Peter wrote:
> I think there is only one happy scanner owner, Ed,
> in this forum. He is not using it mainly for slides
> though.
I certainly have the impression that Ed's main use of the scanner is on
colour neg film. I think you may have a skewed impression of the satisfaction
levels because of the nature of the list. People post most often when they
have a problem, so it looks like nobody is happy.
> The rest of people probably own drum scanners or do
> not own scanners at all.
Ignorance is bliss? :)
> I would expect more input from people owning scanners
> in $600-$1500 price range. It is unfortunate.
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to here, because there's no previous
text for reference. Harking back to the post which started this thread,
I think there's been a lot of useful feedback.
As far as my LS30 is concerned, it's a great scanner with certain limitations.
Unfortunately one of those limitations has been a bug in the Nikon software
which causes misalignment of scan lines. Using Vuescan (which I only found
out about through this forum) the scans have no such problem. The other
limiting factor of the LS30 is grain aliasing due to interference between
film grain and the CCD array sampling pattern. This issue seems to be more
noticeable on the LS30 than other 2700dpi scanners purportedly due to the
collimated nature of the LED light source, but also I believe because the
Nikon scanner has much sharper focus than many other scanners.
Having an infrared channel is a godsend unless you have a LOT of time to
spend spotting scans. While I'm sure everyone would like to think that
they look after their films, scanning has a tendency to show up the slightest
speck of dust. The automated cleaning in Vuescan, or ICE in Nikonscan makes
scanning a LOT easier with a minor loss of sharpness.
I have made some excellent scans with the LS30. LS30 scans of some of my
photos have been used in a commercial magazine. If I am a vocal member
of the list, it's because to me US$800 (AUD$1600) is a significant investment
in hardware; my SLR with a 28-80 zoom only cost US$400. I want to get the
most out of that investment, and I can't afford to simply sell it second
hand to run out and buy a newer one.
Most of the hassles I've had with film scanning have related to finding
out the limitations of the hard, software, colour management, and even more
importantly the limitations of 35mm films. The simplest piece of advice
I think I could give anyone is to make sure your photos are as sharp as
you can make them, with the exposures as accurate as possible, on the finest
grain film you can afford. At the end of the day, the quality of the source
material will determine a lot about the quality of the scanned result.
Choosing a scanner has a lot to do with what the buyer wants to do with
the results. There's no single answer that is right for everyone.
Rob
Rob Geraghty harper@wordweb.com
