[filmscanners] Re: GRAIN/ICE SHOWDOWN: Nikon LS8000 vs.Minolta ScanMulti Pro!

["David J. Littleboy" <davidjl@gol.com>]

"Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com> writes:


> I too prefer the post ICE Minolta images.

Hmm. I prefer the Nikon images, although I'd _love_ to be dead wrong here.
They seem much less noisy and sharpen up nicely in photoshop. While the
crown images show almost identical detail, the detail in the hair on the
woman's forehead seems superior in the Nikon image. (Check it out the
post-ICE images at 300% in Photoshop.) The skin tone is smoother and seems
to have more real detail.

>  The Minolta seems to be picking
> up more information from the film as can be seen on the first scans.

There seems to be _different_ crud and damage on the negative. I'd think
they were scanned at different times in the life of the negative.

>  There
> are imperfections that the Nikon has not picked up that the Minolta
> clearly shows.

Hmm. I still think that they are looking at different crud and damage. (I
could be wrong.) Perhaps David S. would correct me if I'm off the wall here.

>  As Art said, the Minolta is scanning at 4800ppi so it may be worth
> doing the comparison at 4000dpi for both scanners.

My understanding is that the Minolta is a 3200 dpi scanner for 6x6 film. Of
course, one might be able to use 4800 dpi to scan part of a 6x6 negative. I
don't know if David S. did that for this negative, though.

Looking at the post-ICE pics, the Nikon seems to me to be getting more
information in the hair and in the skin wrinkles around the eyes. Also, the
blood vesels in the whites of her eye look like noise in the Minolta and
look like image detail in the Nikon. The smoothness of her skin in the Nikon
image is gorgeous, whereas the noise in the Minolta image is (IMO) seriously
ugly.

> I does seem as though there is some sharpening happening in the Minolta
> scanner even though it is set to off in the options.

That may explain the noise. A lot of digital widgets use sharpening that has
a threshold of zero, and that excacerbates noise something fierce.

> I would prefer the Minolta as it seems to be capturing more detail.

Hmm. It doesn't look that way to me...

>  I would
> rather have more detail and be able to do something about it (such
> as defocusing a bit) rather than not have the detail to work with at all.

Agreed!

Anyway, thanks to David S. for the pages. (I'm in the midst of _not_ being a
happy camper with the Epson 2450, but also thinking it silly to spend $3000
to scan film from a $300 camera (Fuji GS645S)<g>. However, both of these are
worlds better than what I'm getting. Sigh.

Anyway, to get back to the original question: I don't think it's "grain", I
think it's noise.

David J. Littleboy
davidjl@gol.com
Tokyo, Japan



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