fetzler Loc: North West PA

I have some old slides and negatives to scan with my Epson V600. The slides are 35mm and negatives are both 35mm and Medium Format.

I am curious to know what folks think is the Megapixel equivalent of film. On the internet I have seen numbers ranging from 12 - 33MP for 35mm film. I scanned a few Ektachrome slides( I don't know if it is 64 or 160) from the 1980's. I used 3200dpi for the scan resulting in a file that is about 10.9 MP. Viewing on the screen at 1:1 I can readily see the grain structure of the film and suspect that increasing the resolution further would not be a benefit. I realize that the answer to this question may depend of film type and lens quality. My scans certainly are capable of making a nice 8x10 image.

I would like to learn what your experiences. What if I used a a Leica film camera with Panatomic X (ISO 32)?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Below are the settings I used the last time I was using an v600 for scanning. I matched the pixel size to the 12MP EOS XTi I was using back at the time. The professional scanning I have for current 35mm work delivers 16MP JPEGs. Look at adjusting your DPI and pixel values as compared to mine. For my profile name, I was scanning 35mm from a Canon T50 circa early 80s to late 90s.

professional settings

film type - color negative
image type = 48-bit color (1st suggestion above references 24-bit color instead of 48)
expand for fast scanning
resolution - 2400 dpi
doc size - 36 w 24 h mm
target - custom T50_35mm (w 3888 x h 2592 pixels)
unsharp mask = y
grain reduction = y
color restoration = y (low)
backlight correction = n
Dust removal = y / high

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The V600 is decent for a flatbed scanner. I had one. It was a fine print scanner, but I was always frustrated by a lack of detail in my film scans. I learned by reading and then doing that I can make better copies of film originals using a macro lens on a digital camera (dSLR or MILC).

My experience has been that my Micro 4/3 16MP Lumix GH4 with 30mm Lumix macro lens can record all the grain in 35mm Kodachrome 64, and all the grain of the 35mm black-and-white films I've used. If that's the case, I'd say > 16MP sensors are unnecessary for copying 35mm film. An added benefit of using Micro 4/3 is that 1:1 on Micro 4/3 is like 4:1 on 35mm, so I can copy a quarter of a frame of 35mm film! When I move in like that, I'm well past the resolution of the original film.

HOWEVER, for larger film, you might want to use a higher MP count sensor. I would not put a limit on it, BUT, I'd not go out of my way to buy a 50 to 100MP camera and macro lens just to copy film! I'd use what I had. 24 to 47MP is probably fine for all but the very most critical uses.

Short of a Hasselblad Flextite scanner ($25,700), a digital camera and macro lens are probably your best alternative to scan film. Here's the stack you need:

Camera with macro lens
Black, light-shielding "tunnel" of appropriate length
Negative/slide/transparency holder (preferably black)
Diffuser (Milk Plexiglas)
VERY color accurate light source such as this: https://www.fjwestcott.com/daylight-corn-style-led-lamp-23w
Lamp housing (ventilated, matte white lining, with baffle diffusers for even output

If you can find an old, working Bowens Illumitran III with the right lens and T-mount adapter for your camera, that will work, too. I had one back in the early 1980s!

Film needs to be plano-parallel to the sensor. Stop down one or two stops from wide open, or to the known sweet spot of the lens. On my f/2.8 macro, that's f/4 or f/5.6. By f/8 on my camera, diffraction sets in and sharpness is diminished.

If you use Adobe Lightroom 6.14 or Lightroom Classic CC, get the Negative Lab Pro plug-in so you can convert negatives to positives most easily. https://www.negativelabpro.com has all the details. It's well worth $100 if you need to convert a lot of film images to digital files.

eugenehinds

My experience with Ektachrome has been poor, Kodachrome was much better especially with a few years ageing. My old Ektachromes turned a faded yellow green. For aging black and whites fared much better.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

There's your answer. The rule of thumb when scanning film has long been that once you exceed 3000 PPI you're into diminishing returns and all you're really doing is stuffing the scan. As you note there's going to be some minor variation due to film type (Tri-X versus PanF) but the point at which you succeed in recording all the data the film can provide is the 3200 PPI for the scan you just made.

