Lawrence Ripsher

Today someone asked me to elaborate about my reference yesterday to the Canoscan’s 8800F “budget” characteristics … here’s a quick summary and a comparison with a Nikon Coolscan 5000.

As a very quick introduction, the Canoscan is a budget flatbed scanner from Canon. It has a high max DPI resolution and retails at the very low price of somewhere between $160 – $200. When I first got the scanner, I was amazed that it could support such a wide variety of film formats – from 35mm film to MF to regular print scans. For $200 it seemed like a steal. The general consensus on the web is that for the price, it gives great quality. Over time I started becoming a little frustrated with the extremely cheap film holders (they’re made of very flimsy plastic) as well as having to keep it clean. When you use the included software to process the images to reduce noise, etc – scan times take a long time also.

So, as I started to get more serious about film, I decided to get a dedicated high end scanner for my 35mm film. This was the Nikon Coolscan 5000. This scanner, unlike the Canon, is a dedicated 35mm scanner with a CCD, etc. There is no flatbed and so dust is more easily controlled. It also has a number of other high end features such as optional film loaders, etc. It retails at a significantly higher price however of about $1,000. It came with a great reputation and at the price tag, expectations were high.

Here’s a quick comparison of the two.

This was not a formal test so I’m using pretty much default settings for both scanners. I include some post processing too so to note invalidate the test as the process of scanning is notorious for having to tweak and refine (far more so than say shooting in JPG from a DSLR and moderately adjust the white balance).

To kick things off, here’s a quick overview of how images came straight of the scanner. The film here was Fujicolor Pro 160s, a high end colour negative film.

This is the scan that came off the Nikon. No processing or tweaking.

This is the Canon. Again no processing or tweaking, settings pretty much as default

The first thing that should strike you about these differences is that from a basic image quality perspective, they look remarkably similar (in terms of apparent sharpness, etc). The biggest difference however is the colour cast. The Canon produces a much warmer / more red cast across the image. In this case, it actually looks preferable due to the autumn scene but I can recall the specific scene quite clearly from memory and the Nikon is a much truer rendition.

An example of where this cast produces a poorer image is here:

My dog Sora, first with the Nikon. This looks great – I subsequently printed at 13″ x 19″ and the print is great

And now with the Canon

Here, the Canon scan is too warm (although again from a low res image quality perspective, it looks surprisingly good – more on quality later).

Now, if this were a proper fully fledged review, I’d be tweaking the Canon software to achieve a more realistic rendition of the image. However, I’m trying to do this write up without rescanning any old negatives and also, I’m trying to illustrate what can be reasonably expected rather than the ultimate potential of each device. However, it is important to look at what can be done with each image, so here’s an example with another shot on Fujichrome Velvia 100.

First, a shot of the Spaceneedle with the Canon. This is a perfect rendition of the scene at the time – beautiful blacks and yellows extracted from the slide

The same scene with the Canon. Here the reds are present again and the blacks don’t look as punchy

However, all is certainly not lost, using post processing (in this case Photoshop CS4), I applied some corrections using levels, colour balance, etc and within a couple of minutes:

Canon scanned image with processing in Photoshop CS4

There are still differences but this was a quick edit to show that it’s quick and relatively easy to make corrections in post (note that this was in JPG also).

As for resolution, here’s an example, using Fujicolour 160s again. First the Nikon;

Scan using Nikon at full resolution with ICE (dust / scratch removal ON) and noise reduction (GEM) set to 3 (medium – high).

100% crop of the Nikon Scan

Now the Canon:

Scan using Canon at 3200 DPI resolution with default settings.

100% crop of the Canon Scan

How do these compare? Well other than the fact that they’re at different resolutions, I’d say the Canoscan stands are surprisingly well. It’s noticeably softer but has not been sharpened so perceived sharpness could be significantly improved. I’d say it is resolving less detail than the Nikon but then at a fraction of the price you’d expect that (again, with the Nikon, the above scans print extremely well up to 13″ x 19″ which is the largest I can do at home right now).

Overall,  here’s my conclusion.

In the favour of the Canon:

• It’s dirt cheap (sub $200)
• It can scan both 35mm and medium format (120 film) and comes with film adapters
• It can also scan prints
• Resolution is good, and with tweaking (in post production or likely with better scan software), colour can be accurately captured

However, drawbacks are:

• Film holders are horribly flimsy
• It can be difficult to align the film correctly leaving to cropped images, etc
• It’s slow

At the other end of the spectrum, in favour of the Nikon:

• Dedicated 35mm scanner with useful adapters (by default it allows for scanning 6 negatives at a time but that can be increased with an adapter)
• Perfect colour reproduction, even out of the box
• Excellent quality / resolution
• Includes ICE for dust / scratch removal
• Pretty good performance in terms of speed

However, it’s drawbacks:

• Expensive
• Most of the useful adapters are add-on’s which you buy separately
• Not flexible, no MF capability (so you likely end up having to get a flatbed scanner anyway)

Since I started scanning film a few months ago, I’ve been astounded by just how many nuances and variables there are to film whether it be the type of film, the type of developer, its suitability for scanning and about a half dozen other factors. There is no simple answer to the number of questions around scanning and particularly the resulting resolution. What I will say is that the Canoscan is a great choice if any of the following is true:

• You’re on a budget
• Looking to start out with film / home scanning and don’t really know where to start (but willing to experiment and post process)
• Favour flexibility over quality

then the Canoscan remains a great buy. If you want the best for 35mm film however, the Nikon’s still the obvious choice.

So there you go…. A non perfect answer for the non perfect practice of scanning.