Designing a new film scanner; need your help

[Ronald M]

good focus

flat image plane, i.e. glass

good RGB color

software that is MAC compatible and updatable by manufacturer. I already have a $1000 that will not run on current mac os. Silverfish is nice, but all I have to do is blow a bulb and $300 in software is down the drain. Vue scan
underwhelms me.

I really don`t need or want much except a flat scan, exposure adjust, and color adjust. SIMPLE. Photoshop does the rest
My original MK 1000 software worked great. Most hated it, but it did way more than I needed.
Silverfast is a money pit. Scanner specific the problem along with OS matching.

Would not spend much on anything that does not have a service dept and parts store. A little guy probably not up to task.

I have moved on to digital. If I replaced the MK 1500, it would be a plustek that comes with Silverfast can consider it disposable. $500 risk

Darkroom still open.

 

[raid]

Most votes are for $1000 and $1500 per scanner. I suggest to try to keep it at $1000, with a market asking price of $950 plus $50 for shipping. More buyers will be lining up to buy your planned product. Add some neat features that exisiting scanners lack. Have an app for iPhones maybe?

 

[x-ray]

A modernized version of X-Y flatbed prepress scanners like the Fuji Lanovia would be optimal. They scan as well as a Coolscan, but way more convenient, and can deal with pesky large formats like 6x17.
The two biggest challenges you will face are keeping film flat and focusing.

I owned a Lanovia Quattro and 5000 Finescan Fuji and agree. I'd love to see a scaled down version of the LQ Fuji, Cezanne or Creo Scitex Eversmart. I personally feel the Fuji is the better machine but both are excellent.

Film sizes up to 8x10 would be enough. No reflective function would be less expensive as there are plenty of good print scanners. Scaling down would help in cost, size and weight.

The Fuji software was basically two applications independant of each other. The main app only ran the scanner and acquired the image. It allowed applying film profiles for input and output. Sharpening which I kept turned off, film type like color net, transparency etc. and cropping. Cor corrections and levels etc. were done in a totally different app.

wet mounting would be desirable too and premium optics

Simply study the features of these scanners and you have the perfect machine.

 

[littleearth]

What I care about is tonality and colors. If it scans like a Frontier, Noritsu, pakon etc sure, if it gives those horrible flatbed results no thank you.

 

[Mudman]

Keep it at $1000 and you have a buyer right here for anything up to 4x5.

 

[vitaly66]

Whatever you eventually come up with, please make the api for your firmware open source.

That way we will not have to depend on proprietary drivers, or be limited to certain (and certain to become obsolete) platforms and operating systems.

Thank you!

 

[x-ray]

Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel why not make a flatbed device that you could use with your DSLR. Most folks have one so use that as the I capture device then the film support, lighting, alignment and optics are all you need to deal with.

A lot of people already use their DSLR to copy transparencies and negs. I can't think of any current dedicated scanner that will perform up to the quality of something like a Nikon D810 or similar. I'm not even sure the Kodak IQ Smart3 will match it.

 

[mdarnton]

I think I can see exactly where you're headed with this, and I think it's a great idea. I don't doubt that all of the proper bases will be covered, from the way you're talking, so my only concern is cost. I sure would like one of these, and I suspect the cost is going to be WAY over my affordability, and worth every cent. If it came in under $1000 I would be delighted, but I don't see how it could.

For the record, along with 35mm, I shoot a lot of 8x10 B&W, so any new scanner I get will need to do that. I'm quite happy with camera scanning for 35mm and 6x6, but would welcome a better small film scanner IF it handled large film, too.

 

[f16sunshine]

I think if you focus on a Monochromoatic scanner you win!

Sure you may miss a bit of the market but,... if you get it right, you will win over many photographers who would otherwise stay with their existing scanners.

I know probably 75-90% of photographers here at RFF that use film at all, use Digital for color and film only for B+W.

My color usage is some e6 for my Holga which I happily scan on a "cheap" epson V700 ($400 in 2008). Otherwise I only use film for B+W.

35mm and 120 will be fine. No need to muck things up with larger formats. Again, flatbeads are fine there for pre-viewing 4x5 and larger frames.
Most serious large format work will need to go to a drum. Even if you get to the $3000 range you will not be able to compete there so why bother.

In other words,... build a specialized tool good at one thing rather than the jack of all trades so common in scanners. That one thing in this case is B+W roll film.



Cheers!

 

[brbo]

In other words,... build a specialized tool good at one thing rather than the jack of all trades so common in scanners. That one thing in this case is B+W roll film.

LOL! 🙂

And don't forget to charge MORE for giving a user B-W only.

BTW, all existing desktop scanners are monochrome only (with a "trick" to enable colour scanning). What's more, scanning BW film in colour mode gives you a slightly better BW scan.

 

[aizan]

what brbo said.

the nice thing about scanning color film is that you can do post-processing on the computer and then print it digitally.

a b&w only scanner makes no sense...you'd hardly sell any of them.

if the scanner can accommodate 8x10 film and still be around the size of a shoe box, i don't see much of a reason to limit its capabilities. many large format photographers live outside major metropolitan areas, and i'm sure they'd prefer excellent scans over decent ones.

