Scanning Sharpness - Slides and Negatives

[cocker]

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Hi,

 

I've just scanned two rolls of colour film (both shot with an MP and using the sme lens - 50mm Summicron) - A roll of Fuji Provia 400X and a roll of Kodak Portra 400 VC. Scanning the two together (Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED with Nikonscan) led me to compare the scans. I noticed that the scans from the C41 film are quite a bit sharper than those from the E6 film. Is it the case that E6 scans need a good deal more sharpening than C41 scans or is there something else I need to look at? (all the settings in Nikonscan were the same - apart from the obvious positive - negative setting)

 

Thanks

[stunsworth]

Are the slides mounted? If they are the only thing I can think of is that they're not completely flat in the mount.

 

Does the Nikonscan software allow you to choose the focus point? This is something that Vuescan allows and may be worth playing with if it's selectable in the Nikon software.

[jrh68uk]

I have the same scanner and yes, Nikon Scan does allow the selection of focus area. By default, it will focus on a small area at the centre of the image.

 

If I think any of my scans look generally soft, the first thing I look for is the grain. If the grain is sharp, the scanner has focused correctly and my image is a bit off. In very few cases the scanner may have difficulty focusing, so moving it to an area of higher contrast should fix it.

 

It sounds as though the issue here is that all of the transparency images are appearing to be softer than those of all of the negatives. I have to say that, in my experiance, neg scans may initially appear to be sharper than slide scans but it's very subjective and I think it's actually down to the generally coarser grain of neg film giving the illusion of sharpness. As long as the grain itself is sharp, of course.

 

Cheers

[aero]

I've noticed just the opposite on my new Coolscan. The E-6 Fuji Provia and Kodak E200 slides have been great in quality, while my negatives are less sharp and more prone to odd feeding issues, poor framing due to how the film is cut by the developer. I switched to Vuescan recently and would never look back - the combo of Vuescan and E-6 has produced some surprisingly good stuff. But it's subjective. Perhaps the lab you're using isn't so hot with E-6 processing... Alsod consider that E-6 doesn'y have quite the latitude that negative film has in push processing (if that's what you're doing).

 

Maybe send some out to another lab - or try a different film?

 

Don't know your skill level, so apologies if this seems obvious and unhelpful.

 

Best,

-Dan