stephen.björck
Negative holder for scanner comparison
A first comparison of the betterscanning.com (www.betterscanning.com) negative holder with ANR-glas for Epson v600 and the standard Epson v600 holder with medium format film.
[edit] Follow up test of height adjustment of the holder can be found here:
www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_bjorck/15086102539
How I did: I made two separate scans at 3600 dpi with a Epson V600 and Vuescan of the same negative strip of three pictures taken with a Rolleiflex model F 2.8 Carl Zeiss Planar loaded with a medium format 120 roll of Kodak T-max 400 later developed in Rodinal 1+50 at home. The scans was made all in one take of the full strip and not as individual frames. The negative strip gave an arc of the negative in the Epson holder of about 0,5-1 mm most noticeable in the middle of the middle frame. I used the Epson black plastic card that comes with the holder at the end of the arcing strip to minimize the arcing (the Epson grand solution for arcing). The exposure was locked between scans to give the negative the same exposure during scan and then saved as a Vuescan raw-file. No infrared clean, restore of colors or fading, grain reduction or sharpening was used in Vuescan when scanning. The raw-files were then imported to Photoshop, merged as one image and then received as one image invert image, desaturation and curves for contrast and enhancing the details but no other cleaning up of the negatives or sharpening was done. The image was then resized to a manageable size as seen here in the original resolution
Impression: The betterscanning holder is much easier to work with and is sturdier. I think I will have less problem with more troublesome and arcing negatives but no big quality improvements of scans with rather flat medium format negatives. I don't know what I expected from the holder more than something sturdier than the lame Epson holders. So far the image quality in the scans are not that big of an improvement.
To do: This is my second day with the betterscaning holder and I have used it as it came out of the box. I have not yet tried to optimize the result by tweaking the holder hight to the scanner and only used it with the default 1 mm hight from the scanner.
Conclusion: Do I like the betterscan holder? The answer is yes. Does the holder make much of a image quality improvement in general? No not much with a Epson v600 what I have discovered so far. But will work better with more troublesome and curly negatives. Am I happy with the holder? Yes. Do I think it's worth the price? I'm not sure. Will I keep using it? Definitely yes as almost any holder given a any thought and effort might be better than the standard Epson holder in my book. Will I keep looking after other alternatives? Most likely as I want to use what's best for me but until then I will keep using this betterscanning holder.
Negative holder for scanner comparison
A first comparison of the betterscanning.com (www.betterscanning.com) negative holder with ANR-glas for Epson v600 and the standard Epson v600 holder with medium format film.
[edit] Follow up test of height adjustment of the holder can be found here:
www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_bjorck/15086102539
How I did: I made two separate scans at 3600 dpi with a Epson V600 and Vuescan of the same negative strip of three pictures taken with a Rolleiflex model F 2.8 Carl Zeiss Planar loaded with a medium format 120 roll of Kodak T-max 400 later developed in Rodinal 1+50 at home. The scans was made all in one take of the full strip and not as individual frames. The negative strip gave an arc of the negative in the Epson holder of about 0,5-1 mm most noticeable in the middle of the middle frame. I used the Epson black plastic card that comes with the holder at the end of the arcing strip to minimize the arcing (the Epson grand solution for arcing). The exposure was locked between scans to give the negative the same exposure during scan and then saved as a Vuescan raw-file. No infrared clean, restore of colors or fading, grain reduction or sharpening was used in Vuescan when scanning. The raw-files were then imported to Photoshop, merged as one image and then received as one image invert image, desaturation and curves for contrast and enhancing the details but no other cleaning up of the negatives or sharpening was done. The image was then resized to a manageable size as seen here in the original resolution
Impression: The betterscanning holder is much easier to work with and is sturdier. I think I will have less problem with more troublesome and arcing negatives but no big quality improvements of scans with rather flat medium format negatives. I don't know what I expected from the holder more than something sturdier than the lame Epson holders. So far the image quality in the scans are not that big of an improvement.
To do: This is my second day with the betterscaning holder and I have used it as it came out of the box. I have not yet tried to optimize the result by tweaking the holder hight to the scanner and only used it with the default 1 mm hight from the scanner.
Conclusion: Do I like the betterscan holder? The answer is yes. Does the holder make much of a image quality improvement in general? No not much with a Epson v600 what I have discovered so far. But will work better with more troublesome and curly negatives. Am I happy with the holder? Yes. Do I think it's worth the price? I'm not sure. Will I keep using it? Definitely yes as almost any holder given a any thought and effort might be better than the standard Epson holder in my book. Will I keep looking after other alternatives? Most likely as I want to use what's best for me but until then I will keep using this betterscanning holder.