ScanMate drum scanner DIY maintenance, troubleshooting, mods

Totally agree on the Pakon. Scanning full a strip of film in minutes.

I'm scanning a few at the moment and this is Fujifilm C200 through the Planar 50mm ZM straight.

hv9hn6.jpg
 
meloV8 said:
I am a huge fan of color negative films, I have bought various scanners for many years to achieve the best possible color reproductions. At the moment I have not found anything that has better colors from the negative than the Pakon / Kodak scanners. I have Scanmate 4000 and 3000, these scanners, although they offer a higher scan resolution, unfortunately they do not achieve what Pakon gives in the automatic settings. I also compare to the Primescan D8200 drum scanner, where Scanview scanners are poor in color reproduction, noise levels, etc.

If you have time and willingness, check for yourself if you can get closer to Pakon ...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9edn3277bj6aipc/AACEnYhHiQw3EYGf9GCP9K4wa?dl=0
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Ah, so you're talking about some sort of automatisation proces? Then the SM software is indeed lacking. However, if you do the invertion proces yourself, you should get much better results. The Pakon/Frontier/Noritsu scanners have excellent negative profiles, but that's just the software.

The D8200, which is the same scanner as the Tango if I'm not mistaken, has excellent Dmax and will give cleaner shadows in very dense chromes in comparison to the Scanmates, on that I agree. However, noise shouldn't be problem with negatives, as they do not build up the same density as chomes at all. Perhaps you're mistaking grain for noise? I find that the Scanmates are sharper than the Tango, which makes sense given the fact that the Tango has a larger minimum aperture than the Scanmates.
 
Kamph said:
Ah, so you're talking about some sort of automatisation proces? Then the SM software is indeed lacking. However, if you do the invertion proces yourself, you should get much better results. The Pakon/Frontier/Noritsu scanners have excellent negative profiles, but that's just the software.

The D8200, which is the same scanner as the Tango if I'm not mistaken, has excellent Dmax and will give cleaner shadows in very dense chromes in comparison to the Scanmates, on that I agree. However, noise shouldn't be problem with negatives, as they do not build up the same density as chomes at all. Perhaps you're mistaking grain for noise? I find that the Scanmates are sharper than the Tango, which makes sense given the fact that the Tango has a larger minimum aperture than the Scanmates.
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No, I mean that Pakon automatically scans better than Scanmate with manual inversion in PS, Silverfast etc. It is not only the merit of the software, but also the design of the scanner.

Scanmate slide scans look good, but it is in the process of inverting the negative that you can see the imperfections of these machines. Poor color reproduction and noise. After reversing the negative, it is visible in bright parts of the image, on the skin, etc. D8200 is a completely different quality of scanning. However, in terms of resolution, only SM11000 offer a higher resolution than Tango / Primescan. In the case of Scanmate scanners and resolution evaluation, there is one more problem. Each Scanmate has the problem of image waving, which can potentially be perceived as a greater focus. This is visible when saving Raw files. Scanning to a TIFF file further degrades the quality of the image and sharpness, which I already wrote and showed in examples. Primescan is completely free of this problem.
 
meloV8 said:
No, I mean that Pakon automatically scans better than Scanmate with manual inversion in PS, Silverfast etc. It is not only the merit of the software, but also the design of the scanner.

Scanmate slide scans look good, but it is in the process of inverting the negative that you can see the imperfections of these machines. Poor color reproduction and noise. After reversing the negative, it is visible in bright parts of the image, on the skin, etc. D8200 is a completely different quality of scanning. However, in terms of resolution, only SM11000 offer a higher resolution than Tango / Primescan. In the case of Scanmate scanners and resolution evaluation, there is one more problem. Each Scanmate has the problem of image waving, which can potentially be perceived as a greater focus. This is visible when saving Raw files. Scanning to a TIFF file further degrades the quality of the image and sharpness, which I already wrote and showed in examples. Primescan is completely free of this problem.
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Sorry but I completely disagree. What about the design of the Pakon could possibly make it better? It was in no way made to perform up to the standards of drum scanners.
If you have a problem with noise when scanning negatives I would suggest you check your PMT's, that should not be the case. I don't get any noise with my SM5000 only grain. In regard to color reprocution, well I don't know what to tell you. My experience couldn't be any different. I've scanned on a Hasselblad X1 and that didn't get close to the SM in regard to color reproduction. Would you suggest that a Pakon perform better than a X1?

