Scanner for Kodachrome collection

[dimme]

I just inherited the family photo collection of about 4 or 5 thousand 5mm Kodachrome slides. I plan to scan a lot of these. I know what I in for I was a drum & Imacon scanner operator for many years. I have tools to profile the scanner so I would like to do that also. I see a lot of old film scanners on ebay but don't want to be stuck with something that will require a old computer(SCSI) or old OS to make the software work. As I plan to do this over many years speed is not a issue. From what I read the Epson V700 looks like the scanner to get but I am wondering will the V600 do (Money is tight). The scans will be used for viewing on a computer and scrapbooking. Are there any other brands worth considering? But it would be nice to create a higher resolution scan if I want. One question I have about the V700 It looks to be a older model is there a replacement due out soon? If any one has done something similar I would be interested in other soulations.
Thanks

[Tony W]

The V750 scanner is top of the range with models in descending order V700 V600 and V500. I have the V500 lowest spec in this range and have been delighted with the results using Epson software and Vuescan. Best software is probably Silverfast but the full version a little OTT IMO on price. Similar questions have been asked here before and e.g.
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/har...m-scanner.html.

Most of these scanners I believe are likely to be USB and most should work and have drivers for your OS - but worth a check first.

While the V700 range has been out some time and normally you expect to see new models every few years somehow I suspect that this not as likely with scanners as it would be with DSLR's for instance.

If all you are likely to be doing is 35mm and due to the quantities I think I would be looking for a s/h or refurbished Nikon Coolscan which IMO is about as good as it gets before you have to spend serious money for a drum scanner. It is quite possible if you buy a Nikon that you will be able to sell on after you have finished and probably not loose much money on the deal

[Kraellin]

i'd take a serious look at a dedicated negative/slide scanner. these tend to be better than the flatbeds for negatives and slides. they are specifically designed to pass the light through the negative or slide and thus tend to do a better job than the flatbeds which are trying to reflect the light off a solid image.

check this site: http://www.scanace.com/index.html . i use one from them.

[dimme]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

i'd take a serious look at a dedicated negative/slide scanner. these tend to be better than the flatbeds for negatives and slides. they are specifically designed to pass the light through the negative or slide and thus tend to do a better job than the flatbeds which are trying to reflect the light off a solid image.

check this site: http://www.scanace.com/index.html . i use one from them.

Thank you for the link, which model do you use?

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

i'd take a serious look at a dedicated negative/slide scanner. these tend to be better than the flatbeds for negatives and slides. they are specifically designed to pass the light through the negative or slide and thus tend to do a better job than the flatbeds which are trying to reflect the light off a solid image.

check this site: http://www.scanace.com/index.html . i use one from them.

While I agree with Craig a quality dedicated neg/slide scanner is likely to offer better results the information that flatbeds are trying to reflect light of a solid image is incorrect - at least as far as the Epson range V500 -V750 is concerned.

All these scanners have a transparancy unit in the lid. This is accessed by removing the white reflectance sheet in the lid and will reveal a transparancy unit which has its own light source which passes the light through the neg stepping down similar to reflectance mode.

An important point IMO is Dmax. The Nikon Coolscan range seem to run from around 3.6-4.8 Dmax. The Epson flatbed range run from around 3.4 - 4.2 Dmax. Therefore in theory the top of the line Epson can match the Nikon!! The problem here is that not all manufacturers use the same criteria/methods when they quote these figures so it is possible to get one scanner with a lower Dmax figure that performs better than one with a higher quoted figure. So I think that the manufacturers claims should be taken with a 'pinch of salt' until you are satisfied otherwise

So the bottom line is some research and looking at independent reviews well worthwhile before committing to buy

[Tareq]

I was going to buy Flextight from Hasselblad, but i found from some forums that it is not a real drum scanner [i thought it is], so i changed my mind over and i will look at a refurb real drum scanner for the best quality i can get out of any film media.

[dimme]

So I picked up a Epson V600 mainly for some postcards I have to scan for another project. I tried it with the Kodachromes and it's not bad but the focus is just not there. I also got a used Minolta scanner which does a nice job but the dirt cleanup is a big job. I really do not want to use film cleaner on the film. The Ice on the Epson works about 80% of the time. I wish the Minolta had that feature. So now I wondering do I just go for the Plusteck OpticFilm 7600i Ai? I sure would love not to have to clean up all this film.

