Larry Roohr (roohrphoto@orci.com)
Thu, 21 Jan 1999 19:35:22 -0700
I own both a Polaroid sprintscan plus film scanner and a Linotype Saphire
plus flatbed. The Linotype (Umax clone) does every bit as well density wise
as the polaroid, IMO. The only difference is the resolution. If the purpose
is 4x5 or larger the 1000 dpi you get with these flatbeds may be more than
enough, at much less cost than large format film scanners. The linotype
saphire, Umax powerlook 2000, agfa duoscan, and the Microtek model (Microtek
makes the duoscan for Agfa) all use the same scan array and I've heard are
pretty equal in performance. Last I looked they were running around $2k if
you shopped around. The biggest difference in performance may be the
software they ship with. If I had the choice and only wished to do large
format negs or transparancies I'd get the flatbed.
good luck,
Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: Valburg <lkv1@psu.edu>
To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
<alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Date: Thursday, January 21, 1999 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: Scanner selection
>At 01:26 PM 1/21/99 -0500, Dave wrote:
>>In a message dated 1/21/99 5:38:15 AM Pacific Standard Time, nick@mcn.org
>>writes:
>>
>>> The choice of a film scanner seems to have narrowed down to the Nikon
>LS4500
>>> which does up to 4X5 film only and the Agfa Duoscan which can do 8X10
>>> film/reflective.
>>
>>Nick, they don't belong to the same category. LS4500 is a film scanner
while
>>Duoscan is mainly a flatbed scanner with transparent adapter. For our
>>practical purposes, within a 4x5 area, you can scan at higher resolution
with
>>a film scanner compared to a flatbed scanner. (snip)
>>
>>So if you are planning on scanning a lot of negatives, it's best that you
get
>>a film scanner. With flatbed scanner, what you can do is enlarge the
negative
>>(into prints or positive) then scan the result.
>>
>
>In addition to the resolution consideration, a flatbed scanner will be much
>more limited in the optical density range it can handle well. The
>practical result of this will be scans which are considerably noisier than
>those from a film scanner: noisier shadow areas in scans from
>transparencies, noisier highlights in scans from negs. In real world
>terms, it's not a particularly subtle degree of difference.
>
>Regards,
>Mitch Valburg
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sat Nov 06 1999 - 10:06:43