[lm28469]

The best flatbed you can get as a consumer (Epson v850) is about as good as a mid range dedicated scanner (plustek), and it costs 2 or 3 times more.

A proper camera based setup is both faster and better in term of output. I scan my own film with a 40 mpx debayered camera and get at least 4 times the effective resolution of my v850

[yzydserd]

I have hundreds of old rolls of B&W film I want to scan. I was looking at the v850 which seems to have a 6400dpi resolution which is ~60MP for 35mm film. Or a plustek opticfilm. Can you clarify what sort of camera based rig at a similar price point would be superior? Where’s the 4x resolution come in?

[lm28469]

You can scan a 35mm frame at 1200 billion megapixel it doesn't mean you get 1200 billion megapixel of usable data

Most scanners top out at 60% of their claimed resolution, which means scanning at 6400dpi gives you something closer to 3200dpi, for the v850 it's a bit worse actually

https://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV850Pro.html

> According to our resolution chart, this equals an effective resolution of about 2300 ppi

I have side by side of cms20 film zoomed in at 100% that show a much much much better level of details on my camera based setup than on the Epson v850 and plustek 8100.

> Can you clarify what sort of camera based rig at a similar price point would be superior?

Any modern FF camera (>2012) with any semi decent macro lens (nikkor 55 3.5) will produce better results, even if marginally, while being much faster. You can get a Sony a7rII and a macro lens for less than a v850, then you need a light source (led panel, laptop screen, ebook screen), two panes of glass to hold the film flat and some kind of tube to hold the camera on top of the negative. If you're on a budget you could probably make it work for half of the cost of a v850

It takes less space and you can use it as a camera, while the scanner is just a scanner

[flipthefrog]

While a lot of scanners advertise crazy high resolutions, this is often just marketing mumbo jumbo. They only resolve details at half or a quarter of the claimed resolution. See www.filmscanner.info for tests of the resolution on many scanners. My Nikon CoolScan scans at 4000 dpi and has an insanely sharp lens, which is enough to resolve the grain on most 35mm film stocks. Unless you shoot a lot of 50 iso and lower, thats more than enough

[gsich]

See also this: https://www.film4ever.info/vtt for a affordable test target.

[qingcharles]

Can you tell us more about your setup?

I used to scan film with a Hasselblad X5, but I seemed to be hitting the level of grain with that beast.

[lm28469]

I'm using a monochrome Leica, with a lens harvested from a Minolta dimage 5400 scanner, the rest is a very crude diy setup, a pvc tube to hold the camera, two panes of glass, a laptop screen as backlight

https://www.closeuphotography.com/minolta-dimage-scan-elite-...

[qingcharles]

That's some fantastic information, thank you so much! I'm always interested in what can be done to improve the scans of old film. I think we're coming really close to perfection now. I'm especially stoked with how AI, when used very judiciously, can perform dust and scratch removal miracles.