It is hard to say if you are delusional or not since you have failed to give us enough data to say if the two are comparable or if they are apples and oranges. You say you were comparing 400o dpi scans on a Nikon 8000 film scanner of 6x6 negatives (were the ones used for the comparison color or black and white negatives?) with copy negatives (the exact same 6x6 negatives as used with the scanner?) shot with a Canon 5D-II (22 megapixel) using a Canon 50mm macro lens at f11. You then go on to tell us that you printed the scan and copy negatives as 50"x50" 300 dpi B&W prints with an Epson 3800 inkjet printer. (The 300 dpi resolution is really low for a final printed output resolution; do you mean that to be 300 ppi for the file's final input resolution - e.g., the resolution of the file in pixels per inch that was sent to the printer to be printed?)
The above is ambiguous and vague enough to hinder any sort of a proper evaluation of your findings based on what you have written. You also have not said how they - in each sample - were converted to B&W from color if we are talking of color negatives and/or how - in each sample - they were reversed from negative images to positive images in the case of either B&W or Color (but especially color). This can impact on sharpness and the correctness of color rendering or black and white tonality especially if they were not converted and/or reversed using the same process and method. If you are talking about translating the raw scanner and camera generated files into 300 ppi standard format image files, in the case of both the scanner and the camera, what interpolation methods were used to in each case to generate the standard format files into 300 ppi image files and where was it accomplished (i.e., the scanner and camera software or in an image editing program) prior to sending the files to the printer whose driver printed them at the 720, 1440, or 2880 dpi printing resolution that characterized the printed image? If you are saying that he final printed image had a printed final output resolution of 300 dpi, what was the resolution of the image files in ppi that were exported to the printer for printing and how was that file resolution arrived at? These things are important when attempting an evaluation and that the same methods of interpolation and amounts of interpolation be used in all cases is important for comparisons. -----Original Message----- From: filmscanners_ow...@halftone.co.uk [mailto:filmscanners_ow...@halftone.co.uk] On Behalf Of Norm Carver Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 4:02 PM To: lau...@advancenet.net Subject: [filmscanners] film scanning: new option Since I have hundreds of 6x6 negs and color to digitize and am frustated by the slowness of film scanners in general I have recently begun copying negs with my new Canon 5D-II (22 meg). After some comparitive tests with 4000dpi scans on the Nikon 8000 I can say the follwing: 1. B&W 300dpi prints on Epson 3800 enlarged to equal 50" x 50" are indistinguishable 2. The copies tend to be sharper corner to corner than scans (used Canon 50mm macro @ f11) 3. The time is cut to at least 1/3 (there is a slght more batch processing time going from RAW to Mon 4. There is no doubt the scans have more data and I would go that way for difficult images or huge prints. So am I delusional according died-in-the-wool scanners? Norm Carver nfcar...@iserv.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Unsubscribe by mail to listser...@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to listser...@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
