Epson 4990

This is the page where we start to find out just how capable this scanner is. I know there will be many readers who are eager to know how well this scanner performs with film. I have a busy day ahead so let's get on with it.

The 4990 comes complete with four film holders; 35mm strip holder - four strips of 6 exposures, 35mm mounted slide holder - eight slides, 120 film holder - three apertures of 6 x 12 cm and a 5x4 holder - two sheets. In construction the holders are identical to those supplied with the 4870, the markings are slightly different, but nothing that would make any difference to the actual scanning.

The biggest difference on the 4990 is the increased size in the area that the scanner can now cover. The actual readable area is 144 x 231mm with the film holders or 203 x 254mm with the film area guide. This means the scanner will cover film formats up to 10x8. I will try a 10x8 shortly.

The holders are made of rigid plastic, with the exception of the Film Area guide, this is made from a flexible polythene material, which if not handled well could easily become damaged. On the whole the films in each of the holders seems to be held flat, I will include some tests to see if this is the case. The major advantage the 4990 has over the 4870, and indeed the Canon 9950F, is in its ability to scan 10x8 sheet film. I have just scanned in a sheet and the light is very even right across the entire sheet, including at the extreme corners and edges. Of course I know that 10x8 film may not be the format for 99% of readers, but the implication is that you can scan an entire 36 exposure film and produce a contact sheet. I will have a go at this later in the review - I have to first devise a method of keeping the negatives in place. I will return to large format film scanning later, but just as a taster, the image above is a photograph I took of the massed bands of the brigade of guards. I used 10x8 to allow for a long print (6' x 10 inches) I scanned just the thin red line at 2400dpi (Sousa wrote a mach with the same name), to produce a 179mb file. The entire sheet can be scanned without cropping the edges. The above sample is a 100% view of a small area. It does need some USM applied

35mm

I am going to start by using an image that has been used for Canon 9950F review. This shot was taken with a 20mm Nikkor lens on Ektachrome at Canada place in Vancouver.


Original shot - Nikon F, 20mm Nikkor, Ektachrome

Epson 4990	Canon 9950F

Looking at the first film scan, both made at 3200 dpi, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the Epson 4990 and the Canon 9950F. The colours on the Epson scan are much livelier, but this is not a big issue as you could match colours in an imaging application. The Epson scan is a tweak sharper. I will apply some USM to see if I can improve on both scans.


Epson 4990 + USM	Canon 9950F + USM

Looking at the two images again after UnSharpMasking (USM) has been applied. Both scans seem to be equal to each other. This test has not proved that one unit is better than the other, I invite you to study the results above and make up your own mind. The one thing that does cause me some concern, is that this scanner, and for that matter the Epson 3200, 4870 and Canon 9950F all need a heavy dose of USM in order to bring the image to an acceptable sharpness. This is nothing new in digital imaging, most scanners from a high end drum scanner downwards need a certain amount of USM applied. Even with a digital camera this is often applied to the image before you see it. I am going to try a techniques to see if I can find the "sweet spot" for the ultimate focus on this scanner.


1	2

3	4

The following methods were used for the above scans. - No USM has been applied to any scan

Mounted transparency "Agfa CS mount"
Transparency unmounted and placed in the film strip holder
Unmounted transparency placed directly on glass
Mounted transparency"GePe mount"

Looking at the full scans it would seem that the first scan has produced the sharpest result. Number 2 is the weakest scan, but looking at the single slide in the film holder it didn't seem to be held very flat. I will look at the sharpness using a strip off film later. Number 3 which I expected to yield the best result is not as sharp as No.1, I can only conclude that the optimum focus is approx 1mm above the glass. Number 4 was a Gepe mount which is slightly thicker than the Agfa CS mount. I tried raising the film by half a millimeter steps, but this produced progressively soft images. The bottom line is to use thin mounts in the slide film holder and resort to good USM masking techniques.

working on page 8 right now, keep checking throughout the day it will be updated (press F5 key)