 

[Dwig]

For me the priorities would be:

...
- for slides and negatives
....

I see absolutely no reason for a high resolution orientated scanner to ever support scanning slides. Scanning transparencies, yes. But scanning slides (mounted transparencies) is foolish except in low resolution high speed situations.

 

[aizan]

many institutions have archives of slides that they want to digitize with high res. so that's one reason.

 

[f16sunshine]

LOL! 🙂 And don't forget to charge MORE for giving a user B-W only. BTW, all existing desktop scanners are monochrome only (with a "trick" to enable colour scanning). What's more, scanning BW film in colour mode gives you a slightly better BW scan.

You're making my point.
If you getting a better B&W scan in color mode, the machine is obviously not built around B&W performance.
I'm asking for a better B&W scanner instead of the same old consumer re-heated compromise.

 

[mdarnton]

I want it to do everything, I want it done well, and I want it cheap. I'm not being cynical here: a real breakthrough technology would do exactly that. Old technology would not, but why repeat old technology yet again?

There's an advantage to coming into a market late. I'm sure we all remember our first digital camera, what it cost, and what it did. Mine cost a whole lot, and in today's terms did nothing. The last decade has brought just about nothing new to us in the way of scanners, so it's definitely time to throw some different thinking at the problem.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

1 / Cost: under $1000, or i'd just send out for drum scans
2 / 120 + 35mm. If i get around to shooting 4x5 or 8x10, with that original size, i wouldn't mind just using a flatbed, or since it would be with such low volume, outsourced scans.
3 / FLAT, FLAT, FLAT holder system.
4 / The software. Simplicity, but with options.
5 / Size and design of the device. Not more bulky than an Epson flatbed, and it needs to look nice enough to have 'out' in the home/office environment. Elegant and clean, and not an industrial-looking thing.

 

[Spanik]

I see absolutely no reason for a high resolution orientated scanner to ever support scanning slides. Scanning transparencies, yes. But scanning slides (mounted transparencies) is foolish except in low resolution high speed situations.

Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. If there is a distinction between slides and transparancies, then I mean the ones not mounted in those plastic holders for projection. But it should scan them up to 4x5 and 6x17. I never found those mountings for anything larger than 6x6 anyway, neither do I have a projector for any larger ones.

As said, there is use for scanning the mounted ones (I got thousends of them) but I agree that this might be an option.

 

[JChrome]

Designing a new film scanner; need your help

I know probably 75-90% of photographers here at RFF that use film at all, use Digital for color and film only for B+W.

I'm surprised by this statistic.

I tried looking for a poll for this and found this one:

https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78502

Or was there another poll?

But back to the OP, I would prefer to have both color and BnW in the scanner and I would assume the market would as well.

Does it also always have to be wet mounted? It's an interesting proposition but it decreases the convenience by a lot.

My philosophy about scanning is that I don't care about the quality of a scan until I print. And I make less than 5 prints a year.

So I guess I'm saying that I'm mostly motivated by convenience for 95% of my work. Obviously if you can beat a high quality drum scanner in performance and still make the workflow quick (like with a flatbed), then you've got the golden goose. But generally scanners are in two camps:

1) lower quality but fast workflow
2) higher quality but slow workflow

So are you trying to split the middle? Or beat #1 in convenience/speed of workflow and approach the quality of #2?

Also, on the Kickstarter, I'd be very conservative with your timeframes. The TravelWide was promised at the end of 2013 but that didn't happen (I personally don't mind but a lot of people did).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dwig]

many institutions have archives of slides that they want to digitize with high res. so that's one reason.

No, it is not! If you want high resolution scans from slides, you need to unmount them for cleaning and then scanning as transparencies. They can then be remounted as desired. Scanning mounted slides is only a viable option when you need to scan a volume of slides quickly and can accept less than the best scans.

At the gallery I work for, getting sharp high resolution scans from the artist's old film images is critical to getting files good enough for our typical 30x45" and larger prints. Even though we have a 2x2 slide carrier for our Imacon scanner, I never use it. I always unmount the slides and scan the unmounted film. It is the only way to get the film flat enough for a good hi resolution scan.

 

[aizan]

No, it is not! If you want high resolution scans from slides, you need to unmount them for cleaning and then scanning as transparencies. They can then be remounted as desired. Scanning mounted slides is only a viable option when you need to scan a volume of slides quickly and can accept less than the best scans.

At the gallery I work for, getting sharp high resolution scans from the artist's old film images is critical to getting files good enough for our typical 30x45" and larger prints. Even though we have a 2x2 slide carrier for our Imacon scanner, I never use it. I always unmount the slides and scan the unmounted film. It is the only way to get the film flat enough for a good hi resolution scan.

yes, it is...unmounting slides is completely impractical. we're talking thousands of slides, most of them in cardboard kodachrome and ektachrome mounts. it's obviously different in a gallery setting, with lower volume and less interest in preserving the archive in its original state.