om4t@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> If anyone has experience with using a high end medium format film scanner I
> will appreciate whatever comments they might have to offer including info on
> the minimum computing power required to do justice to the scanner.
>
The minimum requirements for scanning are not that high, the data does
not come out of the scanner that fast and even with quite modest
machines I see no indication of the scan being any slower than my 3.6ghz
over clocked monster. Its the editing that eats resources. Even more so
if you want to edit one picture whilst scanning scanning another.
> In particular, someone has suggested that the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED is
> worth considering.
>
My 9000ed has performed flawlessly for hundreds of rolls of 35mm and
medium format. It has a few querks for that you need to observe for
example, dont switch the computer on whilst the scanner is initialising
or the scans come out very very dark. This is fixed by switching the
scanner off and on again. If the computer is already fully started up
and you switch the scanner on all is well.
You really need to select the autofocus point for each frame
individually - having the autofocus point on an area of pure white or
very very dark colours does not work and the scanner will try to
autofocus several times and then give up. Autofocus on areas of pure
colour such as blue sky for example seems to work fine for me.
To be honest none of the scans I have made have the impact of a slide on
a light box. You are going to lose some sharpness AND very dark colours
will also tend to become black. I don't care what the Dmax figures are
for a CCD scanner. Scan a HCT calibration slide and crank up the
brightness and you *will* see the loss of colour in the darkest patches
even when its been calibrated using the HCT and 16 bit profiles are
used. Try the same trick with a drum or very very very expensive scanner
and the colours are all there... this loss of dark colour information
occurs on the Minolta scan elite 5400 which is does not have a led light
source and is far worse on the Minolta dual scan 4 (which also suffers
from bad CCD noise and is nto that sharp)
> I know that this subject has been aired before and so to save list space
> taking up old news any off-list responses will be appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> John Hudson
>
>
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