starting my quest for a slide scanner

[JoeFriday]

now that I finally got some slides developed that were taken with my Contax, I'm suddenly very interested in slide scanners (gee, who'd a thought)

I'd like to find a good mid-to-upper level scanner in the $200-500 price range

I don't care about the software enhancements, as long as it has OSX drivers.. any significant clean-up or manipulation will be done manually in PS

are there any affordable firewire scanners out there? or is USB going to be adequate on my Powerbook?

suggestions/comments/donations are all welcome

 

[kaiyen]

I like my Nikon coolscan IV. It's "only" 2900 dpi, but that's fine for me up to 11x14 for most images (esp. slides) and it can be gotten used for pretty cheap now ($300?). It has ICE, too. I know you said you don't care about enhancements, but, trust me, you'll want ICE.

I think the Nikon V is about $500, isn't it?

allan

 

[JoeFriday]

yeah, that's about the pricing I'm seeing online, more or less

the other contender is the Minolta Dual Scan IV, which is only $230

what does ICE do?

 

[dexdog]

starting my quest for a slide scanner

I have had a minolta dual scan IV for about a year, and am very pleased with the output with both slides and negatives. It has a maximum resolution of 3200 dpi. I am not familiar with digital ICE, except I believe that it is incorporated in many/most newer scanners. The dual scan IV is ICE-free.

 

[Chaser]

I believe that ICE cleans up dust .... I think that the Minolta Duel Scan IV has something similar but i am not sure

 

[Issy]

If you dig a bit, there is a good discussion of scanners on www.kenrockwell.com

Start here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/scanner.htm

 

[Oldprof]

Digital Ice is a technology for removing dust specks and scratches from your scanned images. Originally it came with Nikon film scanners (Canon film scanners now have a similar technology, but with a different name). Digital Ice works with color films, not black and white.

 

[kaiyen]

ICE is a hardware based infrared system that can detect dust and scratches and eliminate them while it scans. This works only for slides (other than Kodachrome) and chromogenic emulsions (ie - not traditional silver-based B&W).

It isn't perfect, but putting it even on "light" settign in Vuescan eliminates about 75% of the spotting that I need to do with my scans. This means that I can spend about 5 minutes on a scan of a color neg or slide to get it into a "this is what it'll probably look like in the end" phase, where as I might spend 20-30 dealing with just the big dust spots on a b&w scan. Over time, this is a major time savings.

Note that ICE requires hardware - the Minolta Dual has a software based Dust Eliminator or Reducer or something. It isn't as good, and tends to really soften the image (IMHO).

I strongly recommend getting a scanner with ICE. I didn't think I needed it when I was first looking. I now realize I would never consider getting one without it.

allan

 

[JoeFriday]

I just read an article at Macworld online that sorta explained why ICE is so nice.. I guess it uses logarithms to determine what is missing in dust spots and scratches rather than just cloning in the pixels around it

Issy, I'll check out Rockwell's thoughts, but I have to admit that I disagree with many things he says.. he seems to think that most people are incapable of telling the difference between 'ok' and 'good', and he errs to the side of recommending 'ok' stuff

 

[JoeFriday]

I strongly recommend getting a scanner with ICE. I didn't think I needed it when I was first looking. I now realize I would never consider getting one without it.

allan

based on your comments, I think that's the direction I'm leaning now, allan.. thanks for the input

 

[dmr]

The one I just got (it's not really all mine, but I can use it as if it were -- long story) is the Konica-Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV. So far I've been happy with it. It has the "Auto Dust Brush" which gives a marginal improvement, but I find that a real dust brush and a blast of canned air is much more effective on reasonably good negatives and slides. For old grungy negatives, the Auto Dust Brush is a placebo at best. 🙁 Most of my real old ones are B&W, so Digital Ice would not help me at all.

This one scans to the point that it resolves film grain quite well, even on Kodachrome. The image I'm currently using as a avatar is a very small portion of this image: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/data/4964/medium/dmr021.jpg rescanned at max resolution and blown up almost to the point of absurdity. You can see the detail of the film grain quite clearly. It was actually reduced a bit to fit the avatar size limitations.

I don't plan to replace the lab CD with this, as scanning is quite tedious, actually, but I'll use it for the stuff I want real sharp hi-res copies of. A scan at max res, 16 bit deoth, and 2x sampling seems to take almost a minute at times. It seems to vary quite a bit, with very dense negatves seeming to take longer. A full frame scan, 3200dpi, 16 bit, will be 80-some megabytes in .tif format. OUCH!