That puts your 35mm film to digital equivalence factor at let's say 12 megapixels which should allow for your fine grain B&W from a Leica.

Joe

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Ektachrome slides fade quickly. That's sad, because I used thousands of feet of Ektachrome professionally, as an AV producer. All those memories are faded.

I have Kodachromes from the late 1960s that look fine. That stuff was PHENOMENAL. Anscochrome was almost as stable.

All my B&W negatives from the same era are pristine, but then I had a good teacher at the local camera store. He taught me to use an archival fix and wash process from the time I was 14. Even my Dad's B&W negs from the 1930s – '50s are fine, and they were souped by various photofinishers.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Thanks for the comments. I do have an Olympus PENF. It is possible to get 20MP or 80MP RAW files from the camera. I also have several macro lenses. I may give it a try. My Ektachrome slides from the 80's are OK color-wise. A bit of adjustment of the saturation and a few other gentile tweaks make these look fine.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

The camera used has almost nothing to do with how you scan.
Get this book, it has it all on scanning slides and negatives:
Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives by Sascha Steinhoff
If you use VueScan software he has "The VueScan Bible" specific to use of that software to scan.
Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Google Play Books, Kobo and the publisher RockyNook all have them as an e-book and some of them have the hard copy edition. Used hard copies are available from some sources.
I have both in an older edition, current editions are available.

BebuLamar

It's difficult to say exactly but in my experience it's about 12MP for 35mm on a fine grain film like Ektar or E100. So a scan about 3200dpi would bring out all the details there are on the film.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I found the older edition in a pdf download.

http://temp.fotoluzr.net/board/doc/Rocky.Nook.VueScan.Bible.Jun.2011.pdf

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You’re probably well equipped to scan any size film.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Being a flatbed scanner, the V600 will not be able to provide resolution of a good film scanner. But good film scanners are expensive and hard to find.

Based on the testing done by ScanDig, the Epson scanners have a maximum optical resolution of 2300 PPI. I set my V750 to scan at 2400 PPI for medium and large format film and get very nice scans. Over 3200 PPI is probably a waste of time.

But ScanDig also reports that the Nikon Coolscan 9000 has a legitimate optical resolution of 4000 PPI. I use it for 35mm and medium format. I can clearly see the difference in resolution vs. the V750.

The bottom line is that my 35mm scans produce a result of between 20 and 23 MP and almost 70 MP for 6x6 cm film from the Coolscan. Because of the 2300 PPI limitation of the V750, I get just over 100 MP from 4x5.

With slower film like my old Kodachrome slides, Velvia 50 and many of the current films of ISO 125 or slower I can get images with no visible grain regardless of format. The exception would be films with extremely high ISO like these:

35mm TMax 3200 scanned on the Coolscan with the grain softened using Neat Image

(Download)

Same roll scanned without fixing the grain with Neat Image

(Download)

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Good work. Good ad for Neat Image, too!

P3200 is sandpaper...

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

It was worth a try. It was a 30 year old roll that I carried with me on several trips overseas so I could persuade the agents to hand check my carryon bag and protect all of my other film from X-rays.

I get a lot better images from HP5 and TMax 400.

therwol Loc: USA

This site provides real world tests of various available scanners. https://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV600Photo.html

The Epson V600, regardless of increasing the resolution, tops out at around 1500 dpi in these tests. The Epson V7xx and V8xx scanners achieve around 2300 dpi. Compare this with the Reflecta ProScan 10T, which achieves 4100 dpi. This situation is typical of flatbed (Epson) versus dedicated film scanners. I'm pretty happy with my Epson V800 for mass scanning, but I too have gotten sharper results with my Nikon D810 coupled with a 55mm f/2.8 macro lens, however my setup over a light box was prone to misalignment and vibration, so I would suggest using an adapter on a lens is a better alternative if you want to photograph slides and/or negatives.

I would suggest that if you're happy with what you're using, don't make it more complicated and use what you have.