Re: filmscanners: best film scanner for b&w negs/ for Austin

[Todd Flashner <tflash@earthlink.net>]

on 10/22/01 10:04 PM, Austin Franklin wrote:

> I'm sure it comes as no surprise, but my vote for best film scanner for B&W
> is the Leafscan.
> 
> The reason being it uses a single neutral density filter for B&W scans,
> instead of using all three (or even one or more) of the color channels to
> "derive" a B&W scan.  I know that CCD scans that use all three color
> channels are somewhat fuzzier, simply because of the smear and bloom most
> apparent in the red channel, then the blue channel.  The green certainly is
> the best channel if you have to use color for B&W scans, IMO.

Hey Austin, recently I did an RGB scan of a BW negative (the Konica IR
you've seen, with it's dense blue base) on my Leaf (max res, HDR) and the
red channel was the sharpest channel! I was shocked, as that deviates from
my experience and expectation. Any ideas as to why the sharpest channel
might vary on a scan by scan basis? Could it be calibration drift? Could
that affect the sharpness of channels?

Todd