Pacific Image Primefilm 7200 35mm Slide/film Scanner Review
This is ostensibly a review of the Pacific Prototype XA 35mm motion picture scanner (also know as the Reflecta RPS 10M). I say, "ostensibly," because it's just as much a diatribe about scanning processes and how to approach the film workflow from my perspective.
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Fuji Superia 400
Scanning is frequently the bottleneck through which picture show, a high quality imaging product, must pass. It frequently does not come through unscathed. Bad scanners can introduce poor color, soften details, a very high amount of noise, and or ugly digital artifacts. When I was shooting film and press in the darkroom, digital cameras were these expensive experiments that were mostly to exist avoided. I never said, "oh gee, 35mm isn't that sharp." But now, digital is for the most part a mature style to make pictures.
The conventional wisdom is that a digital capture makes a 35mm capture expect like the motion picture prototype has Vaseline on the lens. It'south certainly truthful that when you put that SD carte du jour in your 5k iMac, get into Lightroom and hit "Z", those pictures expect mighty sharp and shine! The Sony 42mp BSI sensor is some kind of black magic pulled from the future when compared to some movie scans in my library. So I wouldn't blame someone for concluding that film, and specifically 35mm film, gives a (dare I say it) vintage look.
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Portra 160
On the other manus, this is not how I call back things. I remember the first time I shot a scroll of Delta 100. This was a big deal to me because as a high school student I was told that HP5 was the 'prophylactic' way to go. Simply I wanted information technology sharper, and that'south what Delta promised me. I specifically remember racking up that Bessler to produce an 11×14 print (that I made with the venerable Nikon 28-80/3.5-5.half-dozen AF-S G). There was NO grain. At least, that's how it seemed to me at the fourth dimension! Just I still have the impress, and looking at it at present, information technology's nevertheless incredibly detailed, with at to the lowest degree a very low corporeality of grain visibly obscuring a detail. For the longest time none of my scans look like this! 35mm on screen is oftentimes just a mess of soft details and huge grain, I might as well have been shooting Super 8. And so what is happening here?
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Superia 400
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Superia 400
Well the answer to that is "marketplace forces" happened. In truth I was able to achieve scans that rivaled my optical prints at 1 point. This was in college, when I had access to a Nikon Coolscan 9000. The Coolscans represented Nikon putting their full weight into making a proper desktop scanner. It was no flextight (and don't even chime in Drum people), but it was very, very adept. Abrupt, detailed scans with a keen DMAX for those dense chromes. But over the years, everyone decided to pitch their Hasselblad's for cameras like the Canon 10D, embracing the dream of 6 megapixels. Investment in scanning technology has well-nigh completely stalled virtually x years agone.
The current Hasselblad X1 and X5 scanners are literally a decade old, based on applied science older than that, and still come up with Firewire. Even the Coolscan is a cool $3000 dollars on the used market place. Bah. Humbug. I just wanna shoot my M4 and bring those vivid footling pieces of Portra, Delta, or Fujichrome to the calculator with all the potential I know they comprise. Epson is a fine company and they make fine printers, but even their newest V850 makes moving picture of most formats wait just a fiddling mushy. I can only imagine how skilful film scanning would be today if Nikon was still making scanners.
The Pacific Image XA
However, it's not all dire. If yous're willing to take some chances on strange looking devices from brands you lot've never heard of, you may be surprised. I certainly was, later trying the Pacific Image XA. So lets talk about what it is.
– A dedicated 35mm scanner
– 5000 Optical PPI
– iv.2 DMAX
– Motorized Drive for Batch Scanning
– IR Grit reduction
– Car and transmission focus (Glory BE HALELUJA!)
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Fuji Superia 400
It has other specs, you tin read them on your website of choice. But those are the important ones. 5000ppi lets its produce a 30ish megapixel epitome from scans, big enough to cover my 13×xix max print size at greater than 300PPI (thumbs up). iv.2 DMAX, this allows information technology to do acceptable scans of chrome film, even when the negatives are a flake dense. The Epson's oftentimes lag in this area (Epson is known for inflating their specs).
