Scanning hell

When I first got a film camera, that was it. No more imaging, no computers. The final image was produced either in my bathroom, or in the lab. I was stunned by the quality it did deliver, If I used it correctly. It was a minolta X-700, by the way, back in 1995.
Years later, just for fun, I got myself an OM-2, which was soon to be followed by an OM-1, OM-4, OM-2s with plenty of lenses and equipment. This little adventure got me into a spiral of equipment and techniques, where one of the biggest questions was: “How to get the pictures into a pc?”
And the obvious answer “Scan ’em…” sprung right up. Yep, scanning, the only way of getting the chemistry imprinted images into ones and zeroes, saving them and processing them on a computer. I soon realized, that this will be no simple a task, as scanners, especially for 135 film, are not a very common thing, if you want some decent quality, that is.

CANON 8800F
My first choice was the Canon 8800F, which is, for the price, very good in multi format scanning. Its weak point of course, is the resolution. With only 1300dpi it is barely a match for 135 film, where the ideal would be around 4000dpi. Pass on this one, after a year of usage…
I just keep it to scan my middle format films.

REFLECTA RPS 7200
Wohooo, sporting a 7200 dpi resolution, this is definitely the right thing to have, at least on the paper. After one gets familiar with all the ups and downs of this little, not so very proffessional scanner, one can say “shit…”
The decent resolution of 3800dpi in real world was definitely enough for the bw film. Color was ok in most of the cases, but when it came to slides, I began to tear my hair out again. If only the dark areas were to be without any information, I could live with that… But the shadows were full of banded green noise, which was not possible to remove, as the luminance of it reached the number 130.
Cool, no slides for me then. But later on, I even discovered, that color film has some strange bands of yellow crap. I thought this would only be the a problem of my machine, but after asking a friend of mine, who has the same model, we discovered, that the reflecta is crap from bottom to top… Full stop.

THE PROBLEM
Lies in a lot of areas. Everything begins with the resolution. Most of flatbed scanners are not good enough for 135 film anyways, so they are a no-go.
Second problem is the color density. The color density allows you to see through darker or lighter areas, especially on slides. Most of the scanners which are on the market are not able to get the whole information out of a slide, that is packed with density range to its own limits.
Thirdly, and this one is pretty important, is how to get useable colors out of slides, or film. This depends on hardware, software and their stability. Yes, sometimes color renditions can shift noticeably.
Fourth point, and not many reviewers count this one in, is the useability, stability, or stupidity of drivers and software, that one or the other manufacturer ships with the device. Some drivers from one unnamed manufacturer are so full of bugs and problems, that they tend to freeze up in the middle of a roll of a 135, or 35mm film. Which leads to mind crushing situations, where you’d rather be dead, than dealing with feeding the same film to the scanner from beginning.

That said, leaves me no other choice than to go for a Hasselblad flextight X5…
And ther I am, saying “shit!!!” once again… And I believe the scanning hell will break loose once again…

–Ventil