Here's my take on the Kodak 3600, which I recently purchased.
All in all, it produces fabulous images, which is the most important issue.
Slides look fantastic, and C41 scans are amazing: enough to make me
reconsider shooting my color in negative instead of slides. B+W results vary
from unbelievable to a wee bit "grainy", but I suspect I might be
responsible for the questionable results in setting the points. Another
upside is that the color balance and accuracy is almost dead on requiring
very little tweaking in photoshop.
Downsides
The software is a bit flaky and it's still a work in progress. The initial
software drivers seemed very stable, while the releases this week have
caused a few strange photoshop quits.
There are not enough alternate film profiles: I hope they don't make the
apple mistake of only being concerned with what they make and the rest of
the world does not exist. They do include some fuji and agfa profiles, but
the B+W profiles are slim at best.
Physically the machine is pretty and the film drive works dandy (especial
since they altered the drivers to auto focus film this week). I do agree
that it makes a few strange noises, which are not in line with a scanner of
this price and image quality (it should feel heavier for $1000 US). Kodak
does promise a 24hr replacement if there is trouble.
The dense areas do have a minimal, wee bit of noise, nothing horrible and
manageable with minimal photoshop tweaking (a multi pass feature would be
nice as well).
Not supported by Ed, yet........
Although there are more words on downsides then upsides, I am very happy
with the quality of the images and in no way disappointed. I have used the
polaroid 4000 and Nikon LS2000. I can say it's way easier to get a great
image with the Kodak than the nikon, and the extra resolution is nothing to
sneeze at.
IMHO,
david
> From: "Rick Berk" <rberk@carletonvizcomm.com> Reply-To:
> filmscanners@halftone.co.uk Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 07:41:16 -0500 To:
> <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk> Subject: RE: filmscanners: Kodak RFS 3600
>
> Ok..here goes... just didn't want to bog everyone else down with it if they
> weren't interested. This is only based on two scans so far...but it was with
> two images that I've never gotten to scan real well with my previous two
> scanners, so that's what I based it on. First off... the scanner software only
> took a few minutes to get used to. The big problem is the buttons aren't
> labeled with text, so you need to wait for the tool tips to pop up so you know
> what you are pressing. Pretty dumb, but anyway... as far as actually working
> with it, once you know what each tool button is, it goes fairly smooth. The
> scans I came up with looked great- on my monitor anyway, the first time. I
> had to make a few slight exposure and color adjustments, but nothing major and
> nothing I found out of line. Overall, I think, based on a few scans, that it
> was worth it. My past scanners were an HP Photosmart (absolute crap on
> slides), and a Canon Canoscan FS 2710 (which was ok for the money, but still
> didn't have the density range to handle some of my landscape shots). The
> Kodak does much better than both of those. I haven't seen the new Nikon yet,
> but I have a past history with Nikon Cameras. They always worked ok, but
> service on them was always slow as molasses, so I tend to shy away from their
> stuff. The Nikon may be better for the money, but so far, like I said... I'm
> pretty pleased. The one drawback I kept reading about was the noise (not in
> the scan, but the noise the scanner makes as it scans). Again, I only have
> two other scanners to compare to, but I don't find the noise that
> objectionable. It is a little louder than the Canon, about the same as the HP.
> But again, I bought this thing for image quality, so as long as the images
> look good, it can play Wagner for all I care. I'll post more as I get more use
> out of it... Rick
>
> -----Original Message----- From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of tom Sent: Thursday,
> March 08, 2001 1:35 AM To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk Subject: Re:
> filmscanners: Kodak RFS 3600
>
>
> Couldn't you just post to the list? I'd like to hear too...
>
> tv
>
> Rick Berk wrote:
>
>> Would the person who e-mailed me for my opinion of the Kodak RFS 3600 please
>> e-mail me off list? I apologize- I had a system crash last week and lost
>> everything, including your message asking about it. Thanks. Rick
>>
> -- Thomas Van Veen Photography Washington D.C.
> 301-758-3085
>
