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Author Topic: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner  (Read 10208 times)

Doug Fisher

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #20 on: October 14, 2015, 12:13:20 pm »

Watch out for Newton Rings if you place the film down on to the Epson adapter's glass surface without fluid mounting and be aware that their fluid mount often can provide a less than ideal film suspension height since they didn't incorporate a height adjustment function.

Doug

Anthony.Ralph

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #21 on: October 14, 2015, 12:22:39 pm »


[..]

If you would like to see the results please visit my web site where I have devoted a special page for my Dad's work.
Good luck
Dave in NJ
LINK:
http://www.modernpictorials.com/alexander_gurtcheff_images_circa.html

Thanks for letting us see these David. Some really nice images. You must be proud of your Dad and you should be proud of yourself too.

Anthony.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #22 on: October 14, 2015, 12:30:15 pm »

Watch out for Newton Rings if you place the film down on to the Epson adapter's glass surface without fluid mounting and be aware that their fluid mount often can provide a less than ideal film suspension height since they didn't incorporate a height adjustment function.

Doug

So in your view does this mean that Epson failed to engineer the distances between the FMA and the scanner lens correctly? Or that unit to unit manufacturing tolerances are too loose to be assured of satisfactory focus from one scanner of the same model to the next? Those questions aside, I think it would have been nice if the V850 and V750 models had been equipped with a lens that could be focused from scanner software, but I have no idea of the feasibility.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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SZRitter

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #23 on: October 14, 2015, 12:55:01 pm »

So in your view does this mean that Epson failed to engineer the distances between the FMA and the scanner lens correctly? Or that unit to unit manufacturing tolerances are too loose to be assured of satisfactory focus from one scanner of the same model to the next? Those questions aside, I think it would have been nice if the V850 and V750 models had been equipped with a lens that could be focused from scanner software, but I have no idea of the feasibility.

In this day and age, I would think feasibility would be almost certain. I think the problem is they have no real competition, so why try? The v600 level has a bit of competition, but the V850 and V700 are pretty much on their lonesome.
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Dave Gurtcheff

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #24 on: October 14, 2015, 02:18:56 pm »

Mark: Thanks  for the clarification. I quote you:
"They should use the Epson Fluid Mount Accessory which sits at a bit of distance above the scanner glass, place the media on that, but instead of fluid mounting place the anti-Newton or Tru-Vue glass above the media, so the sandwich is Epson FMA bottom-media center-anti-Newton glass top. Then place the scanner lid on top of all this and scan."
When I re-read the link to the Anti-Newton Glass Site, it said exactly what you recommended. Great Minds Think Alike!
Dave
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AFairley

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #25 on: October 15, 2015, 12:32:51 pm »

Those who wrote you about placing the media on the scanner platen should be aware that the negatives will not focus correctly doing it this way.

Mark, what about using the Epson 8x10 insert that ships with the scanner and which appears to be designed for an 8x10 transparency to be placed directly on the platen, and place the museum glass on top of the media?  I assume using the 8x10 insert makes the scanner change the plane of focus somehow?
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #26 on: October 15, 2015, 12:36:36 pm »

Mark, what about using the Epson 8x10 insert that ships with the scanner and which appears to be designed for an 8x10 transparency to be placed directly on the platen, and place the museum glass on top of the media?  I assume using the 8x10 insert makes the scanner change the plane of focus somehow?

Yes. Please see reply #17 - the insert you mention is the Fluid Mount Assembly, (except we don't always need the fluid) - the Tru-Vue (or A-N glass) does the job of the fluid in my experience.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Doug Fisher

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #27 on: October 15, 2015, 12:50:03 pm »

>> Or that unit to unit manufacturing tolerances are too loose to be assured of satisfactory focus from one scanner of the same model to the next? <<

Manufacturing tolerances definitely are one factor.  I think their definition of "good enough/acceptable to most users" is another factor.  With the 4990, they promoted it as an 8x10 capable scanner but it only had one fixed lens.  Advising to scan 8x10 off the glass and roll film in a holder suspended at a height above the glass utilizing just one fixed focus lens is a compromise they felt was acceptable.  The dual lens system implemented in both the 7xx and 8xx was an economical attempt to improve things but still is a compromise and has proven to have manufacturing variance issues.  My guess is that Epson felt target customers were not willing to pay for the increased cost of a variable focus system.  They had already engineered one for the 10000XL's system so they had the knowledge and probably the hardware to put it in the 7/8xx series.

