35mm Continued

I have been experimenting with the 9950F and although my first 35mm scans didn't live up to expectations, I have worked on my Unsharp masking technique in Photoshop and this is the result that I achieved.

First scan	Latest scan

The setting I used was Amount 200, Radius 1.0, Threshold 0. Although this has slightly emphasised the film grain in the blue sky, it has sharpened the cables and other details. The above scans were made at 3200 dpi, which is the resolution that closely matches 35mm film, a higher resolution would not render more detail, just more pixels per lump of film grain. I also scanned the same image in at 4800 dpi, the scan took 2 minutes 10 seconds (2 min 38 for an upright image) and produced a file size of 82.6 mb. This scan size would produce a 27 x 18 inch print 240 dpi. I did print the scanned image to A3+ size and it looks very good, certainly at a normal viewing distance you would not be aware of any softness.

Although I do not want to get into a debate regarding quality of flatbed v film scanner quality, I would like to say that when reviewing scanners or even printers, we tend to over magnify images, i.e. all the assessments get made at 100% magnification or more. This equates to looking at a print at 1:1 or put another way, with your nose stuck to the print, how many of us actually do that? I look at prints from a comfortable viewing distance and will enjoy (or otherwise) the content. The examples I have shown you so far, are displaying some softness, even after the USM has been applied. Looking at image details out of context of the whole picture doesn't give a fair indication of how the overall image looks. I have included a few crops from the image just to show you how the scanner has handled both shadow and highlights. I used the full 4800 dpi resolution to produced 82mb file, this took 1 minute 55 seconds. The original shot was taken with a 20mm Nikkor lens. The printed image looks as good as anything that I have created in a traditional wet chemistry darkroom.

The complete 35mm transparency - Nikon F4 with 20mm Nikkor on Ektachrome
Left edge of image - good shadow detail	Centre image - excellent detail in whites
Building on right - softer than I would have liked	Boat name - again softer than I would like

So far I have just used the 12 up mounted film holder, although this worked without fault I should point out that when you press the Preview button then twelve thumbnails are created. Press the Zoom button and you can view the selected image at a larger size, at the bottom of the screen are a couple of Navigation arrows, use these to move forwards or backwards through the twelve images. To instantly view the entire set of thumbnails again you must press the Undo button, pressing the preview button will re-generate the thumbnails again, this takes about 1 minute. Do you get the feeling I dislike ScanGear software.

Press the Zoom button to view a larger image	Press the Undo button to view the thumbnails
Previews of all twelve images, including mounts	Selections are horizontal by default
Pressing the second icon will ensure the selections match the image orientation

Besides viewing the images in a simulated frame, you can also view the actual transparency mount and decide how you want to crop. By default the automatic selection will assume you have a horizontal image to scan and present each frame with a horizontal selection. However, if you click on the second icon and then execute a new preview, the selections will match the image. To adjust the selection drag the edges to re define. Pressing the Zoom button jumps to an enlargement of the active selection (the one with the marching ants), this makes it a lot easier to accurately crop the image, (it is better to make a slightly larger crop and fine tune it in your imaging application). You can't move to the next image from a Zoomed preview, you have to press the Undo or Preview button, which re generates the thumbnails again.

35mm strip film

Canon have taken a step towards recognising film cameras take more than 24 frames on a roll of film, the 9900F holder held four strips of six exposures. The 9950F has gone one better and can do five strips of six exposures or 30 frames. If you are like me and shot all 36 exposures (six strips of six) then you are out of luck, it's a pity Canon didn't go the whole distance with this holder. This is due to the FAU size, which isn't big enough to accommodate the extra strip.

The strip holder is well thought out, open the hinged guides for each strip and place the film in. There is a small grip at the end which holds the film securely. There are also white markers along the length of the holder, these indicate the spaces between the frames, if the spaces between each frame are not carefully aligned then the selection will miss the image borders.

Previewing a full house of 30 exposures in the boxed thumbnail preview mode took 16 seconds. The display presented three tabs of images, the only problem was on the original test frames 29 and 30 were missing, now there are seven frames missing. I tried several buttons but could not get them to display.

Thumbnail view with three tabs of images	But where are images 29 & 30?
and the other seven images	Love the colour sceme - but not my ideal choice
The missing two images on bottom row	The mystery gets better

After forcing another preview I managed to get all 30 exposures to preview with a selection box, but when I returned to Thumbnail mode only 28 images were previewed. Returning back to film strip preview caused the same two images to become deselected again. The mystery gets better. Take note of the film preview colour.

Now when you select your source as being Monochrome Negative, you would expect the Output setting to be B/W or Grayscale, not so with ScanGear, it selects Colour, look at the variety of colours it can produce on a monochrome scan setting. Sorry Mr Canon, you have a problem with ScanGear.

Conflicting Input & Output settings	Great if you like Sepia pictures
Select Grayscale in Thumbnail view	The image displays properly in Film strip mode

Selecting greyscale in thumbnail view puts things right when you preview in film strip mode, note the greyed out box in film strip preview mode, you can't swap between the Output settings. As I have previously stated, ScanGear is great for entry level scanners, but for a top of the range scanner such as the 9950F it's a poor show.

Another feature in Thumbnail view is the ability to generate an index print. Just click on the purple Index button and an Index print is compiled, this is then sent to your application ready for you to print or file. Index size is 10 x 8 at 150 dpi.

Compiles an Index print ready for you to file or print - minus two images