Scanning XPan - Tested

berci · 04-26-2005

Hey Guys/Gals with GAS and without GAS,

No need to buy a medium format or a flatbed scanner to scan your XPan slides.

The Minolta Scan Dual IV does the job perfectly, you have to scan the panoramic image in two halves and then stitch them together (Photoshop Elements - Photomerge).

Works well.

Here is an example, a friend of mine in the Bukk Mountains (Hills) in Hungary.

The original is on Fuji Sensia 100.

Nikon Bob · 04-26-2005

Looks good to me. I often wondered if that would work with the X-pan. as I have had decent luck with photomerge trying to create a pano from two 35 negs.

Bob

berci · 04-26-2005

Yeah, it's great and this scanner is cheap and has a • Dynamic Range: 4.8D, which is great when you scan slides.

Pherdinand · 04-26-2005

Hey, do i know that girl? Is that Iza???
Nice result, btw.

berci · 04-26-2005

Hey Pherdinand,

Lili, but has a couple of sisters. One of them might be Iza.
Iza what?

I have just found such a boys only loo here in London.

Berci

Pherdinand · 04-26-2005

No idea about her family name. She works in physics, was in the States for awhile, and in the Netherlands too. She really really looks like 'Lili'.

berci · 04-26-2005

No, definitely not.
Might be a lost and forgotten twin sister or a clone, which is more likely.

Is it not annoying overt there, all the natives walking in their clogs while eating cheese and sniffing tulips?

I think I need a coffee.

skimmel · 04-26-2005

berci:

Thanks for the tip. I've never used photomerge before (and don't -- yet? -- have an Xpan), so I was wondering how easy it is to do? How long does it take for a typical "stitch"? Would you attempt this with dozens of Xpan images or would it simply take too long?

Thanks.

Doug · 04-26-2005

Looks very good, Berci, and I cannot tell where the stitch is made. This will be convenient for you, and save the expense if a MF scanner!

berci · 04-26-2005

You have to scan the slide in too runs(with exactly the same settings), left and then right, this means you have to realign the slide in the holder, which can be slightly time consuming.

When you have the two half files there comes Photoshop. I have tested it on two different machine. One is a 3.6 GHz P4 with 1GB ram and it took less than a second and on a P3 500MHz with 512MB ram and it took 1-2 seconds on it.

I guess it is still slower then on a dedicated medium format scanner but this scanner gives you an excellent quality scan for much less.

skimmel · 04-27-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by berci

You have to scan the slide in too runs(with exactly the same settings), left and then right, this means you have to realign the slide in the holder, which can be slightly time consuming.

Thanks! Having never scanned slides before, do you have to modify the slide holder at all to do this? I've read that, for film, you have to cut off one of the dividers on the film holder.

berci · 04-27-2005

Don't have to modify the filmholder. Just use the film strip holder. The length of an XPan panoramic slide is shorter than two 24x35 together. So first you scan the left 24x36 part of the XPan image, then after realigning the film in the holder you can scan the other half with some overlap which makes it ideal for stitching.

skimmel · 04-27-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by berci

Don't have to modify the filmholder. Just use the film strip holder. The length of an XPan panoramic slide is shorter than two 24x35 together. So first you scan the left 24x36 part of the XPan image, then after realigning the film in the holder you can scan the other half with some overlap which makes it ideal for stitching.

Thanks. This helps a lot -- saves a bunch of money on a scanner (that maybe I can then use towards an Xpan).

berci · 04-27-2005

The same here, I have already got the XPan but no scanner. I did the testing on a friend's Minolta which is now around £220 here in the UK and I think it's far better than any of the Epsons.

berci · 04-27-2005

Just because the postcount was 13 for this thread.

tamerlin · 04-27-2005

I picked up an Epson 4180 on Monday, and found it to work pretty well. I don't have access to a
dedicated film scanner to compare to unfortunately, but with Vuescan (which I tried but have not
yet purchased) scanning the XPan panos is quite easy.

It would be interesting to compare the image quality of the scanners at some point, though.

markss · 06-02-2005

Hi There - my first post to this forum

I have owned a Hasselblad Xpan since 1999 - just after they first came out, and for years I have been waiting for an affordable yet hi-resolution solution to my scanning woes.

My question is to the original poster, do you know if the Minolta DiMage 5400 would work just as well as the Minolta Dual IV?

I have sent an email to Konica/Minolta Australia to see if they know the answer. I guess the answer is YES, if the mechanism for loading/scanning film is the same.

SHERPA · 06-04-2005

good!
xpan taiwan : 30mm;45mm;90mm
http://www.pbase.com/xpan

markss · 06-04-2005

Hi Sherpa, sorry if I am a bit slow, but what exactly does your reply of "good" mean?

I noticed from your link you mention something about scanning here:
http://sherpa.myweb.hinet.net/workshop.html

But my language skills are pretty much restricted to English, so I can't quite read the page.

Otto Gaz · 06-06-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by markss

Hi There - my first post to this forum

My question is to the original poster, do you know if the Minolta DiMage 5400 would work just as well as the Minolta Dual IV?

I have sent an email to Konica/Minolta Australia to see if they know the answer. I guess the answer is YES, if the mechanism for loading/scanning film is the same.

I own a 5400 and have done a couple of scans with it (newbie Xpan user

)
It works exactly as with the Dual IV.

One difference between the Dual IV and the 5400 is that the 5400 can use 16 bits per channel, while the Dual IV can use only 8. I have Photoshop Elements 2.0 that only supports 8-biy so the scans are downsampled to 8-bit when loaded. The "pro version" of photoshop supports 16-bit, but then you have to do the merge manually.

Perhaps there are users with more recent versions of Elements that can tell if it supports 16-bit? Or perhaps more recent versions of Photoshop CS has the automatic merge available in Elements?

Regards,
Otto

berci · 06-06-2005

Sounds good, I'm still pondering about which one I should buy.

Otto Gaz · 06-06-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by berci

Sounds good, I'm still pondering about which one I should buy.

If you can afford it, I think the 5400 is a lot better than the Dual IV. It's not just the resolution. The increased dynamic range is very useful. I mainly use Velvia for nature/landscapes, and find that the 5400 is capable of reproducing different tones in areas that came out black on my previous scanner (Dual III). Reliable sources tell me it is also better for B/W.

The original 5400 was recently replaced by an improved version (it is much faster). There are good deals available on the earlier version. If you scan at the same resolution and bit depth as is available on the Dual IV, the scan time is similar.

So, my advise is to go for the new 5400, or the older version if your budget is tight.

/Otto

markss · 06-06-2005

Thanks for the info, I think I will be getting at 5400, it's just the sneaking it passed the wife bit

How big is a maximum resolution file when merged? Would you be able to post one? (it doesn't need to be a great picture, I just want to see if I can spot the stitching)

Thanks!

Otto Gaz · 06-08-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by markss

Thanks for the info, I think I will be getting at 5400, it's just the sneaking it passed the wife bit

How big is a maximum resolution file when merged? Would you be able to post one? (it doesn't need to be a great picture, I just want to see if I can spot the stitching)

Thanks!

I am posting fom the office today, so I'll try to attach an image when I get home.

A 24x36 slide is about 200MB (TIFF) when scanned with 16-bit and max resolution.

So for a full res, 16-bit Xpan scan the merged file is approx 350MB. Half of that for 8-bit of course. I have 2GB RAM in my system...

/Otto

Doug · 06-08-2005

Here's an example of left and right parts merged automatically in Photoshop with considerable overlap, in which the merged parts had different scanner exposures. Just learned how to do the merge, but obviously I need to learn how to get the densities to match too!