Film Scanners: Bogus dpi specs?

[sincere]

I keep reading these reviews from websites that do scanner tests and reviews and as it turns out, all of the "more affordable" scanners do not reach anywhere neard the dpi that the manufacturers claim.

Heres a review of the Epson V700 that i wanted to get (skip to the image quality paragraph). It states that the actual dpi the scanner was able to reach was 2300dpi, compared to the 6400 dpi that is indicated by the manufacturer.

Whats your take on this? And while we at it, i do need a affordable scanner

Thanks.

 

[Light Guru]

The Epson v700 is a fine scanner. I believe the 6400pdi option is a software interpolation, not the hardware dpi capability of the scanner.

 

[Ysarex]

I keep reading these reviews from websites that do scanner tests and reviews and as it turns out, all of the "more affordable" scanners do not reach anywhere neard the dpi that the manufacturers claim.

Heres a review of the Epson V700 that i wanted to get (skip to the image quality paragraph). It states that the actual dpi the scanner was able to reach was 2300dpi, compared to the 6400 dpi that is indicated by the manufacturer.

Whats your take on this? And while we at it, i do need a affordable scanner

Thanks.

Yep, 6400 ppi from the Epson V series scanners is pretty silly. Good thing you don't need that. What are you trying to scan?

Joe

 

[sincere]

Yep, 6400 ppi from the Epson V series scanners is pretty silly. Good thing you don't need that. What are you trying to scan?

Joe

Just your average 35mm negatives

 

[Ysarex]

Yep, 6400 ppi from the Epson V series scanners is pretty silly. Good thing you don't need that. What are you trying to scan?

Joe

Just your average 35mm negatives

You don't need 6000 ppi to scan 35mm film. 35mm film doesn't have 6000 ppi worth of data in it. At about 3000 ppi you pretty much top out unless you're scanning something like 25 Kodachrome. The Epson V series do a respectable job with 35mm but you can do better with a dedicated 35mm scanner like a Nikon Coolscan -- not a whole lot better. The trouble now is that scanning is over. We did that and the scan manufacturers have switched over to a nitch market -- a lot less of them and more money. The used market works but you've got to be sure you'll have hardware compatibility and software -- may need to purchase something like Viewscan to run a used scanner.

Joe

 

[Hunter Rob]

Negative scanners are a pretty penny where I live. Five or six years ago there was scanner in the shops, it was a flash in the pan. Cannot remember the name of the scanner now. The other day I set up and photographed some negatives. Very simple, held the negative in between two pieces of glass with a white back ground and a white light. I then colorized the shots in Gimp. The results were not bad. I did it for nostalgic reasons only, some negatives I no longer have the photos for.

 

[wfooshee]

I have a Nikon LS-2000 that I bought from an eBay vendor who refurbishes them. It's great for slides and negatives, and way better than either of my flatbeds with the film adapters. It's simply sharper.

Nikon's software doesn't run under 64-bit Windows so I had to get Vuescan, but Vuescan is the shizzle, and not a negative aspect to the process at all.

After having to use Vuescan, I did lose the ability to run the powered negative adapter, which automatically fed the strip into the scanner. I have to use the holder for the strip now and insert it into the slide scanner. I still scan negs, it's just the automatic feeder won't work.

2700dpi max. A 35mm frame comes out to a little over 3600 pixels by almost 2500.

Seems like the scanner was about $350, including a SCSI card and cable, but the card was PCI, so when i changed computers I had to get a PCI Express SCSI card and a different cable to fit it, which was not exactly free......

I have not tried any of the newer USB or Firewire film scanners, simply because I don't have the $$$$ with which to experiment!