Scanner Degradation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Fox
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Mike Fox

I have the Nikon Coolscan 5000. Is there any test to see if it is
putting out degraded images. I'm not getting the results I wanted,
but I can't tell if it's the scanner or the slides.

Thanks

Mike
 
Mike said:
I have the Nikon Coolscan 5000. Is there any test to see if it is
putting out degraded images. I'm not getting the results I wanted,
but I can't tell if it's the scanner or the slides.
Click to expand...

What is the problem you're seeing?
Or more appropriately: what was your expectation?
 
Mike said:
I have the Nikon Coolscan 5000. Is there any test to see if it is
putting out degraded images. I'm not getting the results I wanted,
but I can't tell if it's the scanner or the slides.

Thanks

Mike
Click to expand...

If it is sharpness that you are not seeming to get from your scans you
can turn off
any ICE and look to see if any of the dust is imaged sharp.

It is not easy to take a photo that will look anywhere near sharp when
scanned at 4000 pp.

Scott
 
I have the Nikon Coolscan 5000. Is there any test to see if it is
putting out degraded images. I'm not getting the results I wanted,
but I can't tell if it's the scanner or the slides.

Thanks

Mike
Click to expand...
If you have an old style double edged razor blade you could
tape in in the slide opening and scan it. The edge makes a
good target. If you tape it in at a 45 degree angle you can
see if sharpness varies over the frame.

Remember all scans need some degree of unsharp masking to
compensate for losses in the scan process. This is in addition
to other sharpening to adjust for the output media.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "degraded" but if you scan a know
reference like a Wolf Faust IT8 target and post crops here we can tell
you it it's normal for a LS-5000 or not.
 
There are not as sharp as I expected, so I ran an experiment. I have
an inexpensive Epson flat-bed scanner that scans up to 3200 ppi. At
3200 ppi, I scanned a very small tower (about 1/8 inch in the slide)
in a visibily sharp slide in both with ICE off. Except for some
slight color variation, they look almost the same side by side at the
enlargement. The pixelization and sharpness are very similar.
 
Mike said:
There are not as sharp as I expected, so I ran an experiment. I have
an inexpensive Epson flat-bed scanner that scans up to 3200 ppi. At
3200 ppi, I scanned a very small tower (about 1/8 inch in the slide)
in a visibily sharp slide in both with ICE off. Except for some
slight color variation, they look almost the same side by side at the
enlargement. The pixelization and sharpness are very similar.
Click to expand...

The 5000 should produce a much sharper scan then the flat bed, have you
ever gotten a sharp scan from the 5000? The only think I can think of
is that for some reason the 5000 is not focusing, if this is the case
the dust should look just as soft as the slide does in the scan.

Scott
 
Scott said:
The 5000 should produce a much sharper scan then the flat bed, have you
ever gotten a sharp scan from the 5000? The only think I can think of
is that for some reason the 5000 is not focusing, if this is the case
the dust should look just as soft as the slide does in the scan.
Click to expand...

Agreed 100%: the 5K should be a LOT sharper image than a
flatbed, something is wrong with the focusing.
Maybe he got the slide in a glass mount and the 5000
is focusing on the glass rather than the film?
 
Good idea! I'll do the same experitment with a dirty slide and see
what happens.

Thanks
 
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