But overall, for the price, the performance is great. 🙂 A true 300dpi image file printed on the old HP 720 printer comes out very nice, actually. 🙂

 

[titrisol]

I was going to suggest that one.
ICE is some sort of dust removal. Turn it off for scanning real silver negatives (Black and white)

yeah, that's about the pricing I'm seeing online, more or less

the other contender is the Minolta Dual Scan IV, which is only $230

what does ICE do?

 

[Iskra 2]

suggestions/comments/donations are all welcome

Rockwell identifies the various options to consider. My 4870 (now the 4990) works for me. Does a great job with 35mm at 8x10, more than adequate for MF up to 20x25 + and is nice to have when scanning old stuff.

I've been thinking about the Minolta IV but can't convince myself it will be that much better or as good as the 4870 in all respects.

Wouldn't a new Coolscan be nice. 😀

Decisions, decisions. 🙂 :angel:

 

[Chaser]

Just remembered this but if you decide on the Minolta check out buy.com they have an instant $15 cupon and freeshipping which makes the Duel Scan $202 when all is said and done

 

[torhan]

I've got a Minolta DiMage dual scan II for some years now and it has pleased me all the time.

Now I feel that it's time to upgrade soon and I'm looking at the Minolta DiMage Elite 5400 II. Mostly for it's speed. Minolta claims that it scans one picture in full resolution in 25 sec. All ICE and stuff turn off though. The 5400 II gets more out of a slide/neg, specially in the shadows.

If the price doesn't scare you, I think you'll be happy with this one for many years.

 

[JoeFriday]

torhan, I can't remember where I saw it, but I read a review (or maybe a personal comment) today where the 5400II didn't fare very well

chaser, thanks for the tip about buy.com.. I'll keep that in mind

 

[Stephanie Brim]

If I get a few certifications, a guy I know is thinking of giving me a job building, fixing, and networking computers. If this happens, I'm thinking of going with a Canon Canoscan 9950F flatbed scanner. I'm into medium format a bit now in addition to negatives and slides and it would just be a hell of a lot more economical for me to go with a flatbed than to try and afford one of those overly expensive 'professional' scanners. If I'm going to be low on money again, which I'm hoping not, I'll most likely end up with the 8400F. Budget constraints suck, but I do have to think about buying a car soon.

 

[JoeFriday]

hmm... Rockwell raves about how great the Epson 4990 is.. it does MF (actually, up to 8x10 film), has ICE, and firewire (which is a huge improvement over USB)

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I'll ponder that one too, methinks...but I don't shoot color all that much anymore so ICE may not really be something I desperately need.

 

[kaiyen]

The 4990 is a nice scanner. But it, like all flatbeds, isn't up to par on 35mm scans. You will get better sharpness and detail out of a dedicated film scanner, even after sharpening. See http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson 4990/Page 1.htm for a very in-depth review.

Having said that, I would absolutely buy the 4990 for MF and large format. In fact, I will be getting it soon, as a _complement_ to my Nikon film scanner. Not a replacement.

The 5400 II is supposedly _really_ slow when you turn on the ICE and whatnot. I have heard about it taking more than 10 minutes, but that information may be out of date. One thing that is nice about the 5400 is that it uses a slightly more diffuse lighting source - you will get a bit less dust and whatnot from it than a Nikon. But I'm not sure it's that much better - once I clean the neg pretty well, it's not too bad. Again, this is only applicable with b&w film, since ICE works with color film and slides.

One other thing to consider is which scanners allow you to do multi-sampling or multiple passes. You will reduce noise and potentially capture a bit more shadow detail when you do multiple passes. Technically, this is a software thing - Vuescan, for instance, allows you to do multiple passes with any scanner, and it'll handle the processing of those samples. My suggestion would be to get a scanner _and_ get Vuescan. It's a great combination.

Remember that as you go up in resolution, you will be deailng with bigger and bigger files At "only" 2900, in 16-bit, I am working with 70MB files from 35mm. Since I do 4 passes and have ICE on, it takes about 5 minutes per frame. If you go to 5400 dpi, you're looking at some giant-sized files. Make sure your computer can handle them.

allan