The motorized browse allows you to browse up to full rolls of film, I stopped doing this, merely it can exercise information technology, more on that later on. It'due south IR dust reduction system allows it to greatly reduce the corporeality of surface dust present on C41 and E6 films. Lastly, you can focus the damn thing! Why on earth other scan makers omit this critical function I take no idea. Epson scanners are notorious for forcing the users to jump through hoops to get their movie aligned perfectly with the focus aeroplane of the lens. I have manually focused the XA, and AF'd information technology likewise, and it makes a big departure in the resolution of the final scan. This definitely gives it a leg up on whatever other scanner in grade made today in my opinion.
Nikon FE2 – 50mm F1.4 Planar ZF – Portra 160
Software Options
A scanner is often only as good as the software driving it, so let me lay out the options. It comes with something called Cyberview. I take this installed only I've never used it. It's got a foreign, clunky interface. Not for me. About people use either Silverfast or Vuescan. Silverfast is correctly known as a very technically advanced piece of software that can accept advantage of the XA's many features.
It'due south use of the manual focus function for instance, is far ameliorate than the one found in Vuescan. On the other paw, information technology's incredibly overpriced. Information technology costs hundreds of dollars. I pay less for a year of LR and PS than I would for Silverfast. That's a non-starter. That leaves Vuescan! A scanning programme that is not perfect, would make the UI design team at Apple cry or vomit or both, but does a generally pretty proficient job of enabling and decision-making the XA'southward basic functions
Interface, ugh. Results, pretty good!
Siverfast's slightly fancier interface, results in my experience are no meliorate.
Vuescan's features enable multi-exposure and multi-samples, batch scanning, and it has some rudimentary curve and color controls. It also has it's own dust reduction IR scan system that works pretty well. One affair that has been surprising to me is the elementary variation in performance of certain features between even pieces of scanning software. I doubtable that some of the Silverfast features hither, such as dust reduction, work better than in Vuescan. Nevertheless, given the price and overall performance, I'm pleased with information technology.
Just as a quick annotation, multi exposure is what it sounds like, 1 browse for the highlights and 1 for the shadows. This is useful to bring out the most information from the latitude in your film. Multi-sample on the other hand takes a serial of scans and combines them to ultimately reduce noise. You tin exercise upwardly to xvi samples, I've never gone quite that far. On some chromes I'll do five samples and I practise recollect I run across a difference at the surface level of the browse. It's subtle, merely it'southward a nice tool to accept.
Of form the elephant in the room is that when you look at reviews of the Pacific Prototype (or scanners from Reflecta, Plustek, Epson, etc) on B&H or Amazon you run across a pretty mixed bag. The reason for this is uncomplicated. Scanning is hard! Information technology's not simple. The auto doesn't practice all the work. Best practices ensure best results. This is something that the average user doesn't understand, which contributes to everything from misinformation to bad reviews. Guess what, if Bessler 45C's were cheap and sold to consumers they'd get pretty bad reviews too. Sometimes you lot need to larn to use complicated tools, and that's ok. After using the XA, I can assure you that in the correct easily information technology'due south fully capable of professional results.
Workflow
The first question people enquire me about scanners is e'er, "does it scan full rolls?" My answer, yes but…stop doing that. You don't demand a full roll scan!* Lets talk about the flick workflow mostly as it applies to this scanner. There are a couple ways yous tin can go and I'thou going to utilise this as a pulpit to preach to the way I call up works best.
