[filmscanners] RE: Some findings/thoughts on the Sprintscan 120 (comments verywelcome please)

["Lloyd O'Daniel" <lodaniel@bham.rr.com>]

I have the SS4000, but I have access to a friend's SS120. Your
experience does not mirror his or mine. We both actually prefer Insight
to Silverfast for routine scans, although we primarily scan chromes. The
only negs I've done on his machine are circa 1980 Kodacolor and VPS
645's. In that case, I did raw scans there and did the processing here
with Silverfast HDR or Photoshop. Results were very good. Have you tried
Silverfast?

If/when I can afford it, I might go for a Flextight Photo as well. They
are considered a cut above, and priced accordingly. The only caveats I
have with that scanner are I believe you have to unmount 35mm slides and
cut negs individually or into very short strips. From a film handling
and storing viewpoint for me, that would be a headache.

Lloyd


-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk] On Behalf Of Simon Lamb
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 2:23 AM
To: lodaniel@bham.rr.com
Subject: [filmscanners] Some findings/thoughts on the Sprintscan 120
(comments verywelcome please)


I have had some private communication with Art Entlich regarding the SS
120 and he has been, and is continuing to be, very helpful and
supportive.  I though I would share some of the comments that I made
with the group to see if anyone has any comments to make.  All would be
welcome. ____________________

I have scanned quite a few slides so far and have had varying results.
The film term in Insight for Kodak Porta 160 is way, way off.  The
resulting scan bears absolutely no resemblance to the original neg. or
even the prints, and required so much work in Photoshop to recover it
that I gave up, it just seemed unrecoverable.  I think the film terms in
general within Insight need to be reviewed.  Scanning using the generic
slide terms when using Provia also produced bad results.  The only good
scan I got was using the generic slide term when scanning Kodak E100VS.
As for black and white, after over ten attempts with Scala, Delta 100
and Delta 400 I gave up.  The scans where very dark, the black point
stopped dead on all scans at about 30, as if all the pixels at that end
had been pushed up against a wall.

So, I moved on to using Vuescan.  The Provia scanned well although the
colour accuracy was not too good.  My Nikon Coolscan LS30 produced a
better scan from a colour perspective, although obviously not as
detailed.  The Delta 100 scan was one of the best black and white scans
I had ever seen. Absolutely perfect tonal balance and immense detail.
The Scala was good but lost some detail in the highlights.  The Porta
160VC was detailed but there was a significant amount of white speckling
all over the scan.  I assume from this, and the fact that the Insight
term produced the worst scan imaginable, that the SS 120 just has
difficulty with the Portra emulsion.  A shame, since my LS30 scans it
very well.

So where am I now.  Well, the SS 120  can obviously produce detailed
scans, but I will have to rely on Ed Hamrick's Vuescan to get them,
especially for black and white which is a big proportion of my work.  I
am not really happy about relying on third party software because should
Ed decide to pack it in then I will have a scanner from which it will be
difficult to get the results I need.  The carriers are fiddly.  In many
cases the 6X6 film does not lie perfectly flat in the carrier, and it is
impossible to line up a strip of 35mm unless you leave the carrier
slightly undone.  Most of the scans I did using Insight required a lot
of work in Photoshop to get them close to what I wanted,  and some were
just too far out to be workable.

I think I will return the SS 120 and try the Flextight Photo.  I did
find when comparing it side by side with the SS 120 in the store that
the Photo just about always reproduced the image as near as possible to
the original colour, contrast etc.  The built in film profiles seemed to
be accurate.  It may take twice as long to scan, but I may save that
additional time not having to do so much in Photoshop.

Your comments on my findings would be welcomed.  I know a lot of people
use the SS 120, so either I am doing something wrong or they just put
the effort in to correct images post scanning.

I was using Insight 5.5.1.

Regards.

Simon

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