Well, the scanner and roll film adapter arrived today. I got it setup
pretty quick and scanned a roll I shot really quickly just to test it out.
Don't bother to critique the pics; they're lousy, but they served their
purpose of a test roll.
Two primary observations:
1) Dust is your enemy. It seems like dust is going to be a challenge when
scanning an entire roll. No way to easily blow it off and have that work.
I'll have to experiment.
2) Memory is your friend. I recently bought a new machine to do my
'Photoshop work' on, so it's pretty fast. It even had quite a bit of memory
at 512MB. However, Fry's opened their first Austin store and had a heck of
a price on memory for the Labor day opening weekend sale, so I bought some.
I now have a ridiculous amount of memory (1GB), but boy the difference is
amazing, especially when working with more than one image. Remember, the
images are 50-60MB. Photoshop likes 2-3 times the image size for each
image, so almost 200MB per pic.
Now, on to a stream of conciousness about the scanner.
- It's small, much smaller than the Polaroid. About the size of two
hardback books. Fits easily on the desk. The Roll film adapter is pretty
big, but just sticks out the back.
- Setup was a breeze. I actually attached the scanner to the 'family server'
that sits in my office, and set it up to save the images directly onto my
Photoshop machine, across the network. This seems like a perfect solution.
Startup a roll scan and walk away and edit them as they get saved. This
machine has built-in firewire which I had been using with my mini-DV camera,
so I knew it worked. When I loaded the CD of Nikonscan 3.1, I got the
dreaded yellow question mark, but when I reloaded the version I downloaded,
it worked fine. Both marked 3.1, but I suspect different. Can't comment
on the included firewire card, as I haven't installed it. I'll install it
in the Photoshop machine and try it out there. I also have a Firewire PC
Card that I use with the mini-dv, so I'll try that too.
- Nikonscan isn't intuitive, so I have a lot to learn. I used Vuescan to do
the scans though, and it worked flawlessly, as expected. It immediately saw
the LS4000 and worked perfectly with the rollfilm adapter.
- Loading strips of negs is even easier. Just feed in the bare strip. If you
want the 'perfect results', though, you can load them in their carrier.
- Slides you just slide into the slide adapter. I'm going to try one later.
You can also get an adapter that lets you load 50 slides at once. That
would be nice too.
- I clearly have a lot to learn about getting the color balance right. It's
not yet (as you'll see by the scans). It is a learning process with trial
and error, and it took me awhile with the Polaroid too.
- The results look good, nice and sharp and in focus. I would guess pretty
similar quality to the Polaroid, but I don't have that one right now (on
loan to a list member), so I can't do direct comparisons. My gut says the
LS4000 is a keeper though, if only for the conveniences. I do think,
however, that the Polaroid, at its heart, is a better scanner, by just a
little.
- I need to read a better book on Photoshop. The three or four things I know
how to do work, but I'm just touching the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
With more knowledge, I'll get better results. I have a good book, just have
to read it.
This Saturday is the opening day of Soccer season, so it will get a lot of
use. I shoot from 2-4 rolls a weekend and scan them and build the webpages
by Monday. I'll use Vuescan and scan at the full 4000dpi but have it
automatically sample smaller for the web. That gets the best results.
So, here are some pics from it. The leveling is all wrong, so try to ignore
that. I did these in about 15 minutes.
http://www.scales.tzo.com/35mm/kids20010903/index.htm
Tom
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|