epson 4990 for mf and 35mm?

Hello,
Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.
Thanks
Ed
www.tranquilimages.com

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:48:38 -0500, "Ed Margiewicz"
wrote:

Hello,
Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.
Thanks


Get yourself a used Nikon LS-8000 for about $1k
or a new Nikon LS-9000 for about $1800. There's
no comparison. Yes, I have both. Scan snippets
from both are he

www.terrapinphoto.com/jmdavis


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.

It depends what you want it for. I find that an Epson 4990 35mm scan
makes a passable 8x10" print, but thats about it.

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 04:17:33 GMT, Mike wrote:

Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.

It depends what you want it for. I find that an Epson 4990 35mm scan
makes a passable 8x10" print, but thats about it.


I'll buy that. The 4990 is probably good
for about 2000 dpi, and on 35mm, that's
just enough for a decent 8x10" print.

My very first filmscanner, back in 1998,
was rated at 1950 dpi.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

Ed Margiewicz wrote:
Hello,
Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.
Thanks
Ed
www.tranquilimages.com


Here is my comparison.:

Flatbed Scanners versus Drum Scan Comparisons
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...atbed-scanners

I use mine for 4x5 film.

I've scanned 6x4.5 film with it from which nice 18x24 inch prints
have been made, but it does take a lot of careful work.
I would recommend a dedicated film scanner as Rafe suggested.

Roger

How big a print can one reasonably expect to get with a nikon 9000ED scanner
from 35mm and 6x6? I'm making the transition from ilfochrome from which I
frequently made 30x40 prints (from 4x5).
Ed M
"rafe b" rafebATspeakeasy.net wrote in message
...
On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:48:38 -0500, "Ed Margiewicz"
wrote:

Hello,
Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a
dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.
Thanks


Get yourself a used Nikon LS-8000 for about $1k
or a new Nikon LS-9000 for about $1800. There's
no comparison. Yes, I have both. Scan snippets
from both are he

www.terrapinphoto.com/jmdavis


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

Ed Margiewicz wrote:
Hello,
Anyone have any experience scanning mf and 35mm color transperencies with
epson's 4990. I bought one to scan my 4x5's ( could'nt afford the drum
scanners or creo models....maybe in the next life) but wonder if a dedicated
film scanner is best for 35mm and 6x6. Any info or opinions are greatly
appreciated as I'm new to the digital world.

A good dedicated film scanner *will* be better than the 4990 for 35mm
and
mf, IME. All tests indicate so and so does my experience so far with
commercially scanned 35mm slides compared to my own scans.
I'm not so sure with mf, at least at the sizes I print: A4, A3. The
results
from 6x7 and a 4990 seem to be OK at that size as far as I'm concerned.

One thing: I always overscan at 4800 indicated and then downrez to
2400. I also scan at 16-bit and use vuescan to colour correct at
that colour depth before I do the final output at 2400, 8-bit colour.
So things tend to be a bit better than just plain 4800-2400.

Having said all that, price/performance ratio is very high with the
epson.
Dedicated film scanners - particularly the Nikons - will set you back
at
least $1500 if not $2300 bucks, epay prices. A 4990 can be had
new for around 700. And the new series V700 seems to be even
better, check out:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/index.html

I agree with the others: a 35mm scan on a 4990 can easily do a 8X10,
but I wouldn't use it for anything larger. Of course, a 6X7 scan
*will*
do larger prionts.

It is the equivalent of a mid-quality classic optical enlarger. You'd
need
top gear to go over that size anyway in the chemical days. And so you
need a top scanner to go over that now.

This of course will change in the near futu technology has the bad
habit of catching up with all sorts of online tirades like the above...

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 04:56:30 -0500, "Ed Margiewicz"
wrote:

How big a print can one reasonably expect to get with a nikon 9000ED scanner
from 35mm and 6x6? I'm making the transition from ilfochrome from which I
frequently made 30x40 prints (from 4x5).


"How big a print" is entirely subjective.
Nobody can answer that except you.

The best answer I can give is: how big
a print would you expect from a good old-
fashioned optical enlargement?

Let that be your guide.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

Ed Margiewicz wrote:
How big a print can one reasonably expect to get with a nikon 9000ED scanner
from 35mm and 6x6? I'm making the transition from ilfochrome from which I
frequently made 30x40 prints (from 4x5).

There is no one simple answer here since there is a wide discrepancy in
what people will accept in a print.
Max Perl did the best 35mm scan I have seen to date and Rafe happily
has a crop from it on his site, you can find it here.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com/jmdavis..._crop_1000.jpg
Max used a very good prime lens along with a tripod and Velvia 100
film, if I remember correctly. The scan was made with the Nikon LS-9000
at 4000pp.
From what I have seen so far I would use this as a limit case, most
scanned 35mm photos fall a fair bit short of this. You can get a good
idea as to how large of a print you can make by what dpi you need to
print this crop at to have it look good, at the viewing distance you
would be looking at the full sized image.
If you like this crop printed at 300 ppi for instance you could print
it bit larger then 12 x 18 inches. At 472 ppi it would produce a
print 8 x 12 inches. If you do a few test prints you should get a good
idea how large you would be willing to print the full image.

Scott

"Ed Margiewicz" wrote in message
. ..

How big a print can one reasonably expect to get with a nikon 9000ED
scanner from 35mm and 6x6? I'm making the transition from ilfochrome from
which I frequently made 30x40 prints (from 4x5).


FWIW, as my big printer at home is an Epson 7000,
I'm limited to prints 24" wide.

I've made a number of 24x30" prints from scans of
LF (4x5) made on my Epson 4990 and they are
tack-sharp. My LF scans are done at 2400 spi.

I've also made prints of about that same size from
Nikon-scanned 6x7 cm MF film. I get the same
number of pixels, oddly: MF 6x6 @ 4000 spi
vs. LF 4x5 @ 2400 spi. Guess which prints
look better?

"Maximum enlargement" is quite subjective.
There are some folks here who don't believe film
should ever be enlarged beyond 4x or 6x.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com