As requested, a comparison between the Epson 4990 and the Nikon 8000ED using 120 film.

"Scott W" wrote:
rafe b wrote:

That is a very strange interpretation , to put it mildly.

In no way is the Epson scan better than the Nikon.

The Epson sample is dominated by noise, and I
have a hard time explaining that. Perhaps there's
some post-processing going on that causes the
grain to appear far coarser than in the Nikon scan.


The noise would seem to be more from the film base then the image
itself. You
can see the noise is differance between the two is much higher in the
shadow areas.
I would bet that in an area of d-min the Epson would still show a fair
bit of noise and the Nikon much less.

My guess is that the Nikon is using faster optics, this would make it
less susceptible to phase noise in the film. The film is not
perfectly homogenous, there is a fair bit of scattering of light that
passes through it. In a fast system the imaging lens captures all of
this light and you only image variations in the transmission of the
film, but a imaging lens with a smaller aperture can miss some of the
scattered light and begin to show it up. The illumination path can
also have a large impact on this as well, it is also possible that the
Nikon has a more controlled illumination system.

I think it's simpler than that: the Epson is really a 2400 ppi scanner
that's being oversampled in both directions (overstepped in the step
direction and "offset" (it uses two 2400 ppi CCDs) in the other), so the
noise is the noise of the native resolution of the scanner.

It looks as though both would make a noticably grainy 8x10 print from 6x6.

Does that film/developer combination look gritty at 8x10 in projection
prints from 645 or 6x6?

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Matt Clara wrote:

... I agree that the differences in lightness and dark
could be resolved in the scanning software--that wasn't my focus for this
test, perhaps it should have been.

Did the Epson driver have the Unsharp Mask bit on? My old 1640 does UM by
default. Whenever changing some settings I have to check that it hasn't
become on again...

-- Lassi

David J. Littleboy wrote:
I think it's simpler than that: the Epson is really a 2400 ppi
scanner
that's being oversampled in both directions (overstepped in the step
direction and "offset" (it uses two 2400 ppi CCDs) in the other), so the
noise is the noise of the native resolution of the scanner.

It looks as though both would make a noticably grainy 8x10 print from 6x6.

Does that film/developer combination look gritty at 8x10 in projection
prints from 645 or 6x6?

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

An interesting test is to do a scan with no negative and compare it to
one with a clear negative. I believe the Epson is picking up noise from
the film base, an easy test to
do.

The 2400 ppi CCD will limit the resolution but should not add noise.
If that was all it was then you should be able to get the same effect
by filtering the Nikon scan. Try a 2 x 2 uniform block as a custom
filter on the Nikon scan, it gets a bit softer but it does not have the
noise level that the Epson scan does.

Scott

On 29 Dec 2005 06:02:47 -0800, "Scott W" wrote:

rafe b wrote:

That is a very strange interpretation , to put it mildly.

In no way is the Epson scan better than the Nikon.

The Epson sample is dominated by noise, and I
have a hard time explaining that. Perhaps there's
some post-processing going on that causes the
grain to appear far coarser than in the Nikon scan.


The noise would seem to be more from the film base then the image
itself. You
can see the noise is differance between the two is much higher in the
shadow areas.
I would bet that in an area of d-min the Epson would still show a fair
bit of noise and the Nikon much less.

My guess is that the Nikon is using faster optics, this would make it
less susceptible to phase noise in the film. The film is not
perfectly homogenous, there is a fair bit of scattering of light that
passes through it. In a fast system the imaging lens captures all of
this light and you only image variations in the transmission of the
film, but a imaging lens with a smaller aperture can miss some of the
scattered light and begin to show it up. The illumination path can
also have a large impact on this as well, it is also possible that the
Nikon has a more controlled illumination system.

It would be interesting to run some of the unexposed part of the
negative throught both
scanners and compare the output.

Scott


That's an interesting and astute observation, Scott.

I'm not sure I fully understand it yet but I'm working on it.

I do know this: the Nikon uses *very* fast optics, at
least as far as scanners go, and at least 2-3 stops
faster than the Epson.

I've seen the lens on the Nikon scanner, and I'm
guessing it's something like 80mm, f/3.5 or so.
The Nikons have notoriously narrow depth of focus.

