Ted Striker
Well-known
ptpdprinter
Veteran
It is a piece of junk Kodak licensed its name for that has been out since CEDIA if not before.
dmr
Registered Abuser
At least they are supporting film.
Steve M.
Veteran
Yes, but who is "they"? According to the article, this scanner has no affiliation with Kodak Alaris. So it's just a third party, low end scanner that has a Kodak name slapped on it. Sorta like those budget cheap P&S cameras that say Leica.
bmattock
Veteran
For what it's worth, most if not all of these 'scanners' are not scanners; they take a photo of the film with a digital sensor. I reviewed one the other day, got crickets. Don't pretend it's suddenly interesting because it says "Kodak" on it. A, it's not really Kodak, and B, all these units are essentially the samend literal thing.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/albums/72157700503367472
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/albums/72157700503367472
Ted Striker
Well-known
This is an Eastman Kodak scanner, not Kodak Alaris.
Bille
Well-known
They are selling "Kodak" branded light bulbs at the 1€ store over here.
Huss
Veteran
Once they have their own chewing tobacco, I'm out.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
For someone who has a few negatives of family pics etc that they'd like to share on social media it's fine and I see no problem with it. It doesn't deserve the Kodak name on it though in my opinion.
Pentode
Well-known
Kodak put themselves on the map over 100 years ago by selling to the masses. How does this differ?
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Weird, I read about this "Kodak" scanner at APUG and find cheap analog on BH. Months ago.
Kodak only supporting film then they manufacture and sell film. Re-selling 50$ scanners at 170$ isn't really supporting, IMO.
Kodak only supporting film then they manufacture and sell film. Re-selling 50$ scanners at 170$ isn't really supporting, IMO.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Scrambler
Well-known
I really don't see how you can make that comparison actually!
Possibly not an exact comparison, but Kodak did sell a cardboard box for making photographs, with a known but unrelated brand (Brownie) attached for marketing purposes.
willie_901
Veteran
It differs in that there are no masses.
The general public are not going to suddenly spend time scanning film because someone licensed the Kodak brand for a scanner.
joe bosak
Well-known
The profit they do or don't make from sales they make will prove them right or wrong on that point. That's business.
Personally i find the whole area of branding over time a bit annoying. A brand dies and gets resurrected, sometimes with no link to the original company. Or a company gets bought out by another and the brand continues whether or not there's any DNA from the old firm in the products. Or a company just evolves to produce something that isn't really descended from what made them great.
Glad there's been some discussion of this scanner, i was wondering whether it was any good.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Personally i find the whole area of branding over time a bit annoying. A brand dies and gets resurrected, sometimes with no link to the original company. Or a company gets bought out by another and the brand continues whether or not there's any DNA from the old firm in the products. Or a company just evolves to produce something that isn't really descended from what made them great.
Glad there's been some discussion of this scanner, i was wondering whether it was any good.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
bmattock
Veteran
It is fine for some use cases, not best for others. Again, it's not a scanner. It's a camera that takes a photo of a backlit film frame. Very much like the old slide copiers of days gone by. The concept is identical to the DSLR copy method currently touted here.
It's just scaled down using less powerful gear to a price point. Apparently some don't like to hear that but oh well.
Ted Striker
Well-known
For those of us who dont know (me), what is the difference between a digital photograph of a negative made with a very high quality camera, and a scanner that images the negative line by line?
I am guessing that this Kodak scanner uses a very low quality camera. Would this concept be acceptable if Kodak used a high quality camera? Or are scanners still better?
bmattock
Veteran
The line-by-line method is also in very close proximity to the film. Typically this results in much higher 'dmax' which is a fancy way of saying it gets more dynamic range out of the scan than does a photograph made by a typical tiny camera sensor.
Dynamic range for anyone who doesn't know, is basically the ability to capture the darkest to the lightest detail present in scene. Not the sensitivity (ISO) but the overall dark-to-light ability to capture and retain detail. An image sensor with low dmax will tend to block up dark bits and blow out light bits rather than capture the detail present in the original.
It's not a terrible image sensor, based on my eval of a Wolverine brand, which I would bet is very much similar if not identical (it seems all these units are based on the same internals, just look at the specs). A 14 mp digital camera type sensor - very small as most point-and-shoot digicams are.
The DSLR method of copying negatives that others have discussed here (and which I am keen to try) is essentially the same thing on a larger scale. The idea is simple - you mount your negative behind a sufficiently bright and diffuse light source, you focus on it with a DSLR using a tripod or other stable platform and a macro-type flat-field lens stopped way down to increase focus accuracy, and Bob's your uncle.
Why would the DSLR method work better than the Kodak scan-in-a-box method? Primarily, I think, due to the lens quality of the DSLR (potentially) and the sensor size and dynamic range.
When I tested my recently-purchased used Wolverine, I noted that it does an "OK" job on some things - mostly low-contrast images that just did not contain that much dynamic range.
To have a high-quality unit like the Kodak (or its many clones), one would have to make use of a higher-quality sensor, which would probably be larger. Not necessarily larger, but with a higher ability to capture dynamic range. This could also entail a higher-quality integral lens, although with a sufficiently bright light source and very small aperture, this might be overcome to some extent.
There is such a product on the market, I forget the name of it, which is basically a framework for your negatives/slide and your own DSLR to do just what we're discussing. It's quite expensive as I recall. I am planning on trying a lower-budget DIY test myself. I am using an old enlarger with one of my DSLR cameras mounted where the enlarger head was, and the enlarger head turned upside down where the old photo paper base was located. We'll see how it goes.
I will also note that it appears from my own results as well as some published tests that these units seem to crop the 'scans' they make, which might be objectionable to some.
My plan for the moment with my Wolverine is to use it for quick scans of B&W negatives as I go through my archives, to see which of them I might like to do a higher-quality scan on with my Konica-Minolta ScanDual IV.
brbo
Well-known
"2D" sensors have been used in scanners for ages. And with great success, too. There are benefits and drawbacks to "1D" (line) sensors, but today, with massive pixel density sensors, mature sensor shifting technology and extremely fast image processing chips, a new (from ground up) scanner would most probably NOT use a line sensor.
bmattock
Veteran
Yes, that's true. But the concept is still the same as compared to the Kodak and similar brand 'copiers' that rather than scan, make a photograph of the entire image at once.