Film Can anyone recommend a scanner?

[RichardB]

Remember that digital cameras have a bayer filter, so the 24 megapixels of an A7 is interpolated across RGB pixels, not really as high quality as even a 3200 DPI scan.

Doesn't your scanner have a Bayer filter?

 

[jai]

Doesn't your scanner have a Bayer filter?

No, I don't think that is how scanners work. I think scanners work pixel by pixel, and detect RGB for each one. It's not a matrix of pixels like a digital sensor.

Bayer Interpolation

 

[MAubrey]

I think this is because the V600 is a flatbed, which I have read is not the best for small negatives. My little plustek (which is very cheap) scanner is designed specifically for 35mm and does a great job, but then it can't be used for medium format. So there are always tradeoffs unfortunately.

You could argue it's all moot anyway, as scanning at super high res isn't gaining any more resolved detail. But I wonder, maybe the extra pixels actually do help when you add sharpening to the image, keep it looking more natural? That could be all in my head.

Yeah, scanning at 6400dpi, sharpening like crazy, down sampling, and then sharpening again is definitely an improvement, but it takes away the texture of the film grain, sadly. I've done it with a few MF negatives, which then has you starting out with a 900MB file and ending up with something around 150MB.

 

[Dwig]

Yeah, scanning at 6400dpi, sharpening like crazy, down sampling, and then sharpening again is definitely an improvement, but it takes away the texture of the film grain, sadly. ...

It's not always sad thing...

... I've encountered a number old (ancient?) negatives that were very grainy that produced interference artifacts (similar to Moire patterns) when scanned at moderate resolutions. Altering the scanning resolution up or down can resolve the issue. Sometimes only a moderate change was needed and sometimes the best results came at maximum resolution (6400ppi on an Epson V700). Those higher scanning frequencies don't improve resolution significantly but can alter the grain to pixel conversion enough to eliminate the interference artifacts.

 

[MAubrey]

It's not always sad thing...

... I've encountered a number old (ancient?) negatives that were very grainy that produced interference artifacts (similar to Moire patterns) when scanned at moderate resolutions. Altering the scanning resolution up or down can resolve the issue. Sometimes only a moderate change was needed and sometimes the best results came at maximum resolution (6400ppi on an Epson V700). Those higher scanning frequencies don't improve resolution significantly but can alter the grain to pixel conversion enough to eliminate the interference artifacts.

Well, I don't really care to argue the point, so I'll just say that that for my personal wants and desires, it is always a sad thing, just also that when grain creating artifacts is an equally sad thing. They're sad together. I certainly don't want artifacts. And I certainly want to keep the grain texture. I want to have cake and I want to eat cake. So for the images that I particularly like, I digitize with a macro lens.

No artifacts.
Plenty of grain texture
Plenty of resolution (particularly at magnifications greater than 1:1)
Much smaller file sizes.

For my own purposes, the only downside is how much more time consuming it is.