RE: filmscanners: Nikon Scan & VS Negative dynamic range

[Alessandro Pardi <alessandro.pardi@inferentia.it>]

Julian,

> About the combing, are you using 12-bit?

I'm stuck with the 8 bits of my LS-30 :-(
I could try Vuescan and see if the white/black point settings actually work
at scan phase, looking at the raw file (if this worked, it would also give
me the benefit of 10 bits). I haven't had much luck with Vuescan until now,
but the latest release, which claims better results with negatives and more
accuracy in the preview, is surely worth a try.

> I always scan in 12-bit and I have not noticed this being a problem except
for outrageous manipulations 
> (which I must admit I seem to need too much of the time). 

Actually I inspected the images at huge magnification (100% and above)
looking for artifacts, but could hardly see any difference between those
with nice histograms and those with noticeable combing (I mean, the same
image scanned with auto setting and with low contrast). This reminds me the
Dan Margulis challenge about the fact that working at 16 bits is just a
waste of RAM: maybe perfect histograms aren't so important, too (I also
expect printouts to be more forgiving about this than monitors).

> I wrote to Nikon about this, they (Nikon USA) directed me to Australia 
> Nikon, who won't answer my emails.  Surprise!

If they did, they would have redirected you to Nikon Japan :-)

Alex