Re: filmscanners: Hazy bleed in hi contrast blacks on LS2000

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

I took a look at your scanned image (a nice image, BTW).  The fact that 
the flare only becomes visible on boosting levels, might mean you are 
experiencing blooming, which is why I asked in my earlier posting if the 
the exposure seemed correct.  However, there seems to be excessive 
blooming here, and I suspect this is due to contaminated surfaces on the 
optics (oil, smoke, etc.).  I guess the question is, is this s new 
problem or did it manifest this when it was first purchased?  Has it 
gotten worse over time?

On the off chance my post of about a week ago got lost in the gears, I
will repeat it here:

1st question:

How many people smoke near where the scanner is located?  Or cook fried
foods?  Or was the unit moved that day from a cold to warm place?

The most common cause of halos in a scanner which seemed fine in the
past, is an accumulation of residue on the lenses optics of ccd surface.
Sometimes it could be water condensation from moving the scanner into a
new environment or if you have a very steamy situation (hey, just what
kind of images are these anyway ;-)) but if it is that, it will resolve
in a few hours.

Of course, if you don't normally scan high contrast images with a lot of
black, you might not have noticed that this problem was developing over
time (residue on the optics).

Before panicking, however, it could be improper exposure.  All CCD
scanners suffer from some blooming, and this can be made worse by
incorrect setting causing overexposure, which can occur with a lot of
black background and the scanner using autoexposure.  Assuming, however,
that the part of the image that isn't black looks properly exposed, it
likely isn't that.  If the non-black portion is overexposed, you need to
reset the white and black points manually before scanning, and rescan.

Otherwise, it sounds like it may need a trip to your friendly Nikon
service facility, which will likely charge you close to the resale value
of the scanner to clean it. [;-)]

Actually, I think they charge about $200 US.

Like any optical products, (and most electronic, as well) having them in
smoky environments is asking for functional problems down the road.

Art