How good can I expect a Filscan35 to be?

[plakra]

I bought one of these units 'new' on Ebay. I am trying Silverfast but find the images a little soft in terms of sharpness. The resolution of 1800 dpi I thought should give me equivalent performance to a 4Mp camera which I have. In practise the Filmscan35 seems a long way short of this. I have tried with negs and slides. Looking through a magnifying glass the frames are a lot sharper than they appear in the scans.

[LSI_Noack]

Dear plakra

unfortunately the equivalence of a 4 megapixels digital camera shot vs. 1800 DPI scanned film image is rather a theoretical one.
Matter of factly, quality of 4MP DC shots will differ greatly in sharpness, contrast, saturation and further features with each respective camera model and its inherent virtues and flaws as will 1800 DPI 35mm scans with each other scanner model. Hope this helps a bit as an explanation on the underlying presumption, which is somewhat tricky, if you look closer at it.

You might want to have a look at these comparative scans done with a Microtek Filmscan 35, Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II Negativ, and Acer ScanWit 2720S.

Best regards
Sonny Noack
- Manager Technical Support, LaserSoft Imaging AG -

[plakra]

Thanks for the response Sonny.

Must say the results on the web link you sent me are better than I am getting but still not that good. I think I will eBay it and get a better one.

By the way - I was comparing with a Kodak DX7440 camera (4.2MP)which gives results orders of magnitude better than the Filmscan35. Wish I had researched more before buying it. The only review I found at the time said it was much better with Silverleaf!

[LSI_Noack]

Dear plakra

it probably is better with SilverFast than with Cyberview. However, it can't hurt to buy an even better scanner, too, if I may say so.

Best regards
Sonny