Let's assume you've shot whatever information technology is, and adult it withal y'all choose. So, you have a length of moving picture. Ane fashion you tin can certainly go is to insert the film at frame 1, into the scanner. The motor volition engage and from there yous'll work with the software. You have to tell Vuescan to "batch" scan. Now, if you hit preview, Vuescan will try to preview scan every frame on the scroll. This is completely cool in practise. Information technology would take a long, long time. Only, you can still batch scan without doing this preview. If you set the scanner in the color control page to use "auto levels", it will apply a basic curve to each frame, and you can merely accept the scanner go auto pilot through the roll of 36.
This is where things can get hairy. Kickoff of all, some users take reported incorrect frame spacing. This hasn't really happened to me, sometimes it's not perfect only it's skilful enough for government work. The problem in my view is merely that sometimes, many times, the scanners settings are not a good representation of the frame. What'southward more, fifty-fifty at medium resolution, the whole process will take well over an 60 minutes. The scanner as well has no intake or exit spooling system, and so the picture will basically slink or slide over any surface well-nigh the scanner, creating scratches and collecting dust. But, y'all'll have 36 TIFFs waiting for your inspection.
In my experience these do accept some amount of latitude for processing in LR, but they're never quite perfect. The edits frequently introduce a great bargain of noise or other artifacts. Presumably, you could select your culled images, and and so re-scan these images with more preferable settings to create the all-time possible file the scanner can create. Withal, instead of going through all of that, you could simply look at your picture with your eyeballs, think "this 1, that 1, and the other one" and go from there. If the XA was a lab scanner like a Fuji Borderland, I might say get alee and utilize it every bit intended. But in this case, I say take a slower, more considered approach.
Think of the scanner every bit an enlarger. It basically is that, only a digital version of one. When and if you worked in the darkroom, yous may retrieve that enlargers didn't impress full rolls either. A big part of the process was editing, make your picks on a contact canvas, and enlarging what you like. This same workflow applies to scanners. A lot of film shooters believe that ane of the benefits of using film is that it forces you to take your time when shooting. I believe that this likewise translates to the darkroom, fifty-fifty a digital ane. One of the most powerful tools photographers have is their edit. Compared to other fine art forms, photographers are hopelessly prolific in their creation of new photographs, almost of which are terrible. So actually, don't browse total rolls. Scan only your all-time work, prove merely your best piece of work.
Testing
I wanted my tests to be uncomplicated and direct forrard, focusing on actual results. I specifically did NOT desire to do comparisons. Comparisons are an invitation to choice paralysis. Here'southward the deal, most scanners can produce a version of your prototype that is acceptable in 1 fashion or some other. NONE of them do this without a level of expertise on the side of the user. When well handled, a Plustek, Nikon, Imacon, Epson (etc) tin can produce keen scans, and they'll all be slightly dissimilar.
What matters more than is whether you tin make information technology work for you in the mode you lot want it to work. Many users really volition be fine with the output of an Epson (see above why I personally wasn't). If my piece of work was constantly going to pre-printing for impress publication you bet I'd accept an Imacon to squeeze out that actress ten% betwixt the halides. Some other people have it in their heads that just erstwhile Lab scanners can produce "adept" color. I think that lab scanners do seem to optimize the color tone a little faster, but they practice so at the expense of racket. My overall perspective is that in that location is no perfect scanner and eventually y'all have to just become to piece of work.
So I took my cumulative personal work that I happened to shoot on 35mm over a half-dozen month flow. I shot with an F100 and Sigma Art lenses, a Leica M4 with Zeiss or Voigtlander lenses, and (considering this IS 35mmC) I fifty-fifty got through a 2 year former scroll of Ektar 100 that was in my Stylus Epic! I shot Portra 160, Delta 3200, Velvia l, 100, Provia 100F, and even one of my hoarded rolls of Reala 100. I wanted to run into how the scanner would respond not only to the unlike emulsions, but too how information technology would respond to pushed film, over or under exposed chromes, and high grain B&W pic. So I'1000 going to show y'all what I found and I'll try to comment the results.
