Why is that approach shortsighted exactly? Scanning the frame edges would certainly come at the expense of fllm flatness or sharpness (if another glass surface is introduced). Scanning the frame edges might be a fun thing for a few people but most care more about getting the best quality from their scans.
"Might be a fun thing for a few people"? That's rather condescending,
don't you think? I've a lifetime of work, shooting full-frame -- "fun"?
I guess Richard Avedon and Irving Penn were just having a giggle, eh?
I am hardly alone in printing full-frame, and in presenting my photo-
graphs to the rebates.
It is not an issue of scan quality. It is a simple matter of (1) offering
scanner hardware capable of covering the entire area, and (2) designing
a film carrier that extends out past the inner edge of the rebate. (A
dimension, by the way, that changes from camera to camera.)
This is not rocket science. We've been using filed-out carriers in
the darkroom for decades without any loss of image quality. Don't
tell me that it becomes harder just because the carrier is going into
a different sort of "enlarger."
I once bought a Microtek 120tf, another high-end MF scanner. I
filed out the edges of the carrier to get to the rebates -- no problem
there. But the scanner could not get me to my goal, because the
scanner optics would not extend to the rebates. I sold it and went
back to the Epson flatbeds.
If Plustek is aiming at the niche of dedicated film shooters, then it
should reconsider this limitation. People who choose to remain with
film embrace the medium, and that embrace includes its artifacts
-- the rebates included. When was the last time you saw a Type 55
shooter crop out the telltale Polaroid margins?