Wave and flutter is a problem indeed, but one that can be fixed. This is not a problem limited to SM. I've seen ICG scanners suffering from the same problem.

The biggest problem with the SMs are a bug in the software that corrupts 16 bit raw files.

The effective resolution of the D8200 is somewhere between 4500-5000 dpi. I would, however, agree that it's in a higher class of drum scanners than the Scanmates or at least the 3000, 4000 & 5000 models.

If you want to see some truly great scans done on SMs, you should check out https://www.flickr.com/photos/palikalsi/ (he owns a SM and a Tango btw, maybe he will give some input to this debate?) and https://www.flickr.com/photos/tsiklonaut/ (only Scanmate)
 
Pakon scanners have wheel filters that change depending on the material being scanned. At the time of scanning color negatives, Pakon moves the analog Cyan filter, which allows partial removal of the orange negative mask on a purely analogue path. Scanmate can not scan in this way, or even Imacon. Of course, Pakon does not have a high resolution, but his specialization is scanning colored negatives.

Both my Scanmates, I have serviced and calibrated myself. They work according to the manufacturer's parameters.

Could you write how to fix the Wave and flutter problem? I managed to reduce it, but if it can be completely eliminated ...

I know the scans that Pali did. I think that his scan of the slides is practically perfect, but for me the colors on the scans of negatives are not well reproduced, but that's obviously my opinion.

I've provided you with a link to my Scanmate scans, you can check if you can bring Pakon colors. I would like to see your Raw Negative scans, if you can show them, I would be grateful.
 
Damn, I just lost a very long reply that for some reason did not get posted.

I don't feel like writing it all over, so here's some of the points 🙂

The ABC-scan company that services the Scanmate scanners today is located very close to me. I've been in touch with them a few times - they are very forthcomming. Once I spoke to them about the wave problem and they told me that they could fix it for me if I was interested. From the horse's mouth so to speak. As a student I feared for the bill, so for now I can live with the amount of "wave" I get. I did, however, greatly reduce the phenomenon by placing my scanner on the floor and making sure the drum always is well balanced. After mounting a negative I always make sure to counter its weight by mounting another equal sized negative on the other side of the drum. The last step can not be understated, it really, really helped, especially with 4x5s.

To my mind Pali's and Margus' scans are a level above what you get from the Pakons/Frontiers/Noritsus, which I think lack the dynamic range of the drum scanners. The colours from Pakons/Frontiers/Noritsus are very pleasing but look more digital than analogue to my eyes.

I could upload a raw scan from my SM, but I'm not sure it would help further the debate as I don't have a Pakon at hand to compare it to.
 
meloV8 said:
Pakon scans look like Digital? Lol. Tell me, what digital camera does it offer pictures like here? http://www.simplyoxford.com/tag/kodak

Pali negatives scans looks too flat, colors looks like pastels, often out of balance.
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Yes, I think so. Btw, funny that you should mention colour balance and low contrast given that most of the pictures on the link you send either have a green or pink tint and lack a true black point.

If those pictures are supposed to represent good negative scans, then we just have to disagree on what a good negative scan is.
 
I like being a subject of a debate 🙂

I have said this before but to put it in context of this conversation again, please remember that a poorly calibrated drum scanner very well may be worse than consumer scanners but if you have a tuned machine and know how to use it, you just can't beat drum scanners. In my opinion, I don't think you can make any conclusions by comparing two scans from different operators from unknown condition of a scanner since it's all apples and oranges at this point.

I have spent countless hours perfecting my scanners including several hardware upgrades and I still learn new ways to perfect my drum scanning workflow.

