p.1 #1 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
I have had wonderful results scanning slides with my Nikon Coolscan V, but haven't been impressed with the scans of 35mm negatives. The slides have great contrast and color saturation but my negative scans have a lot of grain similar to ISO noise. I can achieve very close resolution clarity using my Epson V700 and it doesn't have the noise artifacts. Are there any other hardware alternatives that would do better on the 35mm negatives?
However, I'm surprised you aren't getting good results with the Coolscan. Everything I had read had always put the Coolscans on top. Maybe some setting in the software needs to be tweaked to get better results?
p.1 #3 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
I've been very happy using my Epson V750 for B&W 35mm negs. I scanned these with them and have made excellent large prints from the scans. Color negs are always tricky but the Epson does a pretty good job with them. Tweaking the focus height is the trickiest part. I use Silverfast software with my Epson scanner.
My old film scanner was one of the first generation Coolscans. It was okay but wasn't supported for very long. I haven't used the newer Coolscans.
p.1 #5 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
How does the Plustek compare to the Nikon? I've noticed that the Nikon can get some good detail out of the negative, I just can't live with all the ISO noise that it introduces that isn't in the original negative. The scans on my V700 are good, but I lose a little bit of detail because of the focus, and I'm not sure that I have the time to fiddle with setting up a focus height adaptor. I wish this Nikon would have worked out on the negative as good as it does on the slides.
p.1 #6 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
i suspect what you are complaining about is aliasing between the 2700dpi scanner and grain. the lower resolution of the flatbed scanners is acting as an AA filter and removing it. getting a test scan from someone with the Coolscan 4000 might settle the difference. note that i am differentiating between the rated resolution of the flatbeds and the actual resolution.
p.1 #7 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
I had exactly the same issues scanning neg film with coolscan 9000. In the end I got best results sending it out to be scanned on an imacon, I was advised this was better for neg film than a drum scanner and it proved to be the case. Unless you have loads of scanning to do it can also work out much cheaper and higher quality.
p.1 #8 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
How do I find a company that uses an Imacon? Since I don't have an original print, I'm going to a local professional photo lab to have a print made of my scan file and also from the original negative to see how big of a difference I'm dealing with. The Nikon is superb with slides, I think I could be dealing with some low quality films. I'll report back what I find.
p.1 #10 · Alternative film scanner to a Nikon? Not happy with the grain on the Nikon
scott2s wrote:
How do I find a company that uses an Imacon? Since I don't have an original print, I'm going to a local professional photo lab to have a print made of my scan file and also from the original negative to see how big of a difference I'm dealing with. The Nikon is superb with slides, I think I could be dealing with some low quality films. I'll report back what I find.
If a lab uses these scanners their site will usually say (because they are very expensive), should be easy to find in the US with a google search and they don't have to be local. If you ask from a print from a neg most labs will put it though a fuji frontier.
