I’m wondering if anyone knows of a good photo lab in Taipei (or elsewhere in Taiwan, I’d consider posting) that does high quality medium format film scanning? My current lab has a scanner that scans 35mm film at around 4800dpi giving some lovely ~30mp files, but the same scanner is only capable of scanning 120 film at 2400dpi meaning the files are a little lacking given all the detail medium format can provide.
If anyone has any experience scanning with a DSLR/Mirrorless some advice would also be appreciated as I’m afraid what I’m looking for might not exist.
I haven’t shot medium and large format here as i gave away/sold my film cameras before i moved. If your shooting 120 film i would think you are pretty serious about your work, so maybe worth investing in a film scanner. you will get much better results than any store (i found even 10 years ago labs are investing less and less in equipment for film). When i have had any film scanned here i haven’t been impressed with the results but that may be down to taste.
Something like the scanner bellow you can have a bit more control over your images, run multipass scans and output to a lossless file before editing.
There are more expensive models (as with all photography the prices are endless)
i have the v600 and I don’t consider it hq. I’ve heard the iq can improve shimming the film mounts but I think I never tried it. if interested in buying it please PM me.
i don’t know the quality as i don’t own i only did a quick search for an example, but with proper scanning etiquette it should give you better results than the store.
I never used mounts when scanning with glass, i always got better quality with the film directly on the glass, but make sure all surfaces are cleaned first.
(much easier now we don’t need the oil for drum scanners)
I actually have a V600 I left at my parents house, used to shoot a lot of medium format back there so I could make the most of the resolution. I enjoyed scanning myself but it’s quite time consuming… A Coolscan would definitely be nice!
I might have a look into dslr scanning or sending it to a shop in Japan maybe…