We recently caught up with Daniel Katz, a film photographer hell bent on bringing the medium back into the public eye. We like what he has to say and wanted to share that with you here. This article discusses the merits of drum scanning by explaining different technology used in the process and sharing example film scans.
What is it?
Drum scanning is the ultimate pursuit of quality in the realm of film photography. It is the last scan you will ever need, since there is nothing that will give you the kind of resolution, detail, sharpness, dynamic range, and color rendition that drum scanning can give you.
Image taken in Germany with a Hasselblad 501C, 80mm 2.8 Zeiss CF lens, and Fujichrome Astia 100 reversal film.
PMT vs CCD
CCD scanners are basically all consumer, prosumer, and many high end scanners, that are not drum scanners. The difference here is essentially that it uses the same technology that digital camera’s use (a chip) that is used to record an image through a lens (usually one that is highly inferior to the one you shot the image with). Essentially, with a CCD scanner, you are taking a picture of your image with a digital camera.
How a drum scanner differs is that it uses PMT’s (Photo Multiplier Tubes). These are basically vacuum tubes (one for each RGB color) that absorb the image pixel by pixel. It’s a technology that was derived from nuclear physics.
The image on the left was scanned with a pro grade CCD scanner at a lab, while the one on the right was scanned with a drum scanner. As you can see – the contrast is completely blown out on the left image and the colors were not as vibrant or natural as they were on the Fuji reversal film it was shot on.
Why compromise on quality when you can get the best scans that are out there? National Geographic, Vogue, pretty much every big publishing house used to have drum scanners which cost up to $65K or more when new and could scan at up to 11,000 dpi. For these publications, for advertising agencies, for anyone that wanted to have the ultimate quality and/or print big, there was no compromise.
As you can see – the image on the left scanned with a prosumer CCD scanner is a lot less sharp with much less dynamic range than the one on the right scanned with a drum scanner. The left image was actually slightly sharpened in post, while the right one had absolutely no sharpening done to it. This is again due to the fact that a CCD scanner is basically taking a picture of your image through a lens and sensor. Why the drum scanner scan is so much sharper and clearer is the least-optics on the signal path,, better mechanics and that it uses PMT’s.PMT’s are ultra sensitive to light and therefore outperform CCD’s in their dynamic range. The stated D-Max on most CCD scanners is highly inflated. Many of the consumer and prosumer manufacturers do this to show that their specs are higher than drum scanners, when in reality those specs are not very accurate.
In this slide of a shoemaker in Kobe, Japan you can easily differentiate between the two images. The one on the right (Drum scan) is more accurate in terms of both color reproduction and shadow detail. You can really see the creases and lines on the shirt and the image is overall sharper on the drum scan vs. the CCD on the left.Wet-mounting
Wet-mounting is the act of sandwiching the film on the drum between a sheet of mylar and the drum surface. Having the film in this fluid creates an optical effect that increases dynamic range, color vividness, renders fine details more refined, removes much of the defects (scratches and most of the dust) and reduces film grain. You can’t emulate, simulate or fake this optical effect in digital post processing – it’s pure physics.
Unlike flatbed or prosumer scanners the scanning surfaces on the drum create almost no side-reflections from neighbouring areas. This drum design gives the best possible flatness to the film.
A wet mounting station holds the drum in place, while the roller on top helps to press the mylar sheet onto the film, getting rid of most of the bubbles.I use the highest grade mylar and oil based fluid made by Scanscience. This fluid is the safest for the environemnt and myself, as well as for the drum and the film. Most labs will use much cheaper fluids that have hydrofluoric carbons such as N-hexane, whilst ours are the safest in the industry. These fluids are completely neutral to the negatives and positives and do no harm to the film. In fact, the mounting fluid evaporates fairly quickly after dismounting the mylar sheet. Wet mounting is a lot of time-consuming handwork but the results are well worth it.
Resolution and Color Rendition
Drum scanners use each of the red, green, and blue photo multiplier tubes to scan the image pixel by pixel. Drum scanning is slower but a lot more precise reading the film point-by-point when compared to a CCD scanner that scans an image much like taking it with a digital camera. The drumscan therefore has the upper hand in optical density, resolution and color rendition.
