I am currently using the Olympus C-2000Z in combination with the Flash Film Scanner 35 to digitize all my old color negatives.

For now, I have experienced some mixed results. Maybe someone out there could shed some light upon the following:

I have set the camera to A-Mode (Fixed 2.8), SHQ (1600x1200), ISO100 and afixed the daylight filter onto the scanner. I then used 3 different images (daylight, night with flash, indoors with flash) and scanned all of them with complete variety of exposure compensation (-2 to +2). However, all of the resulting digitized pictures seemed to be quite grainy.

Is there anything I am missing or is this the quality to be expected by scanning negatives?

-- Frank Tinschert (tinschy@gmx.net), July 18, 1999

Answers

Negs should be pretty grain-free. What is the shutter speed ending up at? (If long, could be CCD noise, but doesn't seem likely.) How are you color-converting the negs? The C-2000 has a bit more blue-channel noise than some cams, so that in combination with the orange mask of the neg film could be the problem. You might try (with a bright light behind the neg) a strong blue or green filter to knock down the amount of yellow/orange light coming from the neg at exposure time.

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), July 23, 1999.

The shutter speed was 1/80 to 1/100, so actually I don't think that this is part of the problem. I tested a little bit more and found out, that using the Olypus-SW for converting might be part of the problem. I took the picture with 1600x1200 resolution, but the FFS-35 Software lowered it to 1024x768 automatically.

I am now using Paintshop Pro which keeps the resolution with much better results. Still, IMHO, I have to use the manual exposure compensation of the camera, since the automatic feature gives me worse results.

Thanks for tip with the blue/green filter. I will try that as well.

-- Frank Tinschert (tinschy@gmx.net), July 26, 1999.

Frank,

Where in the world did you find the FFS-35? I emailed Olympus about it and haven't heard back. I am interested in this to scan a lot of old 35mm slides but can't find it anywhere in the US. Also, what price is it selling for?

Thanks.

-- Brad Grant (bradandsteph@home.com), July 29, 1999.

Actually I found it in a store here in Berlin, Germany. They charged me about $200, but it's really worth it. To use it in combination with the C-2000Z you need the adapter as well (another $30).

-- Frank Tinschert (tinschy@gmx.net), July 30, 1999.