Street Photography Magazine

S

canners make great macro imaging tools.

They are easy to use and comparatively

inexpensive, and the images they create have

extremely high relsolution. Placing a flower in

a flatbed scanner is a lot simpler than setting

up and adjusting a macro-capable camera

to capture an image. Not only that, but

sharpness and resolution don’t fall off toward

the edges of the frame the way they usually

do when using a lens to capture a subject.

A simple US$300 scanner is perfectly

adequate for making your first ‘shots’, but

don’t go too cheap. It is worth acquiring a

scanner with the greatest possible resolution

for your money when you are setting out in

scanography. There are three major factors to

consider when choosing a scanner:

The resolution figures quoted by

manufacturers are seldom realistic and the

true effective resolution is much lower than

the technical specifications would lead you

to believe. Even the highest-quality flatbed

scanners only achieve a fraction of the

claimed resolution, and anything above

2000 spi (samples per inch) is rare.

A scanner delivers its best resolution

in transmitted-light (i.e., film) mode.

Reflected-light mode (the mode most

commonly used for scanography purposes)

generally produces images with lower

resolution. For example, Canon quotes

maximum film scan resolution of 9600 spi for

its CanoScan 9000F model, but just 4800 spi

for reflective document scans.

Finally, the supplied software has to

support maximum resolution in reflective scan

Macro Technique | Scanography

This tiny flower, just 4 mm in diameter, is transformed into

a screen-filling masterpiece when captured by a scanner

Image: Werner Abel

A flatbed scanner is a great tool for making

high-resolution images of non-moving subjects

Image: Werner Abel

Image: Werner Abel