Leica M4 – 28mm two.viii Biogon – Fuji Vevia 50 (a complicated scene for chromes, simply Velvia retained just plenty highlight and shadow information. I metered this with a Sekonic L-308's reflected manner besides, pretty expert!)
Leica M4 – 28mm 2.eight Biogon – Fuji Velvia fifty (Classic Velvia colors, look at the subtle tones in the far off clouds)
Leica M4 – 35mm 1.4 Distagon – Fuji Provia 100F
Leica M4 – 28mm 2.viii Biogon – Fuji Velvia 100
First we tin can start with some of the chromes, where I feel that the scanner really shines. These scans are total of detail, color, and the complete range from shadows to highlights is accurately represented. Frankly, images like these accept fabricated me motility toward shooting chromes when I travel far more than than I used to. In that location is merely nada like looking at your chromes on a lite tabular array and picking your scans. This is when yous go, oh yep, this is why I shoot moving picture. These were shot with my Leica with a mix of Zeiss lenses. Plus the neat matter about scanning chrome is that you can easily reference the actual frame for color and exposure. On these, I enabled multi-exposure & sample. I am quite confident that these 33mp scans would print beautifully lat 13×xix.
Nikon F100 – Sigma 50mm 1.4 Fine art – Fuji Provia 100F
I wanted to see how skilful of a scan I could make, and whether my browse could rival a digital capture. I arranged for a quick-n-dirty shoot with my friend, Brennan. This was as well an opportunity to test the new Godox bare-bulb strobe I recently purchased. I kept information technology super simple, Nikon F100, Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art @ F4. I matched the background with the strobe power and shot at 1/250th of a second. Here I as well used Provia 100F. The results? Well at that place is less dynamic range of course, but there is enough of detail, certainly more than you might need for a print of moderate size. Bluntly, I'm not sure how an paradigm captured with even a D810 would "improve" this image in any meaningful fashion. Based on a scan like this, I would absolutely shoot 35mm on select editorial jobs. If you tin can already produce a double page spread that has adequate detail, what more do y'all need?
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Ilford Delta 3200
Side by side we tin movement on to diverse negative films. This (in a higher place) is how the scanner handled Delta 3200, a very grainy pic. I think that grain comes through beautifully personally, and I'm very happy with the range of tones present. I was also hoping to shoot some Delta 100, but only didn't accept time. I recollect that the scanner fully captured the resolution present in the frame, and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot this film more, or to make a large impress of this image.
Olympus Stylus Epic – Ektar 100
Hither is an image from my Olympus Stylus Epic shot on Ektar 100. There may exist a color cast in this image that I could remove in PS, but overall I think it's an accurate representation of the colors I saw that day. It was a mix of storm clouds and sunshine on a beach in Tulum (Tulum is over IMO, don't bother). Expect at the item nowadays in the earring. That shows how good the little Olympus 35/2.8 is, and how much the scanner tin really resolve.
Below is another film of Brennan (@brennan_mckissick) that I made broad open in soft window lite. This came out grainer than I would have otherwise expected, but if y'all look past that grain y'all'll notice that the fine patterns in his cap are rendered very nicely, and you can still count eyelashes, that Nokton is a gem. I could probably tool the color a flake more than but I retrieve this is a adept representation of the tones you get from Reala.
Leica M4 – Voigtlander 50mm i.v Nokton – Fuji Reala 100
I wanted to bear witness what I consider a challenging scan to see how the XA would practise. A digital camera would render this scene with enough of item in the highlights and shadows. Negative film too would bring in some of those shadow tones. However here the Provia 100F could handle one range or another, certainly not both. I actually have a frame where I exposed for the shadows and all that beautiful sunlight color is totally gone.
While some might consider this an imperfect image, or an image that shows the limitations of positive film, I disagree. I personally retrieve that on it'southward confront the paradigm is beautiful, that it represents the feeling of the scene even though our eyes may have been able to see into those shadows with greater vigil. What's more than, if you wait closely you lot can meet a far off flock of birds moving between the buildings. Information technology'due south no masterpiece, merely I think it'south a great representation of an autumn sunset here in Brooklyn.
