Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent)

I remember the review of the Minolta 5400 II in AP they got there
regular digital guy to do the test, he showed one 50% crop, that filled
half an A3 spread from Fuji Provia 100 pushed to 400 and he said that
he was astonished by the quality and that he could not think of a
single consumer leval DSLR that could offer the same quility, so If I
would you I would get that scanner.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

"Harry" <nospam.TakeThisOut@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:dJqdnWD_y4kJpMTeRVnyrQ@pipex.net...
>I am looking to buy a film scanner for my old negatives. What would be the
> equivalent scan settings for a 35mm negative, to be about the same as a
> Canon 20D 8MP image (if there is such a thing)?
>
>
Try before you buy.

I bought a 3600 film scanner 2 weeks ago - it's rather poor. The tonal range
is much more limited than the negatives; I have compared the results with
the original prints I made 30 years ago. I can't sort it out with Photoshop
CS II - this may be my fault of course.

Luckily the British firm of Jessops has a no quibble money back choice - I
will be choosing this.

John
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

In article <dJqdnWD_y4kJpMTeRVnyrQ.DeleteThis@pipex.net>, Harry <nospam.DeleteThis@nospam.com> wrote:
>I am looking to buy a film scanner for my old negatives. What would be the
>equivalent scan settings for a 35mm negative, to be about the same as a
>Canon 20D 8MP image (if there is such a thing)?

You'll need a pretty decent scanner to match the 20D from 35mm, and you'll
also have to use slow slide film. If you're looking to get 20D-style quality
from 35mm colour print film at, e.g. 200 ISO, then IME you're going to be
very disappointed.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

Any dedicated film scanner from Minolta, Nikon or (if you can still get one)
the Cannon 4000 will totally outperform the 20d and a transparency adapter.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

"Eatmorepies" <naj9daynum3.RemoveThis@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:43594dc4_3@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
>
> "Harry" <nospam.RemoveThis@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:dJqdnWD_y4kJpMTeRVnyrQ@pipex.net...
>>I am looking to buy a film scanner for my old negatives. What would be
>>the
>> equivalent scan settings for a 35mm negative, to be about the same as a
>> Canon 20D 8MP image (if there is such a thing)?
>>
>>
> Try before you buy.
>
> I bought a 3600 film scanner 2 weeks ago - it's rather poor. The tonal
> range is much more limited than the negatives; I have compared the results
> with the original prints I made 30 years ago. I can't sort it out with
> Photoshop CS II - this may be my fault of course.
>
> Luckily the British firm of Jessops has a no quibble money back choice - I
> will be choosing this.
>
> John

Ah that explains it. Was it the manual feed 3600dpi jessops branded
scanner? The model that is auto feed and can do a strip at a time is
better. It also has proper ICE. Otherwise you want a £300+ flatbed scanner
like the epson perfection series or the top end canon. Quality film
scanning is an art in itself. If you really want to rival a 20D you are
going to have to go high end. Such as Konica Minolta 5400II. Its not just
the resolution that defines the final quality.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

Harry wrote:
>
> I am looking to buy a film scanner for my old negatives. What would be the
> equivalent scan settings for a 35mm negative, to be about the same as a
> Canon 20D 8MP image (if there is such a thing)?

Try using your 20D as a copier for the negatives. I do this with my
300D, using a home-made cardboard holder taped to a slide light-box for
the strips, and a macro lens. You'll need a copy stand, maybe use the
column and arm of an old enlarger as I do. I use manual exposure,
setting the aperture to f/11, speed 100 ISO, and set the shutter speed
to the point where the histogram is just touching the right side of the
graph (with no negative in place, so the camera is looking at peak white
from the light-box).

Then, in Photoshop, I invert the negative image from the 300D and use
auto levels to adjust the image to a reasonably good positive. A few
images need a bit of tweaking, but not many. (invert in PS-speak means
changing the negative image to a positive image).

Upside is the camera is way faster than any scanner, but you have to set
up a custom white balance using the light-box illumination. Auto white
balance destroys the masking in the negative and makes subsequent
inverting difficult.

If you are intending to buy a scanner, use the cash on a macro lens
instead, IMO a much better use of the money. This setup is also
excellent for copying old photographs as well.

Colin D.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

bmoag wrote:
> Any dedicated film scanner from Minolta, Nikon or (if you can still get one)
> the Cannon 4000 will totally outperform the 20d and a transparency adapter.
>
>
I have no axe to grind here but it is statements like this which tell me
you don't own a digital camera - of any resolution. If you did and you
used Photoshop or any of the other popular editing programs you'd know
that even a 2 Megapixel image can, when interpolated, exceed the image
quality of a 35mm film scanned on any of the scanners you mentioned.

--
Douglas...
Specifications are good to read but
When it comes to judging Digital Cameras...
I'm in the "how do the pictures look" category.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

"Douglas..." <canvaspix.RemoveThis@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:4359b072$1@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> bmoag wrote:
>> Any dedicated film scanner from Minolta, Nikon or (if you can still get
>> one) the Cannon 4000 will totally outperform the 20d and a transparency
>> adapter.
> I have no axe to grind here but it is statements like this which tell me
> you don't own a digital camera - of any resolution. If you did and you
> used Photoshop or any of the other popular editing programs you'd know
> that even a 2 Megapixel image can, when interpolated, exceed the image
> quality of a 35mm film scanned on any of the scanners you mentioned.

Oops. You misunderstood what bmoag said, which was, by the way, correct.

Try reading it again.

