Plustek 7200 film scanner - too good to be true?

aggiezach · Jan 7, 2005

WOW! Those look pretty good! I maybe have to invest in one as well!

Zach

Mitica100 · Jan 7, 2005

Thanks guys! I got mine at Tiger Direct in Florida. Here is the page:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1076959&CatId=297

As I mentioned before, these two were quick scans, I gotta play with the thing and learn more about it but it seems to be worth of the $200 I spent on it.

Brently · Jan 7, 2005

I want to see more!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unimaxium · Jan 9, 2005

Wow, awesome! Have you tried negative film with it? How about B&W film? I'm very interested in this. I just got a konicaminolta film scanner for about the same price but I really don't like it. This might make a good replacement.

Mitica100 · Jan 9, 2005

Unimaxium said:
Wow, awesome! Have you tried negative film with it? How about B&W film? I'm very interested in this. I just got a konicaminolta film scanner for about the same price but I really don't like it. This might make a good replacement.

Not yet on both accounts. But getting ready to do it soon. Will definitely let you know.

Digital Matt · Jan 9, 2005

Can you show us some 100% crops? That would be most helpful.

Mitica100 · Jan 10, 2005

Digital Matt said:
Can you show us some 100% crops? That would be most helpful.

Sure thing! Lemme go fetch it. :lol:

Mitica100 · Jan 10, 2005

Unimaxium said:
Wow, awesome! Have you tried negative film with it? How about B&W film? I'm very interested in this. I just got a konicaminolta film scanner for about the same price but I really don't like it. This might make a good replacement.

Color film above. I believe it was Fuji, taken a few good years ago in Wyoming.

Mitica100 · Jan 10, 2005

Mitica100 said:
Digital Matt said:

Can you show us some 100% crops? That would be most helpful.

Click to expand...

Sure thing! Lemme go fetch it.

OK, let me try it here:

Slnce-z-GSI · Feb 21, 2005

Hello,

I just paide for film development & scann of 1 film 13 euro so I immeidately started to think of film scanner. On this page I found that there is a good and rather cheap scanner out there - Plustek 7200. I had a look at lokal stores and it really can be found bellow 200 euro. So. Still having some time I started to search for some scanner reviews and the first I found says something a bit different.
Here is the link (for German speaking people):

http://www.filmscanner.info/PlustekOpticFilm7200.html

And here is a very bad quality translation of myself:
"... the actual optical resolution at the setting of 7200 dpi is cca 2900 dpi...
(see the test image No1 with black lines under given link.)

// BTW How to insert images here???//

... And than they say that the color range (and/or brightness) is not so good and they show a comparison to Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED. The difference is certainly visible..."

What do you think about it ???

...

steve817 · Feb 21, 2005

Whats the largest acceptable print size that would yield? About 16X20? I know acceptable is open to interpretation, I was just trying to get an idea.

Slnce-z-GSI · Feb 22, 2005

steve817 said:
Whats the largest acceptable print size that would yield? About 16X20? I know acceptable is open to interpretation, I was just trying to get an idea.

Look, to get full quality, you need 300 dpi (of the picture, not of the printer - there should be something like 1800dpi). For still acceptable quality you can go to ~ 200dpi. This results for 16x20 in 4980 x 6000 = 30Mpix (or 3200 x 4000 = 12Mpix for 200 dpi). So far so good. Now we have a scanner which makes scanning at resolution 7200 dpi and our scanning region is 35 x 24 mm what is cca 7200 x 5000 = 36Mpix of scanned image. So you can say - I can make even bigger prints than 16x20 !!!
But thats not true basicaly for 2 reasons:
1) Our scanner although it has 7200 dpi resolution holds actualy information equal only to 2900 dpi. What that mean? This means that the information is partialy lost on its way from slide to CCD and also that you can forget about those huge prints. You actualy have only ~ 2900 x 2000 = 6Mpix and for full quality (300dpi) you can make prints ~ 10 x 7 (or ~ 14 x 10 for m200 dpi) to get the full quality.
BUT !!! you made a scan at 7200 dpi and the file size of you picture is somewhere at about 100 - 200MB !!! and it still holds information which is only of ~ 15 - 30MB. This is the point!

2) None film has actualy so fine grain to make reasonable scan at 7200 anyhow (I would like to see some pixel-to-pixel scanned slide at this resolution - you have to be able to count the grain distribution). One friend of mine told me that accirding to his experience, the film (35x24mm) is equal os ~ 5 - 7 efective Mpixels. He got this from the fact that it is really not easy to get an enlargement of A4 size without any wisible grain (ths of course much depends on the film and shooting conditions).
You can also make a small computation. If you expect that resolution of 7200 dpi should result into smooth images - it menas that all grains on the slide are not bigger as ~ 3.5 micrometer and actualy thay would have to be even smaller to have the scan really smooth. If you check the booklet of the fujifilm about their concrete films you will find out that the grain has some size distribution (I do not remeber the numbers now - I can have a look for tomorrow) but be sure that large part of th grains are bigger than this.

Anyhow I would like to hear some few words about the possible enlargements and size of scans from some experienced photographer as my own experience is very small. So, please - if there is anyone out there - let us know. Maybee I got it wrong.
...

Hm, yes all of you are right - it is not fair to compare a scanner for 200 $ to the one which costs 1200 $ anyhow but I wanted to bring up the point that this wonderfull machine has also some faws. Maybee you should also check something from Microtek or some other companies before buying.

M..

Slnce-z-GSI · Feb 23, 2005

Slnce-z-GSI said:
.... Now we have a scanner which makes scanning at resolution 7200 dpi and our scanning region is 35 x 24 mm what is cca 7200 x 5000 = 36Mpix of scanned image. So you can say - I can make even bigger prints than 16x20 !!! ...

Oh, excuse me, I did one BIG error. I considered one inch as ~3.5 cm. Actualy on inch is ~ 2.5 cm (for an european guy

), so all tohose numbers will be larger by a factor 1.4. so for the case of 7200 dpi 35x24 is not 7200x5000 but rather 10000x7000 = ~ 70Mpix...

Kodan_Txips · Mar 2, 2005

http://www.compshopper.co.uk/shopper/reviews/63663/plustek-opticfilm-7200.html

This and a couple of other magazines in the UK had reservations about it - one mag suggested that unless you do a LOT of neg or slide scans, you would be better off with a good scanner with a film/transparency adapter.

Considering the price of this, I will still save up to buy an Epson 2580 first. Half the price, and it does print scans too.

Shutterbug · Mar 2, 2005

Oh MAN.

I have like several thousand slides and a two inch binder full of neg sheets, and I want to DIGITIZE THEM! THis is like a godsent... Something I can afford ;_;

Have you tried this with B&W yet? I have tons of HP5+ and TMAX100 that I hate leaving in binder that I'd love to start working with

Not to mention some negs that aren't good enough to be used in a Darkroom but could be slightly fixed in Photoshop