Canon 9900F review

The Canon 9900F scanner

Page 8.

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Size does matter - Bigger is Better

In the Epson 3200 review I showed a watch that had been drum scanned next to scans made with the 3200 flatbed. I have repeated the same test here to give you an idea of how this scanner performs next to its competition.


Drum Scan	Canon 9900F Scan	Epson 3200 Scan

Drum Scan	Canon Scan with USM	Epson Scan with USM

Looking at the above results, the Canon is starting to look good, sharpness is well under control, proving this scanner clearly likes bigger images. The Canon adds extra contrast to the image which is fine in the dark areas, but plays havoc with highlights. I don't want to mislead any of you, the result above took quite a bit of extra work in Photoshop in order to achieve a neutral colour. I tried several times to get a perfect colour in ScanGear, but gave up. The final scan was made with no colour correction and the Preferences in Colour Settings was set to None. The USM was Canon's own and I also used the Dust & Scratch removal filter set to Normal. Putting things into perspective, if you look at the size of the number VI and think how big a wrist watch actually is, then we are seeing some remarkable scans. The original image was shot on a Mamiya RZ 67 using Ektachrome film.

Colour

The one thing that is really letting this scanner down, is the ScanGear scanning software. I have spent the last hour trying to get the scanner to produce decent colours on the image below. I have failed with this despite trying every permutation. See for yourself.


Colour Settings set to None	Colour Settings set to Auto

Corrections made via Curves in ScanGear	1st image corrected in Photoshop

The Canon software failed to give a decent colour despite many tries, there is a very strong magenta cast in the scans. The first image despite being flat, actually holds enough information to produce an excellent quality picture. The Auto image has boosted the contrast and added too much red. My corrections with the ScanGear curves did little to improve the image. The final picture was made from the first scan and corrected in Photoshop.
Take note Canon, your scanning software needs replacing!

The above picture was shot on a 6x6 camera. The scanned image produced a 143.06mb file at 3200 dpi and took 9 minutes 48 seconds to complete.

On the left is a 100% magnification, 250 x 250 pixel section. As you can see, the Canon can produce excellent quality from larger film formats. If the entire image was printed at 300 dpi it would be a 24 x 24 inch print. You probably would not be looking at it this close either.

Things are never Black & White

I have used transparency film for all of my sample scans so far, so lets have a look and see what can be done from negative materials. For my sample shot I have used a 5x4 negative of "Willie Lotts Cottage" (as previously seen in Mr John Constables "Haywain"). The overall Greyscale is very good with a good range of tones. But what on earth is happening to the 100% magnifications? It would appear that the Canon has taken artistic licence and giving us its own impressionistic interpretation of the details. I would have willingly spent hours trying to get this effect in Photoshop, but I would rather be the one that chooses an interpretation.


The Haywain without the horse and cart

Artistic licence courtesy of ScanGear - Monet next week.

Just in case I made a simple error at this late hour, I have scanned another BW negative to see if the effect repeats itself. It did! For an experiment I have scanned the BW negative as a Colour transparency and inverted it in Photoshop, just to see if it was ScanGears Greyscale conversion that was causing the problem - it is!



Very painterly	BW scanned as a transparency

How odd!