Oh my, just checked you photobucket image and yes, thats not normal at all. All CCD scanners produce a small amount of banding, even Coolscans 9000, but is it not visible unless you push down exposure like hell on the sky with curves in PS. Thats why I said maybe it is software related, if its a overexposed shot and you dont scan in raw the scanning soft may try to correct exposure the hard way in the sky showing banding that other way would be invisible. But this is not the case, it looks hardware related.
Thats the reason I bought mine from Amazon, so i could test it and return it if there was any misadjustment, specially on focus. But I was lucky and the first unit was already fine.
nicoimages wrote:
Hello
Your scans look perfect - just as I was hoping mine would look too...I purchased the Plustek 120 last week and it has the severe banding problem when scanning 120 negatives - I had the same problem with Vuescan and SilverFast even when inverting the raw scan negative with the colorneg plugin.
Plustek did get back to me very quickly though to say that what I am experiencing is a hardware issue and that I should return the unit ASAP.
I had ordered the scanner with Calumet UK who said that they would replace it. Will keep the flickr thread updated with progress and how the second unit turns out - hopefully without the banding problem!
Thanks for the kind comments, and excellent shots people!
Just got back from a trip, leaving my digital gear at home and just shooting 35 and 120 film.
Hopefully something decent comes of it!
toshiro wrote:
Oh my, just checked you photobucket image and yes, thats not normal at all. All CCD scanners produce a small amount of banding, even Coolscans 9000, but is it not visible unless you push down exposure like hell on the sky with curves in PS. Thats why I said maybe it is software related, if its a overexposed shot and you dont scan in raw the scanning soft may try to correct exposure the hard way in the sky showing banding that other way would be invisible. But this is not the case, it looks hardware related.
Thats the reason I bought mine from Amazon, so i could test it and return it if there was any misadjustment, specially on focus. But I was lucky and the first unit was already fine.
More Mamiya 7 with Portra 400. I know it is heretic but I'm starting to preffer using color films for B&W work, it gives you much more control over tones when editing and you don't have to use filters avoiding its light loss.
I hear you Toshiro. Shooting in colour, then converting allows you to pick whether you want green/yellow/red etc filters after the fact.
Colour is also easier to scan as the dust correction software works much better for some reason with colour film vs B&W film.
In my case ther is another advantage as I don't process the film at home anymore and the lab where I send it to is much cheaper for color (2€ per roll) than for B&W (5€ per roll).
