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Multispectral Film Scanning

It is good, but so is scanning with the IQ4 non-A and the inbuilt profiles. All scanners look a bit different and this approach is for easy inversion and "accurate" colors, but the reason why people scan with certain scanners is also to get their look which is a mix of the electronics used, CCD, photo multipliers, inversion software, light source and operator.

Frontier has also a LED light source and Noritsu, Flextigh and the IQSmart series look all different a little.

Some swear by Imacon, some swear by Heidelberg drum scanners.

The scans there look bland - too accurate. The old CCD line scanners and older drum scanners saturate certain colors in a different way than an linear image capture does.

Also you need quite the mechnaical setup to get it right as all exposures need to be perfectly in place. Multispectral scanning is common in cinema scanning and has been used for a long time. It is nothing new.

What's new is the DYI approach here. Note that it is limited to 4x5.

For archival I guess it is great, especially if you can do an infrared dust layer, but from an artistic perspective it would remain to be seen if it is giving good looking scans.
 
Well, if i had a Achromatic IQ4 and not a IQ3100 i could try it for myself as the Novoflex stuff is already in my setup.
My Mejiro Genossen FL0530 should even outperform the Linos 105 :).
 
Paul Spinnler said:
You can also buy a Fuji GFX and shoot in true RGB mode - Magnum used the Fuji for its archiving.
Click to expand...

Time ago I've read somewhere that Magnum used Imacon Flextight scanners. Specifically the 848. Which made sense since the 848 with its direct negative light renders the grain more interesting, especially for BW images.
They must have modernized their scanning process meanwhile.
 
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Phase V said:
petapixel.com

New Multispectral Film Scanner Is a Breakthrough for Analog Photography

One of few major photographic film scanning innovations of the 21st century.
petapixel.com petapixel.com

Looks really promising, i wonder if a multicolor led-light would be sufficiently to do the job, but then you need
a IQ4 Achromatic as well... If this is so good i wonder why DT and others have not yet offered this to the CH-folks?
Click to expand...
They do! Though not dedicated to film scanning:https://www.phaseone.com/solutions/heritage-solutions/complete-solutions/multispectral-imaging/

I’ve tried this a few times with an Ipad + IQ3 achromatric, you need very, very good technique and tripods to keep the alignment accurate. It’s so much time per shot to be not worth it in my opinion.
 
mristuccia said:
Time ago I've read somewhere that Magnum used Imacon Flextight scanners. Specifically the 848. Which made sense since the 848 with its direct negative light renders the grain more interesting, especially for BW images.
They must have modernized their scanning process meanwhile.
Click to expand...

They moved to Fuji. Big advantage is true RGB.

www.magnumphotos.com

Magnum Presents: A World in Color | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos

Join Magnum on a historic project to digitize the Paris color library archive, revealing unseen images from around the world along the way
www.magnumphotos.com www.magnumphotos.com
 
Paul Spinnler said:
They moved to Fuji. Big advantage is true RGB.

www.magnumphotos.com

Magnum Presents: A World in Color | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos

Join Magnum on a historic project to digitize the Paris color library archive, revealing unseen images from around the world along the way
www.magnumphotos.com www.magnumphotos.com
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link.
Well, I think that the linear CCD sensor of the 848 was also true RGB, wasn't it?
Of course, they could not continue working with a device that is not supported anymore by its manufacturer.
 
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Paul Spinnler said:
You can also buy a Fuji GFX and shoot in true RGB mode - Magnum used the Fuji for its archiving.
Click to expand...

The overwhelming majority of institutional film in the US is scanned using DT systems. If even 1% of it is scanned using multishot I would be shocked. It's not a great use case for multishot, and does not change global color accuracy at all.
 
Phase V said:
petapixel.com

New Multispectral Film Scanner Is a Breakthrough for Analog Photography

One of few major photographic film scanning innovations of the 21st century.
petapixel.com petapixel.com

Looks really promising, i wonder if a multicolor led-light would be sufficiently to do the job, but then you need
a IQ4 Achromatic as well... If this is so good i wonder why DT and others have not yet offered this to the CH-folks?
Click to expand...

