Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/06/30

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Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Just went MF, need scanner advice
From: "J. Gilbert Plantinga" <jgp@gilplant.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 21:39:12 -0400

On Monday, June 30, 2003, at 06:58  PM, Austin Franklin wrote:

>> You are correct about the change of magnification, the
>> optical resolution for MF is 3200 dpi; in the 35mm mode it scans a
>> strip down the center at greater magnification to get 4800 dpi. This 
>> is
>> NOT an interpolated resolution. I'm sure that you, as a Leaf owner,
>> will agree with me that the extra 800 dpi the Minolta offers over the
>> Nikon or Polaroid 4000 dpi units makes a great difference in image
>> quality.
>
> Yes, it CAN, but that depends on a lot of things...  I've seen other 
> Minolta
> scanners that are 3200 optical resolution, not give better than 
> 2400...so
> I've been skeptical of stated resolutions by Minolta.  Specifically,
> Minolta.  Other manufacturers don't seem to have as much of an issue 
> with
> this...why, I haven't explored yet.

Well, if I open a raw scan of a 35mm negative, full frame, I see 4560 X 
6730 pixels, which sounds an awful lot like 4800 dpi to me. I'm no 
engineer, and I don't know if pixels = sensor elements, but the pixels 
are definitely there, and I haven't instructed the software to do any 
interpolation. When you say that a claimed 3200 dpi optical might only 
be 2400 are you saying that the file has fewer pixels, or is this 
something comparable to the lines per mm by which they test lens 
resolving power, and how DO you measure that?

> I'd love to see some full resolution scans from it!  Are there any 
> on-line
> comparisons of it vs the Nikon vs the Polaroid?

I don't know of any, but I do see more detail than I did with either 
the Nikon 4000ED that I owned very briefly or the Polaroid I had before 
that. This is, of course, subjective. I should also mention that I see 
still more detail in scans I've had made on the Flextight 646 (5780 
dpi?) and the Flextight 848 at 8000 dpi, still subjective, but this was 
comparing 3 scans from the same negative. If in the absence of a 
scientific comparison, you still want to see a full resolution scan 
from the Minolta I'll send you one, either by ftp if you have space on 
a server or on CD if you'll email me a postal address off-list.

Gilbert

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