Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II vs new lower-end flat beds

I have done a similar back to back between my Minolta Multi Pro (now sold)and Epson V700 with 35mm, and again have to say I can't see a difference on a good well exposed and developed neg. Which baffles me when people say flatbeds are crap for 35mm.

In fact I also thought they were crap until I got the V700 (because there are no drivers for my old 2450 in Win 7), and I had never even tried my 2450 with a 35mm neg because I believed what I was reading from naysayers. That was obviously a big mistake, although the 2450 DR wasn't nearly as good as the V700 so it would have struggled with some of my negs anyway.

Steve
 
Having worked a Scan Dual II quite literally to death and owning a V500 and a Coolscan V I think I can say a fair bit about them.

The Scan Dual II is good, I made 20x30cm prints from scans I made with it that still please the eye. The Nikon Coolscan V is a generation better, more detail and much less noise. The Minolta is a plastic lunch box, the Nikon is a tank.

The V500 lacks a bit of detail sharpness compared to the dedicated scanners, but maybe that's just the crappy neg carriers. It still is good enough that I'd probably stick with it if the Nikon died.
 
Think I am getting the hang of the Minolta with Vuescan.

Just wanted to share this shot I took last Saturday, then scanned using Vuescan's sharpening and light grain reduction, then default white balance and white and black points, but with some curves adjustment and a tad brightening. Also ticked the restore colors and restore fading boxes. Then smart-sharpened in CS4 a bit.

Still heavy-handed though, pardon any operator errors. Also didn't have the time to clone out the scruff. BTW, shot using an F4 and 80-200 4.0 Ais.

I ordered the Canoscan and hopefully my experience will be positive.

Thanks again for all the feedback and comments all!


4947904351_2b1c677c83_b.jpg
 
reubelim said:
Think I am getting the hang of the Minolta with Vuescan.

Just wanted to share this shot I took last Saturday, then scanned using Vuescan's sharpening and light grain reduction, then default white balance and white and black points, but with some curves adjustment and a tad brightening. Also ticked the restore colors and restore fading boxes. Then smart-sharpened in CS4 a bit.

Still heavy-handed though, pardon any operator errors. Also didn't have the time to clone out the scruff. BTW, shot using an F4 and 80-200 4.0 Ais.

I ordered the Canoscan and hopefully my experience will be positive.

Thanks again for all the feedback and comments all!
Click to expand...

Different people have different workflows that give them what they want. But after using Vuescan for ten years (and loving it) I do no adjustments in the scan at all. I find the benefit of Vuescan is the ability to set it to do no adjustments, no behind the scenes stuff.

I do all the adjustments of setting the endpoints of the histogram (levels), contrast curves, color or tonality adjustments, and sharpening in my image editor (Photoshop in my case). That way I can do / undo / redo in seconds with total control and more sophisticated algorithms.

Vuescan does have a crude ability to make some of those adjustments in the scan driver. But that is a design for people who do not use image editors. The actual scan from Vuescan is the same no matter what adjustments you do or do no make. So no need trying to make adjustments there.

Just a suggestion, but in the end do whatever you think works best for you.
 
Thanks Bob, appreciate the advice. As an addendum, what I am really loving about Vuescan is the ability to scan once in Vuescan "raw" and then go back any time I wish to work on the material at my leisure to make the adjustments you mentioned, without impact on the original "raw" scan. That's what I did in this case.

I am going to try outputing to dng tiff, too, so I can work on the material in lightroom or cs4 in raw mode a bit more.
 
reubelim said:
Thanks Bob, appreciate the advice. As an addendum, what I am really loving about Vuescan is the ability to scan once in Vuescan "raw" and then go back any time I wish to work on the material at my leisure to make the adjustments you mentioned, without impact on the original "raw" scan. That's what I did in this case.

I am going to try outputing to dng tiff, too, so I can work on the material in lightroom or cs4 in raw mode a bit more.
Click to expand...

That is essentially what I do. I scan with no adjustments and ouput the file from the printer driver (Vuescan in my case) as a TIF. That TIF file is just saved and never adjusted. I open the unadjusted TIF in Photoshop and immediately save it as a PSD file. Then I made all the adjustments in Photoshop on the PSD file.

I happen to work with almost every adjustment in a separate layer and always save the PSD file with the layers unflattened. Then I can always go back and tweak any adjustment down the road. I never overwrite that file with one that has flattened layers and sharpening for printing.

FWIW, the TIF files from the scan are flat and don't look good at all when I open them in Photoshop. That is OK because I know no data is lost by clipping the ends of the histogram (levels). It is only the Photoshop file with adjustments that gets sent to the printer that looks good.
 
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