Also: the Nikon has one mirror in the optical path; the
Epson probably has several. (I've taken lots of
flatbed scanners apart, as well.)

The Nikon's illumination system is also vastly
different from the Epson's, and from most other
film scanners, for that matter. LEDs vs. cold-
cathode. (I thought you knew that... but Neil tires
of my pointing it out.)

It really is a grossly unfair comparison considering
the relative cost of these two scanners. OTOH we
live in an age of technological breakthroughs
so we take surprises in stride.... right?

What's interesting to me is that reports on the
4900 are really all over the map and wildly
inconsistent.

You've got folks like Roger Clark (and others)
saying it compares to drum scans. You've got
others who've compared it to the LS-8000 and
found it seriously lacking in terms of resolution.

To my eyes, the Epson 4990, on a good day,
produces output comparable to my old Polaroid
SprintScan and its 2700 dpi brethren of that era
(eg. Nikon LS-2000.)


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

"rafe b" rafebATspeakeasy.net wrote in message
...
On 29 Dec 2005 06:02:47 -0800, "Scott W" wrote:

rafe b wrote:

That is a very strange interpretation , to put it mildly.

In no way is the Epson scan better than the Nikon.

The Epson sample is dominated by noise, and I
have a hard time explaining that. Perhaps there's
some post-processing going on that causes the
grain to appear far coarser than in the Nikon scan.


The noise would seem to be more from the film base then the image
itself. You
can see the noise is differance between the two is much higher in the
shadow areas.
I would bet that in an area of d-min the Epson would still show a fair
bit of noise and the Nikon much less.

My guess is that the Nikon is using faster optics, this would make it
less susceptible to phase noise in the film. The film is not
perfectly homogenous, there is a fair bit of scattering of light that
passes through it. In a fast system the imaging lens captures all of
this light and you only image variations in the transmission of the
film, but a imaging lens with a smaller aperture can miss some of the
scattered light and begin to show it up. The illumination path can
also have a large impact on this as well, it is also possible that the
Nikon has a more controlled illumination system.

It would be interesting to run some of the unexposed part of the
negative throught both
scanners and compare the output.

Scott


That's an interesting and astute observation, Scott.

I'm not sure I fully understand it yet but I'm working on it.

I do know this: the Nikon uses *very* fast optics, at
least as far as scanners go, and at least 2-3 stops
faster than the Epson.

I've seen the lens on the Nikon scanner, and I'm
guessing it's something like 80mm, f/3.5 or so.
The Nikons have notoriously narrow depth of focus.

Also: the Nikon has one mirror in the optical path; the
Epson probably has several. (I've taken lots of
flatbed scanners apart, as well.)

The Nikon's illumination system is also vastly
different from the Epson's, and from most other
film scanners, for that matter. LEDs vs. cold-
cathode. (I thought you knew that... but Neil tires
of my pointing it out.)

It really is a grossly unfair comparison considering
the relative cost of these two scanners. OTOH we
live in an age of technological breakthroughs
so we take surprises in stride.... right?

What's interesting to me is that reports on the
4900 are really all over the map and wildly
inconsistent.

You've got folks like Roger Clark (and others)
saying it compares to drum scans. You've got
others who've compared it to the LS-8000 and
found it seriously lacking in terms of resolution.

To my eyes, the Epson 4990, on a good day,
produces output comparable to my old Polaroid
SprintScan and its 2700 dpi brethren of that era
(eg. Nikon LS-2000.)



Still, I'm quite impressed with the 4990 and the 4x5 I scan I posted the
other day. I believe that's a sharper negative than what I was working with
here in medium-format, and the grain is much finer, too--made a terrific
contact print, but they're so small. I'm looking into a 4x5 beseler
enlarger, though I'm not sure one will fit into my darkroom. I'm also
considering 8x10--contact prints from those must really kick ass, and they
should scan quite nicely on the 4990.

--
Regards,
Matt Clara
www.mattclara.com

rafe b wrote:

It really is a grossly unfair comparison considering
the relative cost of these two scanners. OTOH we
live in an age of technological breakthroughs
so we take surprises in stride.... right?
That a flat bed scanner does as well as the 4900 is pretty amazing. I
have an Epson 1650 and you can't even begin to think about scanning
35mm slides with it. Clearly the loss in resolution using the 4900 is
more then offset by the larger film size of a 4 x 5 format.