By the way, 2MP can't touch 35mm. That's really silly. You can interpolate
all you want but you can't create detail, and 35mm (with Provia 100F)
captures well over 6MP of detail that's easily extracted with any decent
film scanner. My experience is that if you upsample a dSLR image by a factor
of four (two linearly) you get an image that is worse than a good 4000 dpi
scan. Which puts 6MP at just not quite good enough to complete with 35mm.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

On 2005-10-21 23:22:25 -0400, "Douglas..." <canvaspix.RemoveThis@yahoo.com.au> said:

> bmoag wrote:
>> Any dedicated film scanner from Minolta, Nikon or (if you can still get
>> one) the Cannon 4000 will totally outperform the 20d and a transparency
>> adapter.
>>
> I have no axe to grind here but it is statements like this which tell
> me you don't own a digital camera - of any resolution. If you did and
> you used Photoshop or any of the other popular editing programs you'd
> know that even a 2 Megapixel image can, when interpolated, exceed the
> image quality of a 35mm film scanned on any of the scanners you
> mentioned.

Which is complete horse ******. I have a Nikon Coolscan IV 2900 dpi
scans. I can make excellent 11x14's and have made OK 16x20' (suited the
purpose, no match for large format film) There is nothing you can do
to a 2 mp image to make even a marginally acceptable 8x10 much less an
11x14. Even 6 mp images are marginals for 11x14.. 8's may make it.,
I don't have an 8 mp camera to test with.
--
Jim <jen....not....home..remvdots...@....yahoo
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

Jim wrote:

>On 2005-10-21 23:22:25 -0400, "Douglas..." <canvaspix.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com.au> said:
>
>> bmoag wrote:
>>> Any dedicated film scanner from Minolta, Nikon or (if you can still get
>>> one) the Cannon 4000 will totally outperform the 20d and a transparency
>>> adapter.
>>>
>> I have no axe to grind here but it is statements like this which tell
>> me you don't own a digital camera - of any resolution. If you did and
>> you used Photoshop or any of the other popular editing programs you'd
>> know that even a 2 Megapixel image can, when interpolated, exceed the
>> image quality of a 35mm film scanned on any of the scanners you
>> mentioned.
>
>Which is complete horse ******.


As is everything else Douglas posts - under any of his multiple
identities. All we get is ridiculous assertions which are never, ever
backed by any evidence.

In Douglas's Dreamland, you could upsample a scan of a 4x6 inch print
made from 100 film (ISO 400) to a 20 x 30 inch poster and it would
have as much detail as a print from a 4x5 inch negative.


 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

In article <4359C50A.541C57F7 RemoveThis @killspam.127.0.0.1>,
Colin D <ColinD RemoveThis @killspam.127.0.0.1> wrote:
>Let's not forget that the OP wants to scan 'old' negatives, that
>probably don't have the quality of modern films, and are probably
>consumer films to boot. It's pointless using a 4000 or 5,400 dpi
>scanner on such negs, plus which the image sizes are mammoth with scans
>at that dpi.

Just about any kind of film benefits from scanning at 4000 ppi or higher.
The reason is that at lower resolution you risk grain aliasing.

Old color negative film may have ugly grain, but it doesn't mean that the
images are fuzzy.

Using an 8 Mpixel camera is likely give results that are less sharp than a
2700 dpi scanner. And 2nd hand LS-30s or LS-2000s don't cost all that much.
And then there is ICE (unless the film is B/W or Kodachrome).


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

Tony Polson wrote:

> In Douglas's Dreamland, you could upsample a scan of a 4x6 inch print
> made from 100 film (ISO 400) to a 20 x 30 inch poster and it would
> have as much detail as a print from a 4x5 inch negative.

If it were one of your train shots, that would hardly matter in any case.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent) 

Tony Polson wrote:
> Jim wrote:
>
>
>>On 2005-10-21 23:22:25 -0400, "Douglas..." <canvaspix.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com.au> said:
>>
>>
>>>bmoag wrote:
>>>
>>>>Any dedicated film scanner from Minolta, Nikon or (if you can still get
>>>>one) the Cannon 4000 will totally outperform the 20d and a transparency
>>>>adapter.
>>>>
>>>
>>>I have no axe to grind here but it is statements like this which tell
>>>me you don't own a digital camera - of any resolution. If you did and
>>>you used Photoshop or any of the other popular editing programs you'd
>>>know that even a 2 Megapixel image can, when interpolated, exceed the
>>>image quality of a 35mm film scanned on any of the scanners you
>>>mentioned.
>>
>>Which is complete horse ******.
>
>
>
> As is everything else Douglas posts - under any of his multiple
> identities. All we get is ridiculous assertions which are never, ever
> backed by any evidence.
>
> In Douglas's Dreamland, you could upsample a scan of a 4x6 inch print
> made from 100 film (ISO 400) to a 20 x 30 inch poster and it would
> have as much detail as a print from a 4x5 inch negative.
>
>
>
>
And you base this judgment on precisely what, Tony? Surely not your own
photographic adventures (snigger) Maybe your scans of the trains I
recently had the privilege of seeing are the source of your derision -
sorry, decision.

Certainly you are not one of my many satisfied customers who pay
handsomely to have their pictures enlarged to 20"x 30" from 6"x 4"
originals. The only precursor is that they are from a camera with a
decent lens - same as most other big print requirements.

Of course you people out of touch with reality will never comprehend
anything you haven't made yourself. If your published photos are the
measure of your ability... You have none to judge others with so why
don't you just crawl back under your rock?

--
Douglas...
Specifications are good to read but
When it comes to judging Digital Cameras...
I'm in the "how do the pictures look" category.
 >> Stay informed about: Film Scanning Question (20D equivalent)