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Barry Watzman · Guest

I have a project that involves scanning a large number of 35mm negatives
(high hundreds to perhaps as many as several thousand).

One of the things I'm considering is buying a film scanner. The plan
would be to buy it, do the job, and resell it on E-Bay. Effectively
"renting" it for the difference between what I pay and what I get for it.

I looked at the Nikon 5000, but I'm put off by the price ($900 to $1,100).

To those of you who are knowledgeable about this subject, what about the
Nikon LS-50? This is half the cost of the 5000. What are the relative
benefits and drawbacks?

Also, anyone know anything about "ScanCafe"? They apparently do
scanning for 19 cents per slide, 4000 dpi, digital ICE and you only have
to actually buy the "good" images after looking at previews online.
However, turnaround is 6 weeks.

[FWIW, Sam's Club does them for 18 cents, but the resolution is low
(1800 x 1200, about 2 megapixels) and they don't have digital ICE or any
other enhancement ... it's a bare-bones straight scan. But the quality
is not bad within those limitations (although 2MP is a pretty severe
limitation), the turnaround is fast (24 hours for 100 images) and the
original media is never more than an hour from my home).]

Comments welcome.

Chuck Tribolet · Guest

What is the current state of the negatives (strips of 36, strips of 5 or 6,
something else)?

You REALLY want a scanner that will do however many negs are are
physically together without manual intervention.

What is your desired end result quality? Pixel dimensions? bit depth?

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message news:4660e1ba$0$15002$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

- · Guest

Since you have so many images to scan, the 5000 may be worth the cost over
the Nikon V since the 5000 can accept things like the bulk slide adapter. I
believe the 5000 also scans a bit faster than the V (double check that).
Your time is worth something so the extra cost of the V might pay for itself
in terms of time.

Doug
--
www.BetterScanning.com - Custom Film Holders and Accessories for Agfa,
Microtek and Epson Scanners

Barry Watzman · Guest

Unfortunately, the negatives are cut into strips of from two to six
images each (mostly 4 and 5 images).

The desired result is about 6 megapixels, 24 bit (or greater) color depth.

Chuck Tribolet wrote:

Barry Watzman · Guest

I'm not convinced that a scanner that scans a few seconds (even 10-20
seconds) faster will really impact the total job time. Unfortunately,
the negatives are unmounted and in small strips (2 to 6 images, but
mostly 4 and 5 images per strip), so there will be significant handling
time ... handling and setup time will probably exceed the actual
scanning time.

- wrote:

Talker · Guest

On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:18:54 -0400, Barry Watzman
<WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote:

Happy Traveler · Guest

No scanner (with the possible exception of ultra-expensive drum types) comes
anywhere near Dmax of 4.8 ( 64,000:1). At least not in any conventional
sense of defining this number. The 4.8 that you see for the LS-5000 is
simply another way of stating that its A/D has 16 bits (4.8=16*log2). There
is a long way from the number of bits coming out of the A/D to actual
dynamic range. This ignores the limitations of the optics, light source,
sensor, etc, etc. Even ignores the effective resolution of the A/D itself,
which would always be less than the number of bits... The issue has been
discussed at length back in the time when scanning film was the primary
method of obtaining good quality digital images.
To Nikon's credit, this misleading method has been adapted by most
manufacturers. Don't know about Pacific Image, but took at look at the specs
for their 16-bit 3650 model, and it claims Dmax of 3.8. So apparently their
method is somewhat more honest, making direct comparison impossible. Of
course, there is a lot more to a scanner than dynamic range...

As for the O/P's question of the LS-5000 vs. the LS-V (guess that's what he
meant by LS-50), these are quite similar. Some claimed that it's the same
instrument, with the LS-V intentionally de-featured in firmware. The main
differences:
* 16 bits A/D vs. 14 (not sure how meaningful this actually is; probably not
much)
* Ability to perform multiple scans and average the result. This will reduce
noise in dark areas, effectively increasing dynamic range at the cost of
significantly slowing down the process. That's probably what those stated 16
bits are really for. To take full advantage you need to scan 16 times,
perhaps making a lunch break out of scanning a single frame. A 4x scan is
more practical and will provide up to a factor of 2 improvement (Dmax
advantage of 0.3). I have the LS-5000 and rarely use this mode, except for
Kodachrome or attempting to save dense (overexposed) negatives.
* Double-line scanning. Improves speed. The actual advantage is less than
two and depends on a lot of other factors, including the computer
performance.

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Alan Browne · Guest

Barry Watzman wrote:

Alan Browne · Guest

Happy Traveler wrote:

Barry Watzman · Guest

What use(s) may be made of the images by me and my descendants over the
next century is not known at this time. The point is general purpose
conversion of an entire collection of photographs from film media to
electronic. Any reasonable future use should be supported.

Talker wrote:

Happy Traveler · Guest

I hate to reopen that old can of worms, but it's so hard to resist...

Your throwing '1.5 bits to analog noise' may be a good guess for the quality
of the A/D, though some new designs are doing better these days. In general,
without knowing the specific component and how it's used, one cannot really
tell. Bits are chip, good performance is not, goes the saying... But you are
taking this too far, assuming that the A/D is the limiting component. I
don't know enough about scanner design to tell that. Seems to me that CCD
noise is a major, if not the dominant factor. That's why fancy drum scanners
still use photomultiplier sensors. And there are many other noise sources to
consider, especially if one is looking for high performance.

A simple way of reducing noise, useful for slide film, is to average
multiple passes. The LS-5000 can do it directly, and programs like Vuescan
can pull this trick out of scanners that don't provide the feature, with
success depending on the mechanical repeatability of the instrument design.
Ideally, dynamic range will improve by the square root of the number of
passes, so you get a Dmax improvement of 0.3 for four passes, 0.45 for eight
passes, etc. Ultimately other factors (like pattern noise, nonlinearity,
stability over time, etc) take over, so more than 16 is not practical.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Browne" <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca>

Happy Traveler · Guest

Bits are cheap, not chip... Just wanted to correct this typo, before the
spelling police get me.

"Happy Traveler" <happy_traveler@abc.net> wrote in message
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....

Alan Browne · Guest

Happy Traveler wrote:

Barry Watzman · Guest

Don't tell other people how to post. It's insufferably ruder. And
contrary to what you might think, you are neither the God nor the Chief
of Police of the Internet.

Alan Browne wrote:

Happy Traveler · Guest

Looks like you missed my point about the A/D being just one element in the
chain, and not necessarily the critical one. In a way of example, take a
cheap, low quality scanner with an unstable light source, lousy optics and
noisy CCD. Then replace its 10-bit A/D with a 16-bit converter. Do you think
that you will see much improvement?

But hey, it's an old story, almost irrelevant in the days of digital
cameras. Things get a lot more interesting when you have a fraction of a
second instead of minutes to create and digitize an image.

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