Our approach, DT Fusion, provides six channels of data for improved color accuracy, and does so in two captures, does not require an achromatic camera, and allows making standard "white only" captures when the incremental value of Fusion is not warranted.

Institutional film collections are typically very large – millions of frames. Even in a context where extremely high quality is desired, the solution must be highly scalable. To be honest, even two captures (<2 second cycle time) is pushing the limits.

That said, we've paid close attention to various multispectral solutions in the market over the recent years, and are in close ongoing contact with several researchers who are experimenting with different approaches. There's definitely use cases for it. I applaud what Film Rescue has done here and wish them much success! They do some amazingly cool work in chemically developing old film and in that context this technology seems like a great fit.

Film color reproduction is one of those fields that you should approach with extreme humility. However much you think you understand about film color you almost surely know less than you think – until you've learned enough to learn just how little you know. I've spent a considerable amount of my time over the past five years learning film color science from five different color science PhDs and am just now starting to feel like maybe I know anything. (mandatory XKCD reference)
 
dougpeterson said:
The overwhelming majority of institutional film in the US is scanned using DT systems. If even 1% of it is scanned using multishot I would be shocked. It's not a great use case for multishot, and does not change global color accuracy at all.
Click to expand...

Institutional scanning is its own B2B area, distinct from traditional scanning setups; - museums and archives working with larger budgets, where price / performance is not such a concern, but a convenient working system and good support. But it IS a signal if Fuji is the system of choice for Magnum instead of DT CH or P1 CH. Why? Cost / performance, I suppose. Magnum has arguably a pre-eminent archive, so it is an incredible ad for Fuji that their cameras are seen as "good enough" to scan legendary imagery.

We are talking about a factor of what 1:6 to 1:4 price differnece nowadays? A Fuji repro kit with a Linos 105 and cambo scan station can be put together for ca. 15k-20k?

My understanding is that there was a golden age when DT and later P1 who copied DT and did it in Europe after seeing how lucrative it can be could extract a significant premium to setup a digital back based solution with some custom repro scan parts. I also understand that the market is saturated. Ie you cannot pass by the Vatican or Smithsonian every three years with a new sale if there's not even a new digital back and the current system is working fine.

Ie, I think in 2025 the market is heavily saturated on the institutional side, I'd think, and a Fuji system sounds like a good alternative for more budget-conscious institutions or ambitious photographers.

I personally have seen Fuji files and find IQ4 files better, but there's a lot of people scanning with a Fuji nowadays and the fact that Magnum went for this setup is a reminder that the price / value equation has shifted.

Not sure it makes sense to pay 80k for a digital back based kit from a "CH" provider when one can get the same job done for 30k-35k - IQ4 used, Lino 105, 99 CLI light source, Cambo scan stage and Kaiser station...

Rest is not needed, you get 97% there.

Cambo is breaking the price barrier ... their stuff costs less than half vs. the industrial products on the market while being same quality.
 
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This is somewhat related, but if too off-topic please disregard.
This discussion reminds me of a reddit post I stumbled upon, which resulted in a simple RGB lightsource for scanning negatives. The author provides a discussion on high CRI white light (commonly used among home scanners) vs RGB light. This won't work well for positive color film, but the results on negatives looks quite nice.
 
Yes there is a benefit, the frontier scanners use it. Bear in mind that Flextights use an Osram Neon bulb, effectively. There's no right or wrong, but the whole chain:

+ Scanner tech (Kodak trilinear CCD / photomultiplier / digital back or digital camera) * light source * lens * electronics * software processing (film profiles, sharpening, etc.)* operator creates the look.

There's no right or wrong - you can supercede the actual result of high end scanners from the 1990s and 2000s with modern lenses and an IQ4, but you won't get the same look - and the look is often what it is all about ...

I just know an IQ4 with a 99 CRI light source looks totally different than a Flextight or a Heidelberg drum scan.

On top, the fine art masters also print the scan via photochemical processes or inkjet and then again you have diffeent colours RA4, Fuji or Kodak paper, etc. so many, many variables.

Multispectral scans sound great for archival, for fine art it is not so important.
 
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