This is a drum scanned image that was taken in Lake Tahoe. The bottom was fogged a bit due to an in camera light leak. The reason I chose this image is to show the kind of richness in color and clarity that is possible with drum scanning.The scanner I use is a Danish made Scanview Scanmate 5000 which offers up to 5000DPI in scanning resolution. This works out to around 35 megapixels from a 35mm scan, 80-200 megapixels in medium format, and 400megapixels up to a gigapixel in large format. Printing sizes vary but needless to say scans like these have been used to print extremely big prints at art galleries and even billboards. It makes digital look like it’s years behind in resolution.
Operation
Drum scanning is a lot of hard work due to wet mounting compared to regular consumer or prosumer CCD-scanning. Drum scanners are high-end high-precision mechanical devices that need a lot of care, regular maintenance and most of all – a skillful operator. It takes months to learn the skills and nuances needed to be able to wet mount and scan well.
The drum in operation here is spinning at up to 1600RPM in the drum scanner. The xenon light bulb illuminates through the drum onto the film. The image is fed through the PMT’s and transformed into a digital signal through A/D converters.Drum scanners need a lot of care, regular maintenance, and often big investments to replace expensive high-end electronic or mechanical parts to keep them performing to the very best of their ability. However, they are overall very bulletproof and built to last many years, even decades of use with proper maintenance.
Value
For those seeking second rate quality, this may not be something you would be interested in. Drum scans are not as cheap as a local lab’s CCD scan, but they are truly the best and purest path to the ultimate quality possible. It’s better to scan less but scan better images that will really wow people.
View of the Cliff House in San Francisco taken with a Leica M3 and Voigtlander 15mm lens.The costs of running a drum scanner is never as cheap as a CCD. The costs may add up – from the chemicals, tape and mylar needed for wet mounting to the maintenance and power usage. However, the value is worth it when you compare the quality and only want to ever have to scan an image once. It may be a time consuming process but drum scanners were actually built for volume scanning, so even though the actual mounting of the drum may take a while, scanning many images at once is easier than with many CCD’s that allow you to preview only one at a time.
View of a house near in Virginia City, Nevada on the way to Reno. Taken with a Hasselblad 501C, 80mm Zeiss CF lens, and Fujichrome Astia reversal film.My goal is to make the highest quality scan of your negatives and slides with a 16 bit tiff output. The high resolution and detail is something that will be future proof for many years to come. In fact, for larger negatives the resolution is still years ahead of digital. Analog photography is something that is pure and it is my goal to keep this art form alive by helping people digitize their images for their own use.
A price list and order form for your drum scanning requirements are available where this article was first published by Daniel Katz. Alternatively for further inquiries you can drop Daniel an email on info@silverchroma.com
Your article on drum scanners has inspired me to keep and experiment with my old style Mimeograph /stencil duplicators. Everything was going to go in the trash since I’m in the process of moving. Although these are on the low end of drum scanning they are nevertheless fun to experiment with. I have a Roneotronic , a Danish manufacture for AB Dick and an American Manufactured one. Two use PMT’s.The US uses Led. Working on the High End Scanners would have been a Dream.
I was a “High End” Scanner operator for 20 years. I worked on a Hell DC360 and then on a Crosfield system, subsequently converted to a Celsis system. I I was made redundant from my work with the advent of desktop scanners (jeez!) and the initial digital photography revolution. If you love music I guarantee that within your music collection there is imagery that I would have reproduced.
What I still dont understand to this day is how historic prints-film/politics/music/art/photo journalism/reportage etc, and positives are now being reproduced at the level of quality available 20 years ago. My guess is that they are not. The Scanner I worked on cost over £250000 but people came for the results. Manytimes those scans vastly improved upon the photographs.
Very sad to have seen the demise of this industry.
I spoke to a guy in another trade… film making. He told me that once upon a time they strived to set the scene and make everything right before shooting. Then when AVID came along they just shot the scene then got back to the studio and tried to get the best out of the software.
This is similar to the attitude of many photographers who bracket shot many scenes relying on Photoshop or the Scanner Operator to fix. Maybe an “it will do” attitude rather than “its got to be the best” killed the scanner.
I have never seen graphic representation in print, move on to better things in recent years.
maybe Im just jaded !
No, you are correct. There is a mentality that if its new it must be progress; it must be better. Take digital image sensors for example, they cannot capture all colour information at each pixel, so they use a colour filter to capture one colour at each pixel, which reduces image quality, then interopolate the results mathimatically, reducing image quality again. Everyone thinks these flat, non textural images are better than film. What a joke.