If my word is worth anything, there is no beating a calibrated and tuned Scanmate 5000 or 11000 for Color Negative scans by an experienced operator. Tango will match it but not beat it and only in dark slides do you get to see the advantage of 14bit log (this is more than 16 Bit file) analog converters of the Tango. I have taken on many controlled challenges from many who make similar claims including higher end DSLR setups and every single time I come to same conclusion that a good Drum Scanners cannot be beat as of this day. You can easily see this in a controlled test with color-bleeding, color-muting and edge glows that is inherent to consumer scanners hardware design.

BTW, waves (wow and flutter) are a direct sign that your motor or encorder are out of tune. Also keep in mind that Scanmate 3000 has very different PMT analog to digital converters and it's not something you can compare to 5000 or 11000.

Is it worth the exponential more effort required for maintaining and using drum scanners? That's for everyone to decide for their own. Are they "technically" superior if used properly, absolutely!

Pali
 
Thanks for the input, Pali. I hope you do not feel like I dragged you into this discussion. It's just that you have more experience with these scanners than most 🙂
 
Kamph said:
Yes, I think so. Btw, funny that you should mention colour balance and low contrast given that most of the pictures on the link you send either have a green or pink tint and lack a true black point.

If those pictures are supposed to represent good negative scans, then we just have to disagree on what a good negative scan is.
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I regret that you did not check the link more accurately. Under each series of photos, there is the name of the negative and annotation about expiration of the negative. Pakon can accurately reproduce the characteristics of the film being scanned. If the negative is old and its properties have changed, it will be visible on scans. That's why there are differences in colors. However, it is always possible to scan a negative in a real Raw 16bit mode and do the inversions on your own.
Of course, I can give you hundreds of perfect scans from Pakon, but I do not know if there is any sense ...
 
Netsoft2k said:
I like being a subject of a debate 🙂

I have said this before but to put it in context of this conversation again, please remember that a poorly calibrated drum scanner very well may be worse than consumer scanners but if you have a tuned machine and know how to use it, you just can't beat drum scanners. In my opinion, I don't think you can make any conclusions by comparing two scans from different operators from unknown condition of a scanner since it's all apples and oranges at this point.

I have spent countless hours perfecting my scanners including several hardware upgrades and I still learn new ways to perfect my drum scanning workflow.

If my word is worth anything, there is no beating a calibrated and tuned Scanmate 5000 or 11000 for Color Negative scans by an experienced operator. Tango will match it but not beat it and only in dark slides do you get to see the advantage of 14bit log (this is more than 16 Bit file) analog converters of the Tango. I have taken on many controlled challenges from many who make similar claims including higher end DSLR setups and every single time I come to same conclusion that a good Drum Scanners cannot be beat as of this day. You can easily see this in a controlled test with color-bleeding, color-muting and edge glows that is inherent to consumer scanners hardware design.

BTW, waves (wow and flutter) are a direct sign that your motor or encorder are out of tune. Also keep in mind that Scanmate 3000 has very different PMT analog to digital converters and it's not something you can compare to 5000 or 11000.

Is it worth the exponential more effort required for maintaining and using drum scanners? That's for everyone to decide for their own. Are they "technically" superior if used properly, absolutely!

Pali
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Pali, as I wrote earlier, my Scanmate are after cleaning and service. Each calibration available via the service mode has been carried out and checked. The scanners are profiled with the Kodak IT8 target. There really is no Rocket Science here. If the scanner works correctly, scanning Scanmate is simple. I am just saying that Scanmate 3000/4000/5000 scanning effects do not have to be better than other machines, and even in the case of scanning color negatives even worse (from Pakon scanners).

As for Wow and Flutter, my Scanmates have it low, but still visible to me. Maybe you could show 100% crop scans at full resolution with SM5000 and 11000? Ideally, it would be a piece of 35mm film perforation ...

Of course, the SM3000 is structurally different from the SM4000, but 4000 beyond resolution is no different than the SM5000. Same electronics and PMT. I can see the difference in resolution between SM3000 and SM4000, but the specificity of the image is basically the same.