The design of a dedicated 4 x 5 film scanner would be pretty
straightforward but the market would be so small that no one seems to
be willing to produce it.

What's interesting to me is that reports on the
4900 are really all over the map and wildly
inconsistent.
How well the 4900 does may depend on what film it is scanning as well
as how it has been exposed. I can well image that it might do much
better
with slide film then negative film, when compared to the Nikon.

You've got folks like Roger Clark (and others)
saying it compares to drum scans. You've got
others who've compared it to the LS-8000 and
found it seriously lacking in terms of resolution.


I don't know about the 8000 but I have seen some scans from the
Coolscan 9000 that are
pretty amazing. I would assume the 8000 would be pretty close to the
same. I think it is pretty hard to get a image on film that even
begains to push what the Nikon scanner can capture, but where the
detail is there the scanner gets it.

This is a pretty grainy image but it has the best detail I have ever
seen in a 4000 ppi scan.
http://www.pbase.com/mxp/image/52664574/original
Maybe we can talk Max into scanning the negative with a 4990. For this
negative I think the differance between the Nikon and Epson would be
night and day.
Also notice how low noise the shadow areas of Max's scan is.

Scott

In article ,
"Matt Clara" wrote:


Still, I'm quite impressed with the 4990 and the 4x5 I scan I posted the
other day. I believe that's a sharper negative than what I was working with
here in medium-format, and the grain is much finer, too--made a terrific
contact print, but they're so small. I'm looking into a 4x5 beseler
enlarger,

I have an MXT with a dichro S- its a great enlarger.

though I'm not sure one will fit into my darkroom. I'm also
considering 8x10--contact prints from those must really kick ass, and they
should scan quite nicely on the 4990.

8x10 "sometimes" is better than 4x5, it all depends on how well you
adjust the camera, bigger film=harder to get everything sharp.
Bigger film more chances for imperfections in development and other
types of handling.
--
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

www.gregblankphoto(dot)com

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...

This is a pretty grainy image but it has the best detail I have ever
seen in a 4000 ppi scan.
http://www.pbase.com/mxp/image/52664574/original
Maybe we can talk Max into scanning the negative with a 4990. For this
negative I think the differance between the Nikon and Epson would be
night and day.
Also notice how low noise the shadow areas of Max's scan is.



Scott, that is an amazing scan. Possibly beats
anything I've got posted on my scan-samples site,
and that includes several 4k/5k dpi drum scans.

(And by the way, this is *exactly* the sort of
sample I'd like to be posting, ie. best-practice.)

What scanner was used here? Is that from
Max's LS-9000? Do you have Max's email address?

I shoulda guessed it... the only thing sharper
than the LS-8000 is... the LS-9000.

[Actually, for 35mm, the Minolta 5400 beats
LS-8000 for resolution.]


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

rafe b rafebATspeakeasy.net wrote:

...
The Nikon's illumination system is also vastly
different from the Epson's, and from most other
film scanners, for that matter. LEDs vs. cold-
cathode.

I.e. the Nikon has a collimated light source, but the others don't. That
will have an impact on the end result via Callier effect.
http://hardware.mcse.ms/archive47-2004-9-77491.html

-- Lassi

rafe b wrote:
"Scott W" wrote in message

Scott, that is an amazing scan. Possibly beats
anything I've got posted on my scan-samples site,
and that includes several 4k/5k dpi drum scans.

(And by the way, this is *exactly* the sort of
sample I'd like to be posting, ie. best-practice.)

What scanner was used here? Is that from
Max's LS-9000? Do you have Max's email address?

I shoulda guessed it... the only thing sharper
than the LS-8000 is... the LS-9000.

[Actually, for 35mm, the Minolta 5400 beats
LS-8000 for resolution.]

He also did the best Valvia scan I have seen to date.
You can get his email address from the thread
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.p...c81e8251ae61a5

You need to slum in the 35mm group more, then you would see this kind
of thing.

Scott
rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com