable results. Basically, weird colour casts and terrrible grain (and/or aliasing artifacts). No amount of fiddling around with the twain software settings or even using Vuescan seems to make much difference. Unless I can improve on results I'm thinking the best place for this scanner is the waste bin.

I do not have this problem with the Epson flatbed. It's not much good for 35mm but it makes very good medium format and large format scans. 4*5 black & white scans seem every bit as sharp as chemical prints (at least the ones I can do!).

I was playing around again over the weekend and I notice the Acer seems to do a much better job with slides. Most of the grain seems absent. Is excessive grain from colour negs a common problem with scanners?

regards

Dave

ps

Here's a link to a shot taken with my E10. I could not get anywhere near this quality from my scanner. If I could, I'd be happy. This kind of image from my scanner would be covered in very obvious noise and grain even when viewed on the web at this image size.

Alan

I'm a fan of Norman's site - it was my inspiration for going digital. He has indeed got a lot of advice on scanning - trouble is, it doesn't work for me!

One of the problems is that unless you have access to different bits of kit you can never really be sure whether the problem is faulty technique, dodgy negs or perhaps a defective scanner...

alan scott said:

Dave,

check out the link http://www.normankoren.com - this site has a load of
tutorials covering all sorts of topics and I'm sure that scanning
is one them.

--
Alan Scott

Click to expand...

Trent,

While I have never been accused of being politically correct!, I truly believe that without different opinions we would learn nothing of value. If we all agreed, what's the point of this forum? Everyone has different expectations from their images, the trick is to achieve them before bankruptcy sets in!

TrentMcD said:

I don't doubt anything you say. I know you were pretty specific
with what you are comparing, but just for the sake of argument*:

With film I use very cheap glass and 200 print film. I get my film
developed at whichever place is convinient on a given day, even
WalMart. I also have very little reason to go much above 8x10.

My E-10 produces results that are at least as good and usually
better than what I get with film.

My point is that for some of us the E-10/20 was actually a step up
from film. I don't plan on getting a new camera for at least 3
years. At that time I should be able to get a 10 or 12 MP camera
that will make me totally forget that I ever had a film camera.

Note - The word argument is used not as an attack on your point of
view, but as the statement of another point of view to be used as
the basis for thoughtful discussion. End of Politically Correct
Statement.

Click to expand...

Dave,

Slides (or 'chromes as we call them) are always better for scans. First, they are not crippled by an orange mask that the scanner software has to remove to get the true colors out. Second, the software does not have to invert the image. The software has to have a good profile for every film that you use, especially for negative films. The color mask (necessary for chemical-based printing) is different for every brand and even within the same brand of film. The differences between Kodak, Agfa, Fuji, etc. are quite large and you cannot expect a single correction to handle all of them. The grain you are experiencing may be in the film itself, I can't guess at it. If you are getting decent scans from your slides, then it may be a software issue with the negatives. Generally, the slide films will out perform negatives in tonal range and fine grain, plus you have the advantage of judging the color of your scan against the slide itself rather than a second generation print or worse, an orange negative.

DMillier said:

Unfortunately good as an expensive scanner would undoubtably be, it
is just not an option for me.

What I'm looking to do is to produce 10*8 inch prints from my Acer
scanner that are as good in terms of colour and grain as you would
expect to get from snaps processed at the local chemist, that's all.

My main problem is that when I scan 35mm colour negs on my acer
(which is a true dedicated 2700dpi film scanner) I get terrible,
completely unusable results. Basically, weird colour casts and
terrrible grain (and/or aliasing artifacts). No amount of fiddling
around with the twain software settings or even using Vuescan seems
to make much difference. Unless I can improve on results I'm
thinking the best place for this scanner is the waste bin.

I do not have this problem with the Epson flatbed. It's not much
good for 35mm but it makes very good medium format and large format
scans. 4*5 black & white scans seem every bit as sharp as chemical
prints (at least the ones I can do!).