I gave you the comparative scans I made, but you did not try to get a picture similar to Pakon. Particularly in the area of ​​color rendering, skin tone, noise.

Until then, you indicate that my Scanmates are working improperly, which makes the quality of scans worse than Pakon. I would say otherwise. You just have not had the opportunity to make such a comparison 🙂 I guarantee that you would be surprised ...
 
meloV8 said:
Pali, as I wrote earlier, my Scanmate are after cleaning and service. Each calibration available via the service mode has been carried out and checked. The scanners are profiled with the Kodak IT8 target. There really is no Rocket Science here. If the scanner works correctly, scanning Scanmate is simple. I am just saying that Scanmate 3000/4000/5000 scanning effects do not have to be better than other machines, and even in the case of scanning color negatives even worse (from Pakon scanners).

As for Wow and Flutter, my Scanmates have it low, but still visible to me. Maybe you could show 100% crop scans at full resolution with SM5000 and 11000? Ideally, it would be a piece of 35mm film perforation ...

Of course, the SM3000 is structurally different from the SM4000, but 4000 beyond resolution is no different than the SM5000. Same electronics and PMT. I can see the difference in resolution between SM3000 and SM4000, but the specificity of the image is basically the same.

I gave you the comparative scans I made, but you did not try to get a picture similar to Pakon. Particularly in the area of ​​color rendering, skin tone, noise.

Until then, you indicate that my Scanmates are working improperly, which makes the quality of scans worse than Pakon. I would say otherwise. You just have not had the opportunity to make such a comparison 🙂 I guarantee that you would be surprised ...
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I am glad you are happy with your Pakon and I think that is all that matters. I am sure it's a wonderful scanner and your scans and photography are indeed beautiful. I would love to get into another controlled test but honestly, it is way too time consuming and I just don't want to because my experience has been that I have to work hard to help people overcome their emotional bias towards their own claims.

Have a great day.

Regards,

Pali
 
meloV8 said:
I regret that you did not check the link more accurately. Under each series of photos, there is the name of the negative and annotation about expiration of the negative. Pakon can accurately reproduce the characteristics of the film being scanned. If the negative is old and its properties have changed, it will be visible on scans. That's why there are differences in colors.
Click to expand...

Please take a look at the image set "Oxford: On the way to the ball". Are you telling me that due to the film's age it has different color tints frame to frame? No. The Pakon does not have magic profiles that guarantee "accurate" scans. That was not the purpose of the scanner either. It was marketed for businesses such as 1-hour labs. They are made to quickly produce plesant scans that will satisfy most customers - and they do! The colors are indeed really pleasant, but more accurate than drum scanners and their vastly more sensitive PMTs? I think not.
 
Netsoft2k said:
I would love to get into another controlled test but honestly, it is way too time consuming and I just don't want to because my experience has been that I have to work hard to help people overcome their emotional bias towards their own claims.
Click to expand...

😉

Me, though... I love an exercise in scanning.

I'm the first to admit that in 99% of times I really like the Pakon/Frontier/Noritsu output. But I never thought that their rendition is something I can't replicate with my scanners. Sure, I'd probably never end up with the same final result if I processed my scans without seeing the same frame scanned with one of those minilab scanners first, so I'd sometimes (or many times?) end with a boring flat (for some other people's taste) result.

Lately I've had another GAS attack to finally get one of those scanners. I've found one Fuji SP-500 nearby and sent a few test shots to the owner to have them scanned to check if the scanner is working OK. I loved the files I got back, the only problem is that I also have XPan and SP-500 can't scan the panoramas.

Here is a straight out of the scanner file (tricky conditions with fast film (Lomography Color 800), skin tones and mixed lightning):



Trying to replicate the look with a scan from my desktop Minolta 5400 (Vuescan, ColorPerfect, Lightroom):



Not exactly the same, but close.

If I wasn't looking at a Frontier scan I would probably end up with something like this:



Again, notable difference, but still not that far away.

