I wanted to share a few of my tips with this scanner.
If you have scanned BW negative film you have probably noticed the loss of corner sharpness. This is a result of the galssless filmholder design, it works well with flat lab-processed film but is not very good with homeprocessed unflat film.
My solution was to remake the included filmholder, to put glass over each scanning frame. Buy a few GEPE slide frames with anti-newton glass. Then take out the glass from the frames. Before you glue the glass to the "down-side" of the "upper filmholder", you must use some tool to make the corders softer, otherwise they may scratch the film. GEPE AN-glass has a blank and a matte side. The blank side should face the filmbase and the matte side shoud be upwards. You only need to soften the edges of the blank side facing the film. Be careful not to put glue one the visible area, only little glue is needed on the edges.
Now your previously unsharp scan will be sharper and have the same grain structure over the surface. This is importnant when using a analysing noisereduction program such as NoiseNinja.
(note: the filmholder will be thicker but my scanner seem accept this. I also tried GEPE glass in 6x6 format but then the holder got too think and the scanner could not eat it)
Another improvement is the ability to scan medium format 645 film. You must scan the film four times and stich the frames togeather. But it is possible to get a decent 645 scan out of the scanner! For me it takes about 12 minutes at 4000ppi including the stitching process.
I would love a Axtixscan 120tf but cannot afford it right now.
Use a tool (a sharp knife for example) to remove some of film stops. Then you will be able to place a 645 frame in the filmholder. Scan and move around the film. I recommend making one prescan in ScanWizard and then save the setting for the other frames. You only have to make one prescan. I only need to eject the filmholder one time for alignment, not three. Figure out how!
If you scan negative film in Scanwizard, scan it as positive film and invert. This will improve shadow detail, which otherwise is poor on underexposed film. Silverfast is better at scanning underexposed BW negative film, I think. So, Im using Silverfast for BW film and ScanWizard for positive film (in LCH mode). Great!
Do not use multisampling, it is not needed with this scanner.
Autofocus takes time but is needed at 4000ppi.
Good luck!
