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Revisiting 35mm Film Scanners


S.Rolf

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This would give Hasselblad a one-time windfall as a small percentage of remaining film photographers bought one.

But the 'small percentage' is growing, film is not dead.

 

Eoin, you bought a fine scanner in the Plustek 120. Chris points out the Nikon 9000 is nearly as good as the Flextight, well the 120 is as good as the 9000. All any serious amateur needs beyond a 120 is an Epson flatbed for 4x5 and 8x10 and you have everything covered.

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But the 'small percentage' is growing, film is not dead.

 

Eoin, you bought a fine scanner in the Plustek 120. Chris points out the Nikon 9000 is nearly as good as the Flextight, well the 120 is as good as the 9000. All any serious amateur needs beyond a 120 is an Epson flatbed for 4x5 and 8x10 and you have everything covered.

Thanks, Steve. I had to delay delivery until tomorrow, but am looking forward to trying it out. I already have Vuescan, so hopefully shall get up and running reasonably quickly.

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Well I just use a Canoscan 9000F.  It has LED light source (fast and consistent light), and holders to do 135 films to medium format negs up to 6x9. I use the included software.

It's cheap, cheerful and does a good job.

 

Dave S

 

Same experience (w/ 8800F). I have had 20x30 inch prints made (by IlfordLab Direct) that make me very happy.

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  • 8 months later...

None of my Nikon film scanners (Coolscan IV, Coolscan V, and Super Coolscan 9000) have ever had a problem that needed service, and I've had Nikon film scanners since 2006. Nikon discontinued development on NikonScan ages and ages ago, but VueScan drives all of these scanners very very well.

 

That said, I find that more and more I loathe the tedium of scanning film. Using the BEOON and the Leica SL with either the Micro-Nikkor 55mm, Color Skopar 50mm, or Summicron-M 50mm is much faster, and I get results that are equally satisfying for my purposes ... a 16 Mpixel image out of 6x6, a 24 Mpixel image out of 35mm. I'd like to get more out of 6x6 ... maybe if I get the X1D, I'll set up another scanning rig with the 120mm Macro lens. That will create 37 Mpixel square images.

 

The tedium of processing and scanning film is why my film cameras tend to sit and sit. Probably a personal problem ... I've been scanning film for twenty-five years now, it just adds another hour of dull work on top of processing film that working with digital capture eliminates.

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Like others here I rue the loss of the prosumer scanner market.  The Nikons, in particular, filled a much-needed niche.  I was a happy user of the LS-4000, and then the LS-5000, for many years.  The Coolscan 9000, which is the only Nikon I still own, had/has the great benefit of doing medium format, of course.  But I always found the film holders on that machine "fiddly" compared to the earlier, 35mm-only Coolscans.

 

A couple of years ago I bit the bullet, sold a bunch of little-used Nikon glass to help fund it - and bought the Hasselblad X1.

 

As you would hope from a scanner costing that much, it produces terrific scans.  But it does come with a couple downsides you don't hear much about... even after forking over all that cash to buy it, you're probably not done.  Not-included (but highly recommended) film holders like the 6-frame strip for 35mm, the 3-frame strip for 6x6, and the single-image mounted-slide 35mm will set you back another few hundred dollars.  And because each individual scan is just under 400mb, you need lots of both primary and backup disk storage.

 

But it truly is a great scanner.  I really love its relatively small footprint, as most of its considerable bulk is vertical.  Compared to a flatbed, or my Nikon 9000, its consumption of desk space is minimal.  And I absolutely love its 3f "raw" scan feature, which lets you quickly pull a full-resolution scan of the film without worrying about scan settings.  You then treat that 3f file much like a raw DNG image - performing any "scan edits" later, at your leisure, in FlexColor.

 

I've always looked at scanning as a slow, tedious, necessary evil.  The X1 changed that.  It's the only scanner I've ever used I can honestly say I enjoy using.

