Can a Fuji GFX Pixel Shift Scan Win a Fight Against a Drum Scanner?

[@clickroach]

Two things. 1) I know I said 4.5 instead of 4x5 and "pixels" instead of "Megapixels" in that second scene. But there was no way I'd get the cat to hit those marks again so live with it. 2) I have tried doing some color negatives with this setup and the highlights always have a weird pink color cast. Is it the light? Is it the lens? Dunno. I have a lot to learn yet with this technique.

[@SuperSuperka]

3) you named capturing with camera "scanning" - common mistake nowadays.

[@SD_Alias]

Yes C41 is more difficult. I used a flashlight as a lightsource and used a blue 80a Filter to compensate the orange Mask in the Negative. The results were nice. I had no comparison with a high end scanner. But way better than an Epson950. I guess it is your light source. The bandwith of the coulorcouplers in the negative emulsion is very small. And LED light that has not a very high CRI above 96 or more have many gaps in their spectrum. So try a flashlight as a lightsource and i bet the weird pink colorcasts are gone. For conversion i like Negmaster more than NLP… A colorhead from a enlarger is an excellent lightsource too!

[@martyzielinski1442]

@@SD_AliasNegmaster???? More info please?.??

[@lewisbloom6396]

This is a train wreck, AND I loved every second of it, I have had many drum scans done in my life but I am ready to take my scanning in house, and a perfect excuse to add to my Fuji collection, thanks so much for the entertainment and information!

[@nicolaimedbo]

This video is fantastic! I don't think i've seen a more entertaining video about scanning before:)

[@brianbarber2188]

Remember that one time when you had some of us film photographers over to demonstrate the drum scanner and invited people to bring some negs to scan and then you scanned them and then we drank a beer and watched it spin around and then you gave us the scans? I never told you this, but later I compared the drum scan to my digicam "scan" and really couldn't tell much difference. But thanks for doing that. :)

[@tessiebuttsie]

Next time it should be called "Beers and spacecraft photography lessons" cuz it sounds like a spaceship taking off every time

[@alexanderaleksander4272]

Man, I found your channel by accident while searching for another one, but this is the best overview of the Fuji GFX scanning method! Besides, I have almost the same situation with the lens, so it’s very informative. Very cool, respect!

[@christianpaul6893]

This was a really cool comparison video, and also your style is way funny!

[@JanneRanta]

The best thing you can do to any home scanning setup is to make it as rigid as possible. That saves you so much work. Enlarger lenses are nice for digitizing, but I would personally see if you could find appropriate adapters and also secure the camera to the enlarger. 👍

[@clickroach]

Yup! I've already got parts on hand to actually connect the camera to the enlarger.

[@larsbryngelsson4769]

This is the single greatest video I’ve ever watched!

[@andrewlarking7492]

LOVE this video and your energy. Glad I found you.

[@chris_jorge]

why has youtube kept this gem away from me. love this mate. :D

[@atomikpi]

Love your sense of humor and found the comparison really interesting. May have been the increased contrast playing tricks on me, but I found the right self portrait a tiny bit sharper. Getting colors right with digital camera scans has always been a pain for me. Even with a high CRI light source and various inverting software has always been hit or miss. Sometimes it's great and sometimes I just can't get the colors quite right.

[@BooHoogland]

you are extremely entertaining. love your content.

[@ironmonkey1512]

I've been using a pentax 645 120 macro on my GFX it is a great lens

[@earlyodaka]

Nice setup. Which extension tube do you use to scan 35mm negatives?

[@andyvan5692]

good hack, at 5:40, this is what we used to call a "copy stand" ; as in the day these were used to "photo-copy" documents (far before xerox invented that machine); or do macro shots of stamps, coins, or flowers, etc. the main difference was the column had a camera mounting screw instead of the condenser 'stage' on this, and provision for a light box underneath, or multiple desk lamps on arms to light the subject.

