filmscanners: film flatness in new Nikon's

["PAUL GRAHAM" <peegee@btinternet.com>]

well said... last paragraph
one report and we're dismissing the entire range of new Nikon scanners.
let's get more info, please

pg

Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 17:11:11 -0400
From: "Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: filmscanners:Focusing & film flatness

Most darkroom workers interested in quality wouldn't use a mounted
slide for projection in an enlarger.  If you've ever had a large
custom print made by a good lab you'll see it's been taken out of the
mount and replaced.  Not too hard, cut the cardboard half way through
with a single edge razor along the center of any of the 4 wide sides
of the mount, bend one of the near corners down a bit and it'll come
apart.  (Don't remove the layer completely and you can re-use the
mount.  Replace the film and tape along the cut.  Practice on outtake
slides.)  Then place the film in a glassless carrier, possibly using
tape along the sprocketed sides to fix in place and flatten a bit if
needed.

I've scanned a few mounted slides in my LS-30 and don't recall any
particular problem with focus at the edges.  Some mounted slides are
more curved than others however, it depends on type of film,
processing conditions, how old the film was before processing, how
it's mounted, and how it's stored.  I did see a problem using the auto
film strip feeder and neg strips, but the fix was easy, use the film
strip holder.

We've only seen one complaint about this so far?  Perhaps we should
wait a bit before coming to any hard and fast conclusions.  And even
if the DOF is on the shallow side with Nikon's new scanners, there
will surely be easy fixes for careful workers.  These new scanners are
pretty compelling, and I doubt this will turn out to be a major
problem, if any problem at all.

Dave