Re: filmscanners: real value?

["Michael Wilkinson" <michael@infocus-photography.co.uk>]

Laurie Soloman ,suggests buying "two steps behind" technology.
Good advice
To refine that however you seem to be talking about relatively
inexpensive kit .
A scanner costing less than 1000 dollars/600UK  pounds is a consumer
item.
The manufacturers expect you to throw it away fairly soon or give it to
your children to put in their toy shop next year.
If you really want good value for money allied to something which will
last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product.
If a limited dynamic range ,a less than perfectly sharp image and a
mediocre resolution are ok for you now to start off with and will be for
the foreseeable future then buy the nikominotolympus OB1 whatever and
have your fun right now.
If you see a long term usage and don't want to keep upgrading look at
just what you really really want out of your scanner, write your ideal
specification down and then go hunting through the sales columns in the
e various specialist press that deal in Repro  etc,track down a used
high quality bit of kit ,buy it at the right price and you are set for
the next Decade
Make no mistake about it.
if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real
expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years
time.
Anyway,by then the software  (Photoshop 15 ??? ) will be able to
optimise your inadequate input to match the latest ten dollar laser
printer giving photorealistic output perfectly colour balanced.

Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ
  michael@infocus-photography.co.uk      www.infocus-photography.co.uk
For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files