[@dataduf]

Ah the days when the world stopped if the repro person was sick or on a strike. Couldn't even make the front page of the New York Times without the repro dude/dudette!

[@WillzyxTheZypod]

Hilarious presentation. Well done.

[@sammcraephoto]

Great video. I’m interested to see a comparison with colour film. Large Format colour neg vs gfx would be a great test, not just for sharpness, but all of the colour subtleties.

[@csilt]

Wow funny and really cool video! Thanks for the idea of using an enlarger

[@RayLombardi]

Truly astonishing mate!

[@2Future4U]

love this channel

[@erichramone7812]

The selfie on the left did look sharper. Super cool upload though. Really cool

[@williamkeene6434]

one problem with old drum scanners is that they were designed with computers with the time, so that the larger the negatives the max scan res goes down and the smaller the bigger ect since hard drives were very very small, still a heidelberg is way better than an everyday flatbed

[@sklba632]

There appears to be a grainy texture like difference between the two photos. Would I notice this if it wasn't blasted in my face and challenged to look for it, no. Would I even notice it if it wasn't noted as possibly captured in this method - absolutely not. Amazing.

[@diegoramosg]

This looks like a suitable solution. I was thinking of buying a tango for 8x10. But i already own a gfx 100

[@Varo486Photography]

Pretty damn perfect results imo. I love your improvised setup, for me it's just a raleno LED light and a 3D printed holder, with a Fuji X-S10 coupled to an old nikon 50mm 1.8 lens with two extension tubes. Fiddling around with a tripod in a very awkward position, I can get good scans. It does the job, but yeah, it's not even close to your setup, let alone that GFX or the drum scanner.

[@qingyunwang3802]

Nice video! Make me want to try out the pixel shift trick myself. Sadly I couldn’t afford a GFX, only an a7RV, and now I have to endure the eternal pain of being locked in a 14-bit color depth instead of 16-bit.

[@TheRealHarrypm]

But after you stack 3-4 exposures of pixelshifted images you can just export it as a 16-bit DNG/TIFF so its a mute point really still getting plenty of colour channel data to resolve most if not all colour film stocks.

[@Zetaphotography]

@@TheRealHarrypmnot the same.

[@TheRealHarrypm]

@@Zetaphotography Want to expand on that?

[@skipwilliamsnj]

Very cool and informative. Not sure if all the extra time you took for the jokes and call outs really helps a lot. Kind of makes me a little dizzy. YMMV

[@GettingNegative]

You had me at "fist sized hole".

[@tessiebuttsie]

😂😂😂

[@d.r.martin6301]

That's some super high end mirrorless camera film scanning for sure. But for most folks a mirrorless or DSLR with a good macro, lightbox, copy stand (or in my case Slik mini tripod) will do . I'm really happy with the scans of my 35mm b/w stuff I'm getting with my M43 mirrorless and 30 macro. Good enough for what I need.

[@clickroach]

Are you using a filed out negative holder to get that authentic full frame darkroom print look? I keep thinking about how we could have done that for your show if we had this technology back then.

[@d.r.martin6301]

@@clickroach That would have been cool. That's how I printed my shows before the one we did in '16. And I still love the look. But I'm not doing that for my recent scans. Too much work. I just shoot the negs on my lcd lightbox; either with optical glass on top or in a Epson neg holder (for those shots that give me newton rings).

[@andrewf.7813]

🤣 brilliant video, thanks for doing the work and thanks for the entertaining video!

[@johnsmith1474]

Love the pasty look, weird music, etc. Tip: for BW shoot in color, covert to BW later because you can use the RGB channels, even if they are off, to create a better BW than you could otherwise. For instance skies are blue but render nearly as bright as clouds in BW, but you can selectively darken the blue, thus the sky, if you have a blue channel to work with.

[@jayc6170]

The only thing I like more than film photography content is aviation content. Great shirt!