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by dimme

....I tried it with the Kodachromes and it's not bad but the focus is just not there.....

That does not sound correct at least with my experience of Epson. A few things spring to mind:

1. What method are you using to hold the Kodachromes in the scanner?
The distance above the scanner is critical and the fact that you have Kodachromes suggests they are mounted in cardboard sleeves. You might want to experiment a little by increasing or even decreasing the distance between the scanner glass by using shims.
Or
Even remove one from the cardboard and mount in the Epson guide

2. Try without Digital Ice as this may soften the images -and yes I know that this will increase the workload!
Have a look Here Quote " ICE quite often also has the effect of softening the image to an unacceptable degree"

3. It is usually required to apply capture sharpening after digital acquisition - have you tried this?

It might be useful if you could post at least a portion of your scan demonstrating the focus issue both with and without Digital Ice

[dimme]

Thanks for the feedback. I have been scanning the slides in the cardboard mount. I know this may not be ideal buy I do not want to damage the mounts. I will try your suggestion with a piece of film that is not that important that I can unmounted. Your post got me thinking, is the sharpest focus point the same for film as it is for prints on the Epson? And does the scanner have a dept of field area where everything is in focus. I report back in a few days. Thanks for your help.

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by dimme

.... Your post got me thinking, is the sharpest focus point the same for film as it is for prints on the Epson? And does the scanner have a dept of field area where everything is in focus.

The focus point is I believe different for print and film. For one thing a print is pressed against the glass bed of the scanner while the film is raised off this bed by a small amount in the carrier (probably 1-2mm although I have not measured).

So unless you have a dedicated holder for mounted slides the potential to miss the focus point will be increased.

Perhaps just as significant is the fact that you should not be using Digital ICE for Kodachrome with this scanner - at least with the Epson software.

From the Epson guide with the v500 - assume that this applies to others.

Film type.............................Dust Removal..........Digital ICE Technology
Color negative film........................Yes..........................Yes
Color positive film or slides..............Yes.........................Yes *
Monochrome negative film...............Yes..........................No **
Monochrome positive film or slides....Yes..........................No

* Kodachrome film is not supported.
** Only chromogenic monochrome negative film is supported.

[dimme]

Thanks for the info. Do you know if the Dust removal tool is similar to the one in Photoshop? Also do you have any experience with Vuescan software and the Epson. They also have a dirt removal tool which is not ICE but uses the infrared channel.

[Tareq]

I use Epson Scan more than VueScan, i also have SilverFast but it is a bit confusing with all those tools here and there, so i liked the simplicity of Epson Scan more and got really nice results.

Try to buy another film holders if available, www.betterscanning.com has holders for those scanners that are highly recommended.

Give the software more time, the first time i bought my scanner and scanned few films i didn't like it, now i can see a noticeable difference between my first time and current scans, i still would like to have a film scanner or drum scanner, but there is no available film scanner for medium format yet even Nikon stopped their last model [9000ed], and Flextight is crazy expensive that i am not sure it is worthy, i may look to get a true drum scanner if i can find it from somewhere trustworthy rather than ebay, but for meanwhile, i have to keep using my Epson for up to large format 8x10 [i have 4x5 only now].

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by dimme

Do you know if the Dust removal tool is similar to the one in Photoshop?

Although not 100% sure I believe they are quite different due to the fact that the Epson uses an IR LED for Digital ICE and the software is designed to deal with this particular aspect. In other words DI is actually a hardware and software solution. On the other hand Photoshop dust removal is AFAIK purely application based and just will not see anything related to the IR LED.

Also do you have any experience with Vuescan software and the Epson. They also have a dirt removal tool which is not ICE but uses the infrared channel.

I have used Vuescan and found it to be very good. It just may be better than the Epson but I have not confirmed that with any of my own testing yet. I am aware of the dust removal tool in Vuescan and the fact that it does utilise the IR LED in the scanner, however I have not tried it as I prefer to turn all automation off as I believe that this will give the sharpest result and I can then apply as I see fit in PS - sorry I know this not much help to you with several thousand images to contend with.
I think that it would be worthwhile downloading the demo for your scanner and running a trial before commiting.