I was playing around again over the weekend and I notice the Acer
seems to do a much better job with slides. Most of the grain seems
absent. Is excessive grain from colour negs a common problem with
scanners?

regards

Dave

ps

Here's a link to a shot taken with my E10. I could not get anywhere
near this quality from my scanner. If I could, I'd be happy. This
kind of image from my scanner would be covered in very obvious
noise and grain even when viewed on the web at this image size.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, maybe I'll shoot a few rolls of transparencies just as a scanner test. Won't help me with those thousands of negs from years gone by though!

nzav said:

Slides (or 'chromes as we call them) are always better for scans.
First, they are not crippled by an orange mask that the scanner
software has to remove to get the true colors out. Second, the
software does not have to invert the image. The software has to
have a good profile for every film that you use, especially for
negative films. The color mask (necessary for chemical-based
printing) is different for every brand and even within the same
brand of film. The differences between Kodak, Agfa, Fuji, etc. are
quite large and you cannot expect a single correction to handle all
of them. The grain you are experiencing may be in the film itself,
I can't guess at it. If you are getting decent scans from your
slides, then it may be a software issue with the negatives.
Generally, the slide films will out perform negatives in tonal
range and fine grain, plus you have the advantage of judging the
color of your scan against the slide itself rather than a second
generation print or worse, an orange negative.

DMillier said:

Unfortunately good as an expensive scanner would undoubtably be, it
is just not an option for me.

What I'm looking to do is to produce 10*8 inch prints from my Acer
scanner that are as good in terms of colour and grain as you would
expect to get from snaps processed at the local chemist, that's all.

My main problem is that when I scan 35mm colour negs on my acer
(which is a true dedicated 2700dpi film scanner) I get terrible,
completely unusable results. Basically, weird colour casts and
terrrible grain (and/or aliasing artifacts). No amount of fiddling
around with the twain software settings or even using Vuescan seems
to make much difference. Unless I can improve on results I'm
thinking the best place for this scanner is the waste bin.

I do not have this problem with the Epson flatbed. It's not much
good for 35mm but it makes very good medium format and large format
scans. 4*5 black & white scans seem every bit as sharp as chemical
prints (at least the ones I can do!).

I was playing around again over the weekend and I notice the Acer
seems to do a much better job with slides. Most of the grain seems
absent. Is excessive grain from colour negs a common problem with
scanners?

regards

Dave

ps

Here's a link to a shot taken with my E10. I could not get anywhere
near this quality from my scanner. If I could, I'd be happy. This
kind of image from my scanner would be covered in very obvious
noise and grain even when viewed on the web at this image size.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

DavidMillier said:

Unfortunately good as an expensive scanner would undoubtably be, it
is just not an option for me.

What I'm looking to do is to produce 10*8 inch prints from my Acer
scanner that are as good in terms of colour and grain as you would
expect to get from snaps processed at the local chemist, that's all.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, good as an expensive car would undoubtedly be, it is just not an
option for me.

What I'm looking to do is commute to work 15 miles (one direction) in under
a half hour, while using a bicycle I got in a garage sale.



I think what you need to do is send out and have some professionally made
film scans, then start saving your pence for a new scanner. Sometimes, you
just can't do something with the resources you have, no matter how hard
you wish it to be!

--Jan Steinman -- [email protected] -- http://www.bytesmiths.com

Jacques Bijtebier said:

There is a kind of consensus that digicams should have about 10Mp's
CCD in order to meet 35 mm film.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't call it a "consensus!" The topic is too complex to wrap up into a
single tidy number. What sort of film? Which lens?

Roger Clark seems to have a good grasp of the complexity of such comparisons,
and concludes that 35mm film contains the equivalent of between
9 and 18 megapixels of information, depending on various factors.

Notably, Roger makes a distinction between color sharpness and luminance
sharpness in color images, noting that "Digital camera images appear sharper
at a lower megapixel level than scanned film, but color resolution is poorer."

http://www.users.qwest.net/~rnclark/scandetail.htm

--Jan Steinman -- [email protected] -- http://www.bytesmiths.com