The discussion about Walt's scanner, sharpness, and grain reminds me of
problems I had with my former Nikon scanner that now lives with Ag
Schnozz. I would often get scans that were very sharp in the center and
soft at the edges. It was easy to tell because the grain was so sharp
at the center and not elsewhere. I discussed this with the technical
folks at Nikon and they said SOL because the scanner has no DOF, so if
it's not perfectly flat (what piece of film is?), it will be sharp where
it focuses and not where the film curls a little bit. I finally got
some good scans with this machine when Vuescan, in one of its myriad
beta versions, came with a way you could force the scanner to move the
focus point away from the center. This gave me a compromise between the
hardness at the center and softness at the sides. Not the same as DOF,
but it improved my scans. So one thing I would investigate if I had
manual control of focus is to be certain that what I gain in sharpness
in one part of the film I don't lose elsewhere. How is it with the
Minolta?
Speaking of Vuescan, I don't use it anymore. Nothing against it, but I
forced myself to learn to use Silverfast, which came bundled with my
Polaroid SS4000 many moons ago. I just purchased my second upgrade of
the software, v.6.0. After calibrating to the IT8 target last night, my
first scans were almost scarily different from what I had been getting
before with v.5.5. I never could get a good calibration to the IT8
target with that version (reds came out orange). This time it looks
like the real deal.
Joel W.
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