I believe there are at least 2 potential issues for you to resolve with Kodachromes - or at least find a compromise point that you are happy with.

1. Kodachromes can give rise to problems due to the potential to scan with a blue cast. I am pretty sure that most of this can be corrected in post processing however it may be beneficial to purchase a special IT8 Kodachrome calibration target - it may just help you avoid tearing your hair out with so many slides to scan by minimising PP colour correction.

2. The second and perhaps most important thing for you is to keep the images as sharp as possible. Once that you have confirmed that the scan focus point is correct for your slides then the choice is to either use DI or not. Unfortunately due to the way that the additional IR channel detect defects i.e. IR passes through the film but not through the dust it can give rise to slight loss of sharpness in the scanned image. For some images this may be acceptable and possibly be compensated for with PP, but for others a loss of sharpness is going to be totally unacceptable.

I have a couple of hundred Kodachromes that are in a pretty poor state and as yet have not attempted to do many. Attached is one of the worst which demonstrates a couple of issue I think!

a. Original scan was a little too blue and I made a small initial correction with curves to get closer to original.

b. From memory this was placed directly on the scanner bed and shims used to lift a little. However I failed somewhat - if you look at the right hand side of the image it is not as sharp as the left. This probably due to slight difference in the shim thickness or possibly slight film curvature.

c. Obviously the crud on the slide is a major problem which I doubt even the best hardware/software dust and dirt removal could tackle - at least without a severe and unacceptable loss of image sharpness.

So in this case I have decided to try and preserve only the best images or those with the most sentimental value and cull the rest! Obviously I will also need to attempt some physical cleaning as well.

[dimme]

Thanks Tony for all your help. I finally found the sweet spot for focus on my V600. I am happy with the results. I have found the Digital ICE is not good with the Kodachromes but the Epson dust remove works well. I scanned and cleaned up a batch of 75 Images this weekend. For most of the film I used the Minolta or the Canon film scanners I got from ebay. They worked very well (did require lots of time cleaning up dirt). I am running them with vuescan and saving the files as DNG and post processing in camera raw. I would rescan about 10% of the images that had contrast issues on the Epson and it did a very good job of flatting them out. I am happy with the setup and glad I have the film and the flatbed scanners. I can see that I will be using both types depending on the particular slide. Both the Canon and Minolta scanners were good buys at about $35.00 each plus shipping. They do require a SCSI interface and being a Mac guy that means running the scanners on a second computer. I am running a older P4 machine with windows XP then transferring them over to the mac for post processing.

[Tareq]

Originally Posted by dimme

Thanks Tony for all your help. I finally found the sweet spot for focus on my V600. I am happy with the results. I have found the Digital ICE is not good with the Kodachromes but the Epson dust remove works well. I scanned and cleaned up a batch of 75 Images this weekend. For most of the film I used the Minolta or the Canon film scanners I got from ebay. They worked very well (did require lots of time cleaning up dirt). I am running them with vuescan and saving the files as DNG and post processing in camera raw. I would rescan about 10% of the images that had contrast issues on the Epson and it did a very good job of flatting them out. I am happy with the setup and glad I have the film and the flatbed scanners. I can see that I will be using both types depending on the particular slide. Both the Canon and Minolta scanners were good buys at about $35.00 each plus shipping. They do require a SCSI interface and being a Mac guy that means running the scanners on a second computer. I am running a older P4 machine with windows XP then transferring them over to the mac for post processing.

Congrats!

There is a SCSI to USB cable to use, try it out and hope it will work.

In fact, i had that learning curve with Epson scanner, first time i bought and first time i scanned the film i decided i want to replace it and buy Nikon or another film dedicated scanner but i couldn't afford that time, but later on i scanned more and get better results day after day, now i am quite happy with it and for large format sheets it is no brainer, sure i still think about another better scanner but i don't shoot film that much to need better higher quality scanner.

Also one day i will start a project about scanning my film with my digital MF, i saw scans by DSLR but still didn't see scans by digital MF, hope this will work better, i did once scan with DSLR and got good result [i scanned once].