Post your drum scans (aka the first official Drum Scanners thread)

Incredible scans and some really good photography too. How confident are you that you will be able to keep your drum scanners going. Presumably this is a(nother) dying art.
 
Thanks guys!

How confident are you that you will be able to keep your drum scanners going. Presumably this is a(nother) dying art.

Like with film it's the same with the drum scanners - you can't be confident in anything classifyed under real-analog-art these days. Drum scanning is a dying art indeed, but hopefully the experienced oldtimers and those few newschool guys (like me) can keep them running for some time and provide the services for those who require.

With a massive $$$ budget you can be quite confident investing into and maintaining the latest Heidelberg, Aztek or ICG drumscanner models that still has ongoing support. But noone knows for how long this will be an option. And still very few independent photographers can afford this, but there are some which gives a little hope there'll be some developments in drum scanning tech field as well.


Below untouched dry mounted Velvia 35mm (Lab 8 bit) and comparison with Epson (sampled at 11000 and downsampled).

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByP8kkW_h00uQmFTLURHZ2ZRblk&usp=sharing

Detail wise now you've finally getting there. Tonality seems to be allright too.

The Lab 8bit option does have apparently "smoother" shadows, but this could be a software manipulation during conversion since the Lab space "separates" colors from the b&w image, thus it goes through processing from the original RGB-channel (the native hardware workflow for the scanner by operating the according 3 PMTs for each channel) to get into Lab and thus it loses some of the original information during the conversion. This loss can be beneficial at times though, i.e. the same by going from RGB->Lab->RGB sometimes in PP (in 16bit of course, even if the original was 8bit).

Margus
 
Please continue Margus. The photography and the scans are great to see. It's good to know that there are still some people that care more for their art than for convenience.

Plus, though I do no0t have space for a drum scanner, I do have a local service that I will now use.

Mike
 
I'm trying enter menu commands but scanner does not respond :(

Did you put the scanner's ID thumbwheel into "Maintenance Mode" (ID=7,8 or 9)?

If yes this looks llike this could be a one-way traffic over RS232 port.

Can be also a Windows software problem, make sure your HyperTerm fully recognizes your serial port hardware and check the software documentation how it works on different hardware. i.e. maybe the software needs some 16/32bit emulation activated (right-click Properties on the application and try with different compatability modes if you're under W7 or XP) or maybe some firewall/antivirus function blocking the outgoing signal?

If no help check if your Ethernet-to-RS232-to-computer cabling is allright (you can use simple tester to see if all connections work on both ends).
 
Did you put the scanner's ID thumbwheel into "Maintenance Mode" (ID=7,8 or 9)?

If yes this looks llike this could be a one-way traffic over RS232 port.

Can be also a Windows software problem, make sure your HyperTerm fully recognizes your serial port hardware and check the software documentation how it works on different hardware. i.e. maybe the software needs some 16/32bit emulation activated (right-click Properties on the application and try with different compatability modes if you're under W7 or XP) or maybe some firewall/antivirus function blocking the outgoing signal?

If no help check if your Ethernet-to-RS232-to-computer cabling is allright (you can use simple tester to see if all connections work on both ends).

I'm using USB-RS232 adapter and Cisco console cable. I was told that if you see scanner info then communication is bidirectional anyway. Of course I've tried few different self made RS232-RJ45 cables without any success - no communication with the scanner. I'll try computer with built in RS232.
 
Have tried another RS232-RJ45 cable and direct connection without USB-RS232 adapter - no reaction from scanner menu. Margus are you so lucky that you get into the menu? :)
 
Have tried another RS232-RJ45 cable and direct connection without USB-RS232 adapter - no reaction from scanner menu.

Not sure about the Cisco cables, if they're standard or not.

Out of curiosity I've tested the control board, if I remember correctly everything seemed standard except the RJ45 pin no 6 (where TxD supposed to be by the "common" standard) is dead on the scanner side, meaning TxD (data transmission) signal pin is situated on some other pin. This is probably the reason the standard cables do not send the command to scanner while receiving is OK.
 
Margus,
Your work is always quite impressive... You could publish a book with your travel photographs! And if you put up some exhibition within close range, I wouldn't hesitate to go and see it!

Medium format and drum scanning is great.

Drum scanning is way out of my scope nowadays (student with little time and budget) but I might try an Imacon scan printed to Fujiflex some day. Some 35mm kodachromes are waiting...
 
Interesting - I've installed Color Trio 1.5 from CD with CQ 4.1 - it doesn't see the scanner while CQ 5.2 from ABC Scan website sees without a problem. Firmware 10.4.

I'm alingning drum with screw A but I can't get same focus on both ends after calibrating focus.
 
I have Color Trio 2.0.1 and it has 16 bit output. From where you know it is only 8 bit?

Since I have Color Trio 1.1 and didn't know there was a newer one :D

Is 2.0.1 for Mac? Does it work under OSX?


I'm alingning drum with screw A but I can't get same focus on both ends after calibrating focus.

First of all the best you always mark the original screw position (i.e. the certain angle with allen screw) so you know where the come back to in case you get it terribly wrong. But even if you get it wrong you can still come to terms with it.

This must be done VERY slowly, i.e. no more than 1/10th turns at the time and re-checking the focus again.

Every time you change the adjustment screw a little it will change the front side focus a little bit as well. So every time you change the screw position you need to re-calibrate focus in the front of the drum (L/H side) and view the R/H side scan (this you need to scan in w/o re-focus) and compare the sharpness diferences between the two. Step by step you'll see if you get closer or off the focus so you'll soon know the direction to turn. It's a slow and critical job, in the end I did some 1/20th turns small steps of the adjustment screw till to get the spot-on focus on both ends of the drum.




Margus,
Your work is always quite impressive... You could publish a book with your travel photographs! And if you put up some exhibition within close range, I wouldn't hesitate to go and see it!

Medium format and drum scanning is great.

Drum scanning is way out of my scope nowadays (student with little time and budget) but I might try an Imacon scan printed to Fujiflex some day. Some 35mm kodachromes are waiting...

Thanks! I know what you mean, I was a student for a very long time myself and already had that analog hobby "infection" that ate my little penny I hard earned while I had to attend to university. Good thing there were dirt cheap s/h 6x6 around back then. :cool:

Imacon is very-very good for 35mm but not nearly as good for medium format IMHO.

For a cheaper price most of dedicated MF film scanners (Nikon 8-9K/Minolta Multi Pro/Plustek 120/Reflecta etc) are good enough for decent scans if you don't seek the very high-end.


These images are a joy to view - thanks for keeping this thread alive!

Cheers! I'll try to post some time-to-time. :)

Margus
 
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