Leica M4 – 25mm 2.8 Biogon – Fuji Provia 100F
The terminal image I'll share is a great example of the muted tones you lot can get with you push Portra 160 +one. This image took a lot of colour balancing to go it correct, but I think it looks great. You can definitely see the grain showing through in the shadow tones, but there is plenty of detail present regardless.
Leica M4 – 21mm F4 Color-Skopar – Portra 160 (+one)
Final thoughts
Pros:
Output comparable to the late-great Coolscan 5000
IR Dust reduction
AF/MF
High DMAX
Fast (for information technology'southward form)
Cheap!
Cons:
Inexpensive construction
Who are Pacific Image?
USB 2.0
Software is a game of what sucks least
Besides Vuescan's dust reduction system tends to miss light, horizontally running scratches. Somehow I suspect this could be corrected with software refinement. Also occasionally greenish noise volition evidence up in very dumbo areas of slide scans, though this has not yet ruined an image for me.
Nikon F6 – 58mm i.4G – Provia 100F
Nikon F6 – 58mm one.4G – Provia 100
Nikon F6 – Sigma 24mm 1.four Fine art – Provia 100F A swell case of the F6's excellent metering system, this is a tough situation for a slide film.
Leica M4 – 35mm i.iv Distagon – Provia 100F – 81A filter. This is another epitome where the detail present in a 35mm frame blew me away.
100% crop of above.
Leica M4 – 35mm F2 Biogon – Portra 160. Heck of a lot of breadth.
Nikon F6 – 58mm i.4G – Provia 100F. The colour was off hither due to a strong tungsten source, but I used levels in PS to correct information technology back,. To me this portrait has a await that's straight out of another era.
Leica M4 – Voigtlander 50mm 1.5 Nokon – Fuji Reala 100
Nikon F6 – 58mm one.4G – Fuji Provia 100F
Leica M4 – 28mm ii.eight Biogon – Fuji Velvia 100
100% Ingather.
Leica M4 – 28mm ii.eight Biogon – Velvia 100
Leica M4 – 28mm 2.eight Biogon – Velvia 100
Nikon F6 – Sigma 24mm ane.4 ART – Fuji Velvia 100
My lesser line
If you lot consider the cost, output, and features of this scanner, it'due south a hit in my heed. It's the only mode I can think of to become these features without spending thousands of dollars. The only affair that might exist better is if you come across a new, in box Nikon V or 5000. But, withal, no warranty on those. The XA can still be serviced in theory, or mayhap amend still, swapped out. What's more, the mic-drib advantage of film is that you tin can at any time, take a better scan made by a better device. Were I to practise a gallery show I could e'er become a drum scan fabricated. My D700 files are never going to get meliorate.
When will Kodak, or Epson, or Nikon realize that people yet like shooting film, and deserve a scanner that has kept up with the times?
Film is important to me for many reasons, and therefore I need a scanner that tin can realize the potential that I know is at that place in the negative. I honey that the scanner forces you to have your fourth dimension, similar an enlarger. I now have a very considered workflow. Re-evaluating old contact sheets is a joy, merely like I would in a regular darkroom workflow. If you're serious about 35mm I'd recommend the XA with out reservations, except I'd say what you put into scanning is directly proportional to what you become out of it. I was then impressed with the scanner that I bought their dedicated 120 scanner, the PF120. That guy gives me 60mp images from half dozen×7 negatives. Who needs a digital back?
If you lot enjoyed this review or these pictures cheque me out at www.sperryphoto.com or on Instagram @marksperry.
*My client work still goes to pro labs for the most part. If I were to double down on 35mm for my weddings I'd probably get a Frontier or Noritsu scanner.
Source: https://www.35mmc.com/15/03/2017/pacific-image-xa/
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