Doug

Mark D Segal

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #28 on: October 15, 2015, 02:13:37 pm »

>> Or that unit to unit manufacturing tolerances are too loose to be assured of satisfactory focus from one scanner of the same model to the next? <<

Manufacturing tolerances definitely are one factor.  .............  The dual lens system implemented in both the 7xx and 8xx was an economical attempt to improve things but still is a compromise and has proven to have manufacturing variance issues.  ............
Doug

Doug - when you say "definitely" and "has proven", this indicates to me that you have supporting data or operational experience with numerous units clearly demonstrating this problem. Care to elaborate? This is interesting to know more about.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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AFairley

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #29 on: October 16, 2015, 01:08:07 am »

Yes. Please see reply #17 - the insert you mention is the Fluid Mount Assembly, (except we don't always need the fluid) - the Tru-Vue (or A-N glass) does the job of the fluid in my experience.
No, the insert I'm talking about is not the FMA, but the "film area guide," a piece of black plastic card stock with an 8x10 cutout and a cutout at one end which I think is for pre-scan calibration or something.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #30 on: October 16, 2015, 09:41:23 am »

Alan, I've never used that frame so I can't speak to it from first hand experience, but according to Epson's manual for the V850 (should be the same for the V700/750) one can use it to scan very large media up to 8*10 inches. However, they do recommend using the FMA and fluid mounting for optimal sharpness. 
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Doug Fisher

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #31 on: October 16, 2015, 11:25:35 am »

>>indicates to me that you have supporting data or operational experience with numerous units clearly demonstrating this problem. <<

Yes, a large pool of feedback from customers over the past 10+ years plus the fact Epson applied concepts from my holders to include, among other things, a variable height adjustment function.

Doug

Doug Fisher

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #32 on: October 16, 2015, 11:31:03 am »

The film area guide's main purpose is to allow the scanner to calibrate correctly during the initialization routine.  It doesn't change the focus.  Focus is changed by the selection you make in the software which doesn't do any actual focusing but just tells the scanner which of the two fixed-focus lenses in the optical system to use.  One is supposed to focus at the scanner glass level and one is supposed to focus at the default holder height level.  Depending on your particular scanner, it may or may not focus at that height.

Doug

Mark D Segal

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #33 on: October 16, 2015, 11:56:20 am »

The film area guide's main purpose is to allow the scanner to calibrate correctly during the initialization routine.  It doesn't change the focus.  Focus is changed by the selection you make in the software which doesn't do any actual focusing but just tells the scanner which of the two fixed-focus lenses in the optical system to use.  One is supposed to focus at the scanner glass level and one is supposed to focus at the default holder height level.  Depending on your particular scanner, it may or may not focus at that height.

Doug

So this implies that the selection one makes in the software must be consistent with the media holding arrangement in the scanner, otherwise the wrong lens could be deployed. Though I have not experienced issues with this, presumably because I do (and recommend) select the software frame options consistently with what I have in the scanner.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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AFairley

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #34 on: October 16, 2015, 03:28:39 pm »

The film area guide's main purpose is to allow the scanner to calibrate correctly during the initialization routine.  It doesn't change the focus.  Focus is changed by the selection you make in the software which doesn't do any actual focusing but just tells the scanner which of the two fixed-focus lenses in the optical system to use.  One is supposed to focus at the scanner glass level and one is supposed to focus at the default holder height level.  Depending on your particular scanner, it may or may not focus at that height.

Doug
Thanks Doug, you are correct, which I saw when I finally got off my ass and actually looked at things. 

I did a couple quick and dirty scans of a 4x5 negative at 2400 dpi with my V700, once with the film holder and once with the film area guide with the negative emulsion side down on the platen and a piece of Tru-Vue AR glass on the top.  Results are very close with one side being a little softer with the negative holder.  We are talking about pixel peeping a 10,800 x 8600 px image at 1:1.  I have not tried tweaking the negative holder height, it's just out of the box setting.  Anyone who's interested, here's a zip of jpegs of the files after rough exposure/color/crop matching and flipping the platen version in Lightroom, about 100MB.  http://www.ahfairley.com/misc/Scanner.zip

Anyway, it would seem that except for any improvement from use of fluid between the surfaces, there's no real advantage from the FMA over Mark's "glass on film" because I read that the FMA does not have any height mounting adjustment (well, I guess there would be an advantage if your factory focus setting for the film holder/FMA were spot on but the Platen setting was off; and if the FMA needed to be farther from the platen to get best focus you could always fix that with shimming).  Does the use of fluid per se give improvements, or is it just a flatness thing?
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #35 on: October 16, 2015, 03:33:12 pm »

Does the use of fluid per se give improvements, or is it just a flatness thing?

Mainly flatness, but the fluid is also said to reduce the appearance of image defects in the scan. However, these defects can be eliminated in a more controlled manner with iSRD in SilverFast or other infra-red based algorithms in other applications.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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AFairley

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Re: Scanning Negatives using SilverFast 8 SE and and Epson V750 scanner
« Reply #36 on: October 16, 2015, 03:56:24 pm »

So this implies that the selection one makes in the software must be consistent with the media holding arrangement in the scanner, otherwise the wrong lens could be deployed. Though I have not experienced issues with this, presumably because I do (and recommend) select the software frame options consistently with what I have in the scanner.

Correct.  The Epson Scan software gives 3 choices: Reflective, Film with film area guide, and Film with film holder.  You can choose a mismatch in the software and still do a scan, but if you do, your scans will show noticeably incorrect focus (I just did this to see if the software would detect a mismatch and prevent a scan, but it does not).
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