Kodachrome and the Dimage Scan Dual IV

[David Murphy]

Has anyone been able to get the Konica-Minolta Dimage IV to do a good job on Kodachrome? My Kodachrome 64 scans look terrible- very muddy and with other problems like faint halos around certain objects on the slides. The same slides as viewed directly are stunningly good in all respects.

 

[dmr]

Has anyone been able to get the Konica-Minolta Dimage IV to do a good job on Kodachrome?

Yes, countless Kodachrome slides since 2005.

Here's one, from a post on another board:

There are others on this page here:

http://omababe.blogspot.com/2007/12/chicago-in-kodachrome.html

I've found that the trick to getting good scans is attention to detail all the way through the process, starting with a clean slide. I almost always scan at max. res., multiple passes, and use the scanner software for scanning only, maybe some levels, but nothing else. That auto dust brush thing is a placebo at best! Then clean things up in Photoshop or whatever after you get the scan.

 

[dexdog]

I have used the SD IV to scan about four thousand old Kodachrome slides from the 1960s and 70s, with good results (mostly ISO 64, but some ISO 25 as well). Similar to DMR's advice, highest res with multiple passes seems to work the best. The only issue that I have noticed is that the scans seems to come out with more intense blue colors than the slides themselves exhibit on the light table- of course, this is easily fixed in a photo editing program.

 

[Sam N]

I've stopped using my Scan Dual III for the most part.


For those with DSLRs and macro lenses, you can get pretty decent "scans" by using up a copy-stand-like setup with a lightbox. The example above is Kodachrome 64 from an R3a shot with a 40D and 100mm macro lens.

 

[splitimageview]

I primarily scan Kodachrome on mine, works great...VueScan on MacOS X.

 

[David Murphy]

Thanks for the replies, but how do you get a scanner like this to make multiple passes? I can't find such an option in the Konica or the VueScan software (demo version).