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You inspired me to look up the Flextight X1. My my ... that one's well beyond my pay grade. But it looks like the unit that I would occasionally rent time on at the local pro camera shop ... before they went out of business. Sigh. It was a very nice piece of equipment. 

 

My film usage will continue its downwards slide, I suspect.  :mellow:

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In Bangkok, I have an Imacon Precision III that uses a SCSI interface. It took three 10-hour days to get this hardware and legacy software working on an old MacBook Pro — only to learn, on the third full day of my effort, that this scanner loses sharpness at the trailing end of the 35mm frame (fed in vertically). 

 

Further research showed hat Imacon scanners require periodic maintenance fairly often. After some hours of searching the web, I found out that the cause of the sharpness loss is slippage of the drive mechanism (plastic belts and wheels) that feed the holder into the scanner. I would have to replace these belts, and possibly the wheels. The belts are easily available in the US and UK, but I’ve also learned that these scanners usually require belt replacement or adjustment every six months or so. 

 

The belt problem also makes the film frame holder shift as it goes into the scanner, so that a small portion of the scan is often cut off. I now remember from some ten years ago that I often had this problem, starting six months after I bought the scanner new, but didn't know there was a solution. By the way, there is no batch feed solution for this scanner — and one full res (6300dpi) 35mm scan takes 15 minutes. 

 

As I don't want to make a career out of the care and feeding of this Imacon scanner, I'm simply dumping. I couldn't sell it with a good conscience. Basically, even if I was prepared to spent $14,000 on a new  Hasselblad X1 — same 6300dpi resolution as my Imacon but twice the speed — I don’t think it would make sense because I don’t think the the drive mechanism on the new scanner has changed. That means, if I'm right, these Hasselblad scanners only make sense (beyond the price issue) in a photo lab environment, where they can be serviced and maintained regularly.

_______________

Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

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In Bangkok, I have an Imacon Precision III that uses a SCSI interface. It took three 10-hour days to get this hardware and legacy software working on an old MacBook Pro — only to learn, on the third full day of my effort, that this scanner loses sharpness at the trailing end of the 35mm frame (fed in vertically). 

 

Further research showed hat Imacon scanners require periodic maintenance fairly often. After some hours of searching the web, I found out that the cause of the sharpness loss is slippage of the drive mechanism (plastic belts and wheels) that feed the holder into the scanner. I would have to replace these belts, and possibly the wheels. The belts are easily available in the US and UK, but I’ve also learned that these scanners usually require belt replacement or adjustment every six months or so. 

 

The belt problem also makes the film frame holder shift as it goes into the scanner, so that a small portion of the scan is often cut off. I now remember from some ten years ago that I often had this problem, starting six months after I bought the scanner new, but didn't know there was a solution. By the way, there is no batch feed solution for this scanner — and one full res (6300dpi) 35mm scan takes 15 minutes. 

 

As I don't want to make a career out of the care and feeding of this Imacon scanner, I'm simply dumping. I couldn't sell it with a good conscience. Basically, even if I was prepared to spent $14,000 on a new  Hasselblad X1 — same 6300dpi resolution as my Imacon but twice the speed — I don’t think it would make sense because I don’t think the the drive mechanism on the new scanner has changed. That means, if I'm right, these Hasselblad scanners only make sense (beyond the price issue) in a photo lab environment, where they can be serviced and maintained regularly.

_______________

Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

 

Hi , you can send a MP to ChrisM in "I like film" thread you already know.

He had this problem with his Imacon , may be he can help you

Best

Henry

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Henry - Thanks, but I know what  have to do to fix my scanner. My point was, as I wrote, that I don't want to make a career out of the care and feeding of the Imacon Precision III. It has required frequent service, because of the plastic belt/plastic wheel mechanism, constantly, from as little as three months after I bought. Moreover, as far as I know, the drive mechanism on the new Hasselblad X1 and X3 is virtually the same and, reportedly, these also require frequent servicing.

_______________

Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

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