Tony, thank you for weighing in on this. I can't see a thing that I'd
disagree with.
I'm actually wondering if chemical stink and silver halides wouldn't still
be the best choice, but whadda I know?
Best regards--LRA
------Original Message------
From: TonySleep@halftone.co.uk (Tony Sleep)
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Sent: February 24, 2001 4:30:00 PM GMT
Subject: Re: filmscanners: Acer or Nikon?
On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 23:20:42 +0000 (trs80@btinternet.com) wrote:
> I'm pretty new to this list, but could do with advice. I'm looking for a
> film scanner that won't break the bank (aren't we all) and it's come down
> to the Acer Scanwit 2720 as it's a great price, BUT I like Nikon stuff, is
> the LS30 really a better scanner for the extra cash? I did fancy the
> Minolta Scandual2 but here in the UK it's a full 33% more expensive then
it
> is in the US and that I object to..
>
> Anyway I'm strictly amateur, negative only and mostly black and white
> (Kodak tri-x and Ilford HP5) BTW I'm only being so mean and concentrating
> on price as I have to move house in a few months :-(
This last par is significant information! B&W silver-based films are very
hard
to scan well due to a (usually) extreme range of image densities.
Additionally
the pronounced grain structure of faster emulsions can and does frequently
kick
off aliasing artefacts which result in apparently massively-enhanced grain.
I have grave reservations about recommending any of those scanners for this
use. IME Nikons are marginally worse due to their semi-collimated
lightsource.
Really the only way to be sure of avoiding grain aliasing is to scan with a
device which has such high resolution that grain can be resolved cleanly, or
at
such low res than none can be recorded. Defocussing the scanner can help.
Any scanner of ~2700ppi is likely to throw up fairly awful grain aliasing on
some of these films. The only current models which would be anything like a
safe buy are the Polaroid and Microtek 4000ppi scanners, and these will also
handle the extreme density range fairly well. However, I have seen /some/
grain
aliasing when scanning Delta Pro 400 and TMax 400 on a Pol4000, though not
as
awful as 2700ppi units.
So not good news. It's hard to be sure, since so much depends on film
development - eg TMax films in TMax dev gives fairly mushy grain, whereas
Delta
Pro 400 in LC29 is very sharp. If you do go for a 2700ppi unit, get it on
approval so you can exchange it if the results are unacceptable. And I
suspect
that of the units you mention the Minolta is likely to work better than the
others. The primary advantage of the Nikon is probably ICE, which does not
work
with silver-based films as silver is IR-opaque, the same as the dirt and
flaws
which ICE seeks to eliminate as different from the actual image.
As a longer term workaround, the chromagenic B&W films XP2 and TMax400CN
produce none of these problems and scan very well. I happen to like TCN a
lot -
it gives great print quality in the enlarger.
Regards
Tony Sleep
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