Re: filmscanners: Best film scanner, period!!!

["Anthony Atkielski" <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr>]

Jawed writes:

> Anthony, see my site with a few samples that
> show the LS40 with Nikon Scan 3.1 with "difficult"
> slides (Provia 100 F RDP3, Velvia).  This
> combination never clips highlights and gets
> a lot out of the shadows with little noise.

I get my best results with my LS-2000 using NikonScan, too.  I haven't been able
to see any advantage to VueScan thus far.

When I look at the histograms, it often appears that the entire slide was
successfully scanned (the histogram drops to zero at both ends), but this is not
invariably the case.  Shots with bright contrast (e.g., sunlight and shadow)
often show a little bit at one end or the other.  So it would _seem_ that I'm
getting everything.  However, adjusting it so that it looks just like the slide
is quite a challenge.  I suppose there isn't any way to get it to look _exactly_
like the slide.

I'm not able to use the LS40 because it doesn't use SCSI or Windows NT.

> It isn't perfect in highlights because I think
> it doesn't have quite enough contrast in this
> range - effectively there is an S-shaped curve
> in the scanning process which places more
> emphasis on the middle tonal values at
> the slight expense of tonality in the
> shadows and highlights.

Highlights seem to wash out when I adjust levels, but I'm not sure why.  There
doesn't seem to be much headroom in highlights.

> Unfortunately NS 3.1 blows the highlights in
> negatives, if those negatives cover a very very
> wide range (I'm guessing 10 stops+) ...

Well, that can only be the case for black and white.  Scanning color negatives
is a breeze with Nikon scanners, and I always get excellent results.  However, I
hardly ever shoot negative film because it doesn't give the nice results of
slides, and it's harder to handle and store, and C-41 always comes back from the
lab covered with scratches and dust, so I have to use ICE, which is very slow
and impacts image quality.

I get excellent results with black and white, despite the broad density range.

I've heard of grain aliasing but never paid much attention to it, since I'm not
trying to scan grain, anyway.

> I dare say Nikon tuned the LS40 (and NS 3.1) for slide
> scanning.

I'll take your word for it, since I'll never find out for myself.

> I spent about 10 hours all told creating that site
> and I think it would have taken me another 10 hours
> to optimise Vuescan's settings - so I apologise for
> the "introductory" nature of the tests.

I've never been able to figure out how to optimize VueScan's settings.  At best,
I've gotten results that look just like NikonScan.  I don't understand why so
many people prefer VueScan.