[@clickroach]

I wore that shirt to a bar one night years ago and someone told me it was illegal to own it. 🤷‍♀️ Found it at a thrift store.

[@JonathanNotley]

Really enjoyed this!

[@lrochfort]

I have a Howtek 4500 drum scanner and am considering whether to move to a digital camera. I think resolution is probably equal. My only question is dynamic range. The digital is certainly quicker! The Howtek is painfully slow

[@Zetaphotography]

How much for a trade X1D 4116 Edition

[@pd1jdw630]

I’m just amazed by how much information is in the 35mm.

[@dataduf]

It's a bigger frame than every classic movie you've ever seen was shot on, including Dune 2021/24, so maybe not that surprising after all?

[@jeremygarretson5482]

When I use pixel shift I put a 10 second time on and leave the room. I'm worried if I breathe too hard I'll cause an error.

[@FrankTitzeArt]

I consider the Fuji GFX path for myself, wihtout having one yet. One question: Listening to you video, I hear the mechanical shutter in use. Have you tried just using the electronic shutter only? And if, is there any difference? Background: Considering to scan e.g 5000 negatives, the shutter count would be already 16x5,000 = 80,000 what is a significant portion of shutter life time. Plus the mechanical shutter produces vibrations which may cause your reported errors.

[@porth4250]

up your game and use the condenser from the enlarger to collimate the light.

[@stephen_mcateer]

Excellent. Very useful information thanks.

[@paulalanputnam4592]

Man, the chicken thing was genius. Caught me off guard.😊

[@velvia7880]

You can get some really sharp flat plane repro lenses for your enlarger and this setup.

[@chrisjenkins9978]

I’m guessing that the drum scanner has a maximum resolution of 12K DPI? It also depends on the film-speed of the negative. The lower the ISO, the higher the resolution in film. If you are shooting with a 20 ISO film stock, the camera may not be able to resolve all the detail in the film. Whereas, a 12K dpi scanner can resolve all the detail that the camera can’t see. It would be an interesting test to say the least.

[@andrewf.7813]

beautiful prints by the way

[@AbDaniel21]

okay, cool, but what about color negatives?

[@mikesuhor439]

PMT > Bayer CMOS/CCD

[@nachnamevorname5917]

pmt? ​@@mikesuhor439

[@c.augustin]

There's a difference to the drum scanner - the lighting of the negative is actually quite hard for color negative work (light quality not as much, if the color temperature and CRI is constant over the whole area). The drum scanner should excel at that. On the other hand - getting a suitable light source for 4x5 should be cheaper than getting the drum scanner to work …

[@c.augustin]

Answer to myself: Got a tip (by the Valoi founder) later in that year for a rather cheap light source that does work pretty well - the Raleno PLV-S192. One advantage is a flat back, and light quality is good enough for color negative scans. There are better light sources from Negative Supply, but those are quite expensive …

[@MarksPhoto]

You crafty sicko. I created the same abomination last year with a Beseler 23C and my Sony a7ii. I found a lens mount adapter would lift the grip off the neg carrier, but later bought extention tubes. I did find I had some light leaks from the adapted carrier and the adapter, so..... gaffer tape. I should revisit this with my current a7R4 (moar rezapixles). I can't see why others haven't done this, because a lot of the 'copy stands' being sold for this today are flimsy pieces of unstable flexi-crap. Just one question... which would you rather carry up and down the stairs to the basement? The MegaFooj or the Heidelberg?

[@clickroach]

I dunno. Fooj is pretty heavy. Better buy a second and weld it to the enlarger.

[@andyvan5692]

have you got any videos of the DRUM scanner in use?, as this is what we came to see, not the fuji, even though it is an MF camera, but the drum scanner is a novelty, not many people have seen, or know how one works, we may have heard of a Flextight X1 or X5 but not any other scanner of the non- flatbed type.

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

Did not know you have a youtube channel, i remember reading your blog/site at some point way way back in time The drum scanner starts to win when you need larger prints, its hard to get files large enough to cap the inkjets 600-740dpi resolution.