I could retain much more highlight and shadow information if I wanted (or if the scene needed more DR) with my scans from the little Minolta. I also have a drum scanner (Howtek 4500) and I'm quite sure I'd have no problem getting a very similar scan out of it. But, sure, Pakon or a similar scanner can do all this in a matter of seconds.
 
Kamph said:
Please take a look at the image set "Oxford: On the way to the ball". Are you telling me that due to the film's age it has different color tints frame to frame? No. The Pakon does not have magic profiles that guarantee "accurate" scans. That was not the purpose of the scanner either. It was marketed for businesses such as 1-hour labs. They are made to quickly produce plesant scans that will satisfy most customers - and they do! The colors are indeed really pleasant, but more accurate than drum scanners and their vastly more sensitive PMTs? I think not.
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I did not write about drum scanners in general, but only about Scanmate 3000/4000/5000. I am not saying that Pakon is scanning negatives better than any drum scanner. I wrote that in my opinion Pakon is scanning negatives better than SM3000/4000/5000 and I can show it on examples.


Pakon has been designed to scan not only quickly but with the best possible color reproduction from negative films. Unfortunately, they were not cheap scanners.

http://www.simplyoxford.com/oxford/oxford-on-the-way-to-the-ball-2 this scans? This is 6x7, Pakon in only 35mm machine...
 
brbo said:
😉

Me, though... I love an exercise in scanning.

I'm the first to admit that in 99% of times I really like the Pakon/Frontier/Noritsu output. But I never thought that their rendition is something I can't replicate with my scanners. Sure, I'd probably never end up with the same final result if I processed my scans without seeing the same frame scanned with one of those minilab scanners first, so I'd sometimes (or many times?) end with a boring flat (for some other people's taste) result.

Lately I've had another GAS attack to finally get one of those scanners. I've found one Fuji SP-500 nearby and sent a few test shots to the owner to have them scanned to check if the scanner is working OK. I loved the files I got back, the only problem is that I also have XPan and SP-500 can't scan the panoramas.

Here is a straight out of the scanner file (tricky conditions with fast film (Lomography Color 800), skin tones and mixed lightning):



Trying to replicate the look with a scan from my desktop Minolta 5400 (Vuescan, ColorPerfect, Lightroom):



Not exactly the same, but close.

If I wasn't looking at a Frontier scan I would probably end up with something like this:



Again, notable difference, but still not that far away.

I could retain much more highlight and shadow information if I wanted (or if the scene needed more DR) with my scans from the little Minolta. I also have a drum scanner (Howtek 4500) and I'm quite sure I'd have no problem getting a very similar scan out of it. But, sure, Pakon or a similar scanner can do all this in a matter of seconds.
Click to expand...


Pakon can scan Xpan panoramas 🙂 Minolta is very good scanner. Working with raw files can copy Pakon style scans. My Nikon scanner also work good, but im using trick with LED light, to copy cyan filter in Pakons.


What really hard to beat Pakon is to reproduce the color of the skin and achieve the characteristic density of the scan. It is hard to explain it to me because of my limitations as to use the English language.

This is crazy. Xpan, Pakon, Ektar 100. https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...a7e66a9280/1503105339532/BL6.jpg?format=2500w
 
IMG_20180301_233802376~01~01.jpg

Hey All,

Couple weeks ago I had my scanmate 5000 lamp light turn off... After checking the fuse and few other cables, came across this burnt cable pin. I'm wondering where can I find a replacement of the pin cable or just the connector?

Btw, it's been a pain getting it off... No success yet.
 
Hello World

Hello World

Hi, I am new here in this forum. I am a happy owner of a SM4000 (for a decade or so) . I bought it from the first owner, hardly used, sitting in its crate, with boxed softwares, dongle etc. Problem-free operation, no need to search forums for tips&tricks. Till now.

I've registered here because a new SM11000 is in da house. 🙂 It works, normal used condition. No serious problem but some CLA is needed. Minor focus and WB issues, noise in shadow, motorised cover does not work, etc. I started the work with reading through this forum. I am really impressed by the knowledge collected here. I hope I can count on your help if I run into trouble.

Sorry for the long intro.

Tamas
 
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