Nikon 9000 scanning question

[Cindy Flood]

I have a Nikon 9000 on the way. I have had to put a book on my 120 negatives to get them flat enough for my Epson V700 tray. I want to find a solution so that my negatives are perfectly flat in the Nikon 9000. I know Nikon makes a very pricey glass holder solution. I don't want to spend that money if I can get the same results another way. I have found a source for Newton ring-free glass cut to fit the 9000. Does anyone have experience with this? I have read where people use one sheet of Newton ring-free with nothing on the bottom, OR one sheet Newton ring-free and one plain sheet of glass, OR two sheets of Newton ring-free.
Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[FromJapan]

I don't know how much the Nikon holder costs, but have you checked http://scanscience.com?

Kumar

 

[emmawest72]

Cindy,

Good to hear you got a Nikon 9000. It might be worth checking rangefinderforum, I remember having seen a thread once about some anti newton glass.

Good luck with the scanner. And in case you don't like it, i can always keep it for you

Wil

 

[Cindy Flood]

Kumar, I'll check that out. Thank you.

Cindy,

Good to hear you got a Nikon 9000. It might be worth checking rangefinderforum, I remember having seen a thread once about some anti newton glass.

Good luck with the scanner. And in case you don't like it, i can always keep it for you

Wil

William, I'm sure that scanner would be put to better use by you, but I'll give it a try. Thanks for the well-wishes. BTW, I was just getting comfortable with the Epson scanner (with thanks to you), but then the opportunity to buy a 9000 came along and that was my ultimate goal, so I jumped.

 

[apocolibri]

Hi Cindy,
Anti-newton glass generally comes with one issue on these "prosumer" scanners: though it eliminates Newton rings, it often does so at the expense of softening the image slightly due to the fact that the glass has to be etched to eliminate the Newton rings.

If you're looking for the best results possible, film flatness that yields center to edge sharpness is only possible with a glass carrier. It's an added expense, but one that enables you to get the best out of a good scanner. Moisture content in the film is the general cause of Newton rings. Since replacing my anti-newton glass on my Minolta Multi-Pro, I've found that by rewashing transparencies and then letting them air dry for a while in a dry environment minimizes the film curvature. You might try it first on a piece of film you're not going to scan just to see if it works.

If it's transparency film (E6), you should buy a small bottle of E6 stabilizer as you'll wash off the stabilizer that was used when the film was processed (if you rewash your film). A glass carrier avoids all of this.

Best of luck.

 

[viablex1]

just my two cents I would just get the glass carrier , I store my negatives in a printfile for a while it flattens them and those glass holders are worth their wait in gold...

 

[Oren Grad]

I use a glass carrier - I think it's well worth the money.

FWIW, Dante Stella recently posted some thoughts on how to get the most out of the standard 120 glassless carrier:

http://www.dantestella.com/technical/nikonholder.html

I haven't tried his procedure, so I can't say whether it helps.

 

[Cindy Flood]

Thanks everyone. I will probably have to buy the glass carrier. I've gone this far, it doesn't make sense to skimp on the carrier. I think I will try Dante Stellas method with the original carrier first.

 

[viablex1]

I don't blame you, Also what kind of operating system are you running? To my knowledge nikon has still not updated the drivers for 64 bit and that is a real pain!!

 

[Oren Grad]

SilverFast Ai for the 9000 does support 64-bit Windows.

 

[viablex1]

yes that is what I thought personally I like the nikon scan software just fine although I wish someone would design some software that would allow 6X12 to be scanned in one pass

 

[Cindy Flood]

I am on a MAC. I have Vistascan Pro. I have been using Silverfast on my V700, but that license will not work on the 9000.

 

[jamie123]

Cindy,
I got two pieces of glass (one Anti-newton and one plain) from Focal Point (http://tiny.cc/3LoZC) and use them in the standard 120 film holder from which I removed the latches. I haven't had the chance yet to test it thoroughly but I'm positive that it works fairly well.

I do not understand why people say that anti-newton glass softens the image. Yes, it's etched and slightly opaque but the scanner focuses on the film not the glass behind it. You can use plain glass on the emulsion side which won't give newton rings and ANR glass on the other.

 

[Cindy Flood]

Thanks for the info on this option.

Cindy,
I got two pieces of glass (one Anti-newton and one plain) from Focal Point (http://tiny.cc/3LoZC) and use them in the standard 120 film holder from which I removed the latches. I haven't had the chance yet to test it thoroughly but I'm positive that it works fairly well.