[@paulushdk]

i love this video.

[@leonnaffin]

please do this cool comparison with color film as well :)

[@TheRealHarrypm]

Sony, Olympus, Fuji have together with pixel shifting and first and 3rd party tools have been king of the scanning hill for a couple years now, I can spend 3k on a mirrorless setup but I cant spend 15k on a drum scanner, what I have found is its better to start talking in resolving power terms and with pixel shfiting and exposure stacking at base ISOs with single chip sensor camaras you cant tell them apart from a ARRI scanner or a Heidelburg today we can capture all the data potential at 1:1 or 2:1 with all the colour channel data being stacked too there is no loss of range potential, microfise is the next battle and the only arguemnt left in the digital scanning world for consumers.

[@swayze5828]

Nice video

[@dima1353]

Is resolution the only characteristic worth discussing when it comes to scans?

[@andyvan5692]

one other camera system does this as well, the Hasselblad H6d 400C multi-shot; these do the same thing, but alternate the on and off of the edge pixels, and with a 400MP back !!

[@CallMeRabbitzUSVI]

The back is 100mp, it also does pixel shifting to achieve the 400mp

[@o_-_o]

You are crazy and I love that.

[@SprocketHoles]

Ive been exploring this with a coolscan 8000 scanner lens and an enlarger lens for larger than 35mm scans. I just need a pixel shift to test it fully.

[@GiesbertNijhuis]

Eh eh, UR funny. Does it become better when making the room dark? Like a dark room? There are some photons going where they should not be.

[@normtesch1126]

what are your setting for camera?? mainley f stop

[@lensman5762]

I don't think you will see the difference in any reasonably sized print, but the Drum scanner can not be suprpassed. The pixel shift malarky is primarily to compensate for the lost detail in the gap between the pixel sites. Ordinarily the software within the camera has to guess what that lost detail could have been and then try and interpolate it. So the digital image we get from our digital devices is not exactly a true epresentation of the scene we think we photographed. Pixel shift overcomes this to some extent and make you a very large file in the process. The drumscanner uses Photonmultiplier tubes to make an anlogue elecrtrical signal and then this ois fed to an ADC to make it something the computer understands, very much like a digital camera in fact. The difference is that the output of the Drumscanner is not interpolated so it is much superior in quality to a typical digital camera image. Persoanlly, as far as 4X5, 5X7 and 8X10 negatives are concerned there is nothing to touch an Epson flatbed scanner. Once the focus height is detemined, it can actually produce very good results with LF negatives. Try using your method with an 8X10 neg or transparency. You will probably get better ' scans ' from a digital device than a flatbed if using transparency, and in the good old times and in particular with Kodachrome slides.

[@shang-hsienyang1284]

I wish there's a JJC setup but for film formats larger than 35mm so I don't have to engineer the setup shown in your video. Right now I only scan my own 35mm film.

[@nachnamevorname5917]

jjc?

[@JamieMPhoto]

People used to call me crazy when I told them a camera scan could rival a drum scan (while conceding at the time that the drum scan would be slightly better overall, for significantly more money), but it's only gotten more true in the 9 or so years since I've been shouting this from the mountaintops. Also, Has me considering going back to a GFX since it's not a whole lot more than the Sony I use for scanning/light reportage. 🤔

[@hglmz]

can you share sample photos ?

[@cherrypicksmixtapes]

any chance yo see how it looks with color film?

[@clickroach]

I've done some old 35mm Kodachrome for someone which looked really nice. But didn't require juicing it up to do pixel shift for that project. Haven't had a need yet to try print film.

[@uncommonsimon5775]

Now try the GFX 100 ii pixel shift with a proper macro lens :D

[@thefalsh]

this is a great vid

[@r.g.carter3908]

why does this hvac tech have all that photo equipment ?

