Re: filmscanners: 2700ppi a limiting factor in sharpness?

["Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com>]

> Winsor wrote:
> >It seems to me that the 2700 dpi is the limiting factor.  Rather
like
> >the old joke about the senior citizen stereo sale special.  Doesn't
> >matter much how good the speakers are if you can't hear them.
>
> No, I don't think so.  I've tried scanning a few of my slides on a
Polaroid
> SS4000, and the amount of extra information seems small.  There's
more pixels,
> but there doesn't seem to be much difference between a 2700ppi scan
resampled
> to 4000dpi and the 4000dpi image.  The Sprintscan can get more
shadow information
> out of a slide, but that's dynamic range, which is a different
issue.  A
> very sharp image on the film will give a sharper scan - garbage in
garbage
> out obviously applies.
>
> I'm not saying that a higher resolution or dynamic range scanner
would be
> a bad thing.  I'm simply saying that the scanner can't fix problems
with
> the source.  If all my photos were equally fuzzy, I wouldn't know
what I
> was missing.  But the ones taken with prime lenses are significantly
sharper
> (duh on my part).
>
> Rob

As someone who recently went from an LS-30 to an SS4000, I agree with
you Rob.  Unsharpened grain from the SS4000 is a bit crisper, but
after interpolation and sharpening the LS-30 files are very close to
the SS4000 files, particularily when Vuescan is used with both
scanners (the best result from the LS-30 and SS4000).  Still, the
SS4000 for $500 bucks is a good value, and I'm glad I did it, if only
to have an easier time with B&W and Kodachrome.

Dave