Just take a look at current fashion shots, movie poster shots, fashion commercials. Pretty girls photoshopped to death! They look like they are wearing masks! It’s really ugly. But people are used to it. Hence, they see it as know. And known is good. Obviously. 😉
I learned scanning in Vancouver on a Hell machine that used continuous screens, back in the 80’s. We bought the first the Hell CP 345 digital machine on the west coast, and a CP 380 in the next room which was divided by a processor room. I moved to Australia and ran a Crossfield Fuji digital machine. Guess what? I’m working in Melbourne at Splitting Image Colour Studio, we still have 2 LinoType Hell S3400’s pumping out the scans.
I am so impressed that you use Hell CP 345 color scanner.
I have never operated Hell color scanner. I was Color scanner instructor of Dainippon Screen for a long time in the USA. I am now 71 years old but still I work as a color consultant for pre-press in a Philippine printing company. Most images by digital camera do not have enough shadow detail nor sharpmess. But most advertising people do not know about the color quality by drum scanner. Therfore they think that color quality by digital camera is OK. Anyway, I am so happy to know that still drum scanners are running in printing industry.
Phogotraphy 
Drum scanning is mostly suggested when you are looking to print some large films.Some fine art originals are suitable for drum scanning.
http://www.imagine-it-entertainment.com/4K_Film_Scan/default.htm
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Your article on drum scanners has inspired me to keep and experiment with my old style Mimeograph /stencil duplicators. Everything was going to go in the trash since I’m in the process of moving. Although these are on the low end of drum scanning they are nevertheless fun to experiment with. I have a Roneotronic , a Danish manufacture for AB Dick and an American Manufactured one. Two use PMT’s.The US uses Led. Working on the High End Scanners would have been a Dream.
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Wonderful to hear Guenter. Thank you
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I was a “High End” Scanner operator for 20 years. I worked on a Hell DC360 and then on a Crosfield system, subsequently converted to a Celsis system. I I was made redundant from my work with the advent of desktop scanners (jeez!) and the initial digital photography revolution. If you love music I guarantee that within your music collection there is imagery that I would have reproduced.
What I still dont understand to this day is how historic prints-film/politics/music/art/photo journalism/reportage etc, and positives are now being reproduced at the level of quality available 20 years ago. My guess is that they are not. The Scanner I worked on cost over £250000 but people came for the results. Manytimes those scans vastly improved upon the photographs.
Very sad to have seen the demise of this industry.
I spoke to a guy in another trade… film making. He told me that once upon a time they strived to set the scene and make everything right before shooting. Then when AVID came along they just shot the scene then got back to the studio and tried to get the best out of the software.
This is similar to the attitude of many photographers who bracket shot many scenes relying on Photoshop or the Scanner Operator to fix. Maybe an “it will do” attitude rather than “its got to be the best” killed the scanner.
I have never seen graphic representation in print, move on to better things in recent years.
maybe Im just jaded !
LikeLike
No, you are correct. There is a mentality that if its new it must be progress; it must be better. Take digital image sensors for example, they cannot capture all colour information at each pixel, so they use a colour filter to capture one colour at each pixel, which reduces image quality, then interopolate the results mathimatically, reducing image quality again. Everyone thinks these flat, non textural images are better than film. What a joke.
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It’s just: People like what they are used to.
Just take a look at current fashion shots, movie poster shots, fashion commercials. Pretty girls photoshopped to death! They look like they are wearing masks! It’s really ugly. But people are used to it. Hence, they see it as know. And known is good. Obviously. 😉
LikeLike
I learned scanning in Vancouver on a Hell machine that used continuous screens, back in the 80’s. We bought the first the Hell CP 345 digital machine on the west coast, and a CP 380 in the next room which was divided by a processor room. I moved to Australia and ran a Crossfield Fuji digital machine. Guess what? I’m working in Melbourne at Splitting Image Colour Studio, we still have 2 LinoType Hell S3400’s pumping out the scans.
Trev
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I am so impressed that you use Hell CP 345 color scanner.
I have never operated Hell color scanner. I was Color scanner instructor of Dainippon Screen for a long time in the USA. I am now 71 years old but still I work as a color consultant for pre-press in a Philippine printing company. Most images by digital camera do not have enough shadow detail nor sharpmess. But most advertising people do not know about the color quality by drum scanner. Therfore they think that color quality by digital camera is OK. Anyway, I am so happy to know that still drum scanners are running in printing industry.
Seiji Matsushita
s. matsushita@majesticpress.com.ph
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