I do not understand why people say that anti-newton glass softens the image. Yes, it's etched and slightly opaque but the scanner focuses on the film not the glass behind it. You can use plain glass on the emulsion side which won't give newton rings and ANR glass on the other.

 

[Lars]

Two points here:

- Nothing beats wetmounting IMO, see separate thread somewhere here. AN-glass or antireflective glass helps but you still get artefacts and lower contrast.
- I have a solution for running NikonScan on 64-bit Windows.

-Lars

 

[Cindy Flood]

Two points here:

- Nothing beats wetmounting IMO, see separate thread somewhere here. AN-glass or antireflective glass helps but you still get artefacts and lower contrast.
- I have a solution for running NikonScan on 64-bit Windows.

-Lars

Thanks, Lars. I'll search for that thread.

 

[tetsrfun]

Rather than starting a new thread, I will give this one a little CPR. Well....I also took the plunge and got a 9000ED last week. (Seems that a lot of new ones are suddenly showing up)

I am using SilverfastAI and am presently experimenting with 120 film holders..(the standard one is a PITA, if for no other reason than the latches, which I have removed).
I also just received the "pricey" Nikon and also have ScanScience stuff which I had ordered several years ago for the 750.

AS a starting point and as a general rule, how much image correction, ie. exposure, histogram, color correction, sharpening, etc. should I do with the scanner software and how much with PS, LR3?

Also are the Silverfast HDR and HDRi mode worth using? I can't find a good explanation or "How To" for these scanning modes on Silverfast site.

Steve

 

[Lars]

Rather than starting a new thread, I will give this one a little CPR. Well....I also took the plunge and got a 9000ED last week. (Seems that a lot of new ones are suddenly showing up)

I am using SilverfastAI and am presently experimenting with 120 film holders..(the standard one is a PITA, if for no other reason than the latches, which I have removed).
I also just received the "pricey" Nikon and also have ScanScience stuff which I had ordered several years ago for the 750.

AS a starting point and as a general rule, how much image correction, ie. exposure, histogram, color correction, sharpening, etc. should I do with the scanner software and how much with PS, LR3?

Also are the Silverfast HDR and HDRi mode worth using? I can't find a good explanation or "How To" for these scanning modes on Silverfast site.

Steve

Steve,
I always use NikonScan with my 8000ED - I have a purchased copy of Vuescan and use Silverfast with my drum scanner.

The Nikon scanners support analog gain, which changes exposure in the scanner (simplified explanation) before the analog signal from the sensor is digitized. For this reason it's good to adjust analog gain for dense film. I think Silverfast might support this on Nikon scanners.

Some like to scan for the final appearence, personally I try to get as close a match to the original out of the scanner (just exposure adjustment through analog gain). I also use Digital ICE when the film is compatible - it's saved thousands of hours for me.

From my experience with my drumscanner, Silverfast HDR mode is essentially a raw scan - you can set it up so you get the raw bits from the scanner into your scan. This means linear domain and you absolutely must profile the scanner for this to work. This is what I did for my drum scanner.

Not sure what the "ScanScience stuff" is - anti-Newton glass? The 8000/9000 holders are hopeless in terms of film flatness with MF film so that might be worth trying.

I got a glass carrier (869G?) in which I replaced the bottom glass with anti-reflective coated glass. This really helps against newton rings but does not completely eliminate them. The top glass seems to be AN-glass, but in mine it was mounted the wrong way, with the glossy side down. Weird. In the end I gutted one holder and made a wetmount holder out of it - scans are now as good as they can get. I think I might have mentioned that earlier in this or some other thread.

 

[tetsrfun]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I have had the 9000ED for just a few days so I have a long way to go. The MF holder is nearly worthless and I removed the film holders and converted it to my wet-mount holder. The Nikon "glass" holder arrived this PM and seems to be a big improvement but not quite to the quality of the few wet-mount scans that I have done.

There seem to be so any variables to film processing and scanning that I could end up out in the "weeds" with this stuff. I think that the best approach for now is to select a few films/developers and scanning protocols and learn the basics.

"Not sure what the "ScanScience stuff" is .."

http://www.scanscience.com/index.html

Steve

 

[viablex1]

Two points here:

- Nothing beats wetmounting IMO, see separate thread somewhere here. AN-glass or antireflective glass helps but you still get artefacts and lower contrast.
- I have a solution for running NikonScan on 64-bit Windows.

-Lars

do you have to be a physicist to understand how? I am using windows XP 64 bit, would be a god send..