[@bernardkealey6449]

The megafuj; is there nothing it can’t do?

[@fleshsimulator]

Looks like I need to buy a GFX lol

[@michelhjorth8682]

People who use this Heidelberg machine, use "white Jumpsuits". Love your Metamorphosis standard. I do the same thing...

[@franknunez7204]

There are too many variables to list here as to why your drum scan to DSLR test came out seemingly equivocal. I remember a drum scanner operator telling me it took him about 2 years to get a good drum scan after he first started; and, that he regretted that because he basically had to rescan his own work from those first 2 years after he gained competence. I'm glad that folks are finding ways to be happy with digital camera photos of their film negatives. People have been doing DSLR "scans" if you will since about 2001 that I'm aware of. Despite this, photo labs serving high end photography (commercial and art) in NY and LA at least, don't seem to be able to retire their drum scanners. Don't give up on your drum scanner yet, you'll regret it once you finally gain the scanning skill, and train your eyes to see at that level. If at that point your drum scans still look like DSLR scans, I'd suggest getting the scanner serviced. If however you are happy with your dslr scans, I'd say, great, don't waste time chasing after fidelity that is not relevant for your type of work and keep dslr scanning, it will afford you tons more time for shooting and post production.

[@terencemorrissey4413]

Interesting!

[@jan-martinulvag1962]

Must mean that lense is very good

[@sklba632]

The hair. I love the hair.

[@tessiebuttsie]

I'm so sorry, I cut it this morning 😢

[@sklba632]

@@tessiebuttsie The beauty of this hair thing is that it tends to grow back. :)

[@tougedrifter123]

Mavica best digital scanning tool still

[@clickroach]

So say we all.

[@imoutodaisuki]

Not the square hole again… 😫

[@slammermx]

You forgot to mention how long it takes for a drum scanner to make those big scans.

[@Zetaphotography]

You don’t drum scan every picture you take. They are not all good and worth a scan.

[@slammermx]

@@Zetaphotography Back in the late nineties we had to scan whole magazines, it was a long job.

[@AlOne-xg6dv]

To help you, may be stop coffee or others substances which burn your nerves ...

[@NoosaHeads]

A little OTT, IMO.

[@josephwasilewski4950]

megafooj4life

[@Being_Joe]

I hate you because you have a GFX and a Drum Scanner. Yeah, that is on me, but ahhhh. Well, good for you I guess.

[@TechnikMeister2]

It never can, because the file will be a GFX raw file, and no matter what anyone says, Fuji apply changes to a raw file that you cannot control. A drum scan will give you a pure TIFF file to work with.

[@Zetaphotography]

When you upload to Facebook it doesn’t matter anym

[@andyelement]

You can remove all bar the raw data in Capture One and setup an ICC profile to ensure perfect colour accuracy

[@erivera1993]

😂😂😂

[@ronaldschiano7754]

Way too much time wasted on irrelevant comments, trying to be funny. Just get to the core of the process.

[@martyzielinski1442]

Just imagine how much better the camera scan would be without that imprecise enlarger and bullshit 80mm Nikkor in the mix......

[@DavidStone-ei2dt]

That EL-Nikkor is an amazing lens! Being that it's a dedicated enlarging lens it is also a flat-field design which makes it a perfect choice for this application. I would wager that it would only be outperformed by a very expensive macro lens. The enlarger set-up is rickety yes, but only due to the charmingly slapdash style of the fellow who made the video. Just my two cents.

[@user-ti9zc1xv2b]

With enough magnification, even a 15 year old Canon 600D will outresolve the heidelberg.

[@christominika3048]

buahahha

[@SD_Alias]

No…

[@dummatube]

That isn’t a “negative” it’s a transparency and the camera doesn’t “scan” it digitises!

[@graydeotto2820]

You seem like fun

[@dummatube]

@@graydeotto2820 Yup "Life's a ball" when you finally get control of your OCD🤣🤣🤣