Full Frame vs MFT; Megapixels; CS Lite settings

Digital Camera Scanning
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Hi there, I am new to the community, close to ordering NLP to hopefully refine my very first camera scanning project, to scan all my 1980’s / 90’s consumer 35mm film. Some are re-scans from when I had a Nikon Coolscan V ED 20 years ago.

So I’m wondering if you can give feedback on 3 specific aspects that are bugging me a bit. First my basics - I’m using a very sturdy home made copy stand with metal ball joint, Valoi 360 starter kit with Cinestill CS-Lite, Panasonic Mirrorless camera (G9 MFT so far) and both a MacBook Air & Desktop PC, and a cheap mirror to level things.

Here the topics (I searched but don’t see my topics answered recently if at all) :

1/ Full frame vs Micro Four Thirds - I have started with my Lumix G9 and a new OM System 60mm Macro lens recommended by Valoi. The 4x3 frame format mismatch to 3x2 negatives annoys me and I feel stuck between “scanning” at a possibly too low effective 17 MP (when cropped due to the 4x3) or using High Res mode (pixel shift) and then having to store huge files with the 88 MP RAW images. Partly as an excuse to go Full frame I have now ordered a great value Panasonic Lumix S5D Camera and a used Sigma 70mm Art series Full Frame Macro lens (also listed by Valoi as their top preferred with Lumix FF) so will have 24MP 3x2 but I’m having pangs of whether I am wasting my money and moving away from the great G9 into the world of Full frame before I otherwise needed to!

2/ CS-lite light panel - when scanning my 35mm colour negs currently with a competing negative inversion sw I am finding better results using the White setting rather than Cool that says it’s the one I’m meant to use. Am I alone? Will it be different with NLP?

3/ Mac vs PC for tethering, scanning & NLP/lightroom. I am spoilt with both a MacBook Air M2 and a high spec self built Desktop PC. So far that other S/w isn’t giving as pleasing results on the PC. The colours seem off on both but especially on the PC. Which is best for NLP?

Oh, and a cheeky 4th Q. - will NLP give me much better results than that standalone software that I started paying monthly for (starts with a F and ends in B)? Hope it’s ok to ask this here, I guess and hope I won’t get many people say no.

I know my questions are in a way specific to my chosen set up / cameras but hope they are also broad enough to help others too.

TIA, Nick. Oxford, UK.

p.s. I’m chasing the best results I can, partly as I don’t intend scanning my negative archive more than once.

P.p.s - if it helps others I haven’t yet spent a lot. GBP £350 for lens, £60 Valoi starter kit, £60 home made copy stand.

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Well, you’ve already ordered them but I think that the 24MP S5 full frame and 70mm ART will be a worthwhile improvement over your 17MP MFT, you will see a difference in what you get from 35mm. I actually scan with 24MP Fuji APS-C and I see a difference between that and my other older 16MP Fuji. Not much mind and whether it would be noticeable in a print is hard to say. Pixel shift could come into its own for medium format.

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Whether you need 24 Megapixels or 17 Megapixels depends on how large you want to print and how close your nose will be near those prints. Check the pixel dimensions of your scanned images and divide by 300 (for fine prints) or 240 (for most cases). If you really fill your S5D sensor (4000x6000 pixels) you’ll see that you can print up to 20 inch wide at 300 ppi or 24 inch at 240 ppi. If you never print that large, the G9 should be good enough.

Use whatever gives you the results you prefer more easily. Recommendations base on conditions and if your’s are different, the recommendations are just a bunch of characters.

Use whatever gives you the results you prefer more easily. Differences in colours and tonalities might be caused by differences in colour management and properties of the screens you use. Even when calibrated, things can look different. Colours might be pleasing or not, but this only matters if the pleasing looks transmit to the prints or presentation screen. Windows needs to be configured for colour management while macOS does it without further ado.

Note that all of the above is independent of whether you use NLP or not. NLP embeds itself in the workflow, and if your workflow manages colours properly, things will look as close to your liking on screen, print or other output system.

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Thanks a lot Harry-highly appreciated.

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Thanks Digitizer - great points, highly appreciate you taking the time to respond with them. I hadn’t thought about the colour management/set up of the screen. As I’ll be mostly viewing final versions on phone or MacBook, I guess MacBook is simpler.

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If you are making prints from the negative captures it will be highly useful to calibrate, then either create or adopt ICC profiles for both your display and your printer for the paper you will be using regardless of whether the operating system is MacOS or Windows. Apart from that, the profile that manages the capture, interpretation and RAW opening stage in Lightroom is the RAW camera profile — specifically in this case Negative Lab Pro’s custom linearized camera profile. As well, Negative Lab Pro handles the negative inversion and color rendering stage of the workflow with its own profiles.

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I use an OM3 and just crop negs as needed. Anything that looks absolutely insanely good I’ll go back and do a 50mp or 80mp high res shot of it. The 80mp is really nice for 4x5 negs too.

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While I don’t have much to add to all great recommendations @Mark_Segal , @Harry , @Digitizer already provided I would want emphasize again as noted that all monitors and printers should be carefully profiled/calibrated for the exercise to be of lasting value. Secondly, the note about using white setting on CSlite may mean that something in your workflow may be optimized further. The capture is complicated and requires a lot of experimentation before you settle on certain routine. Typically the backlights we use tend to be more bluish than white to counteract the orange mask, so you may want to review your settings - you will find a great deal of discussions on this forum as to what optimal exposure is. This is not so much related to sw but rather the fundamental balance of colors. Good luck with your project!

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1. Your G9 is fine up to 17x22 inch un-cropped prints. One big advantage of the Micro 4/3 format is that you can photograph about 1/4 of a negative at 1:1, whereas with full frame, 1:1 barely gets the full 35mm frame. So if you’re going to crop, anyway, especially a lot, it’s best to do it at the camera.

There really isn’t that much difference between a 24MP file and a 20MP file in terms of what you will see in an 8x10 print. MAYBE at 16x20, there is a difference… but that is quite dependent on subject matter in the negative.

2. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Different light panels drop out different colors of light. You may find yourself using a high color temperature or a low color temperature, or one in between. Just know that with OLDER color negative films, they were meant to be printed with a 3200°K incandescent lamp.

3. Mac/PC doesn’t matter so much as monitor calibration and profiling. If your monitor is properly calibrated and profiled using a hardware plus software kit from Calibrite or Datacolor, then you aren’t shooting blind. Provided that’s done, computer platform is just a preference.

4. I haven’t tried f_b software. No clue. I suspect your knowledge of NLP and experience with its controls is more important than whether it is absolutely better.