filmscanners: More reports of Minolta Dimage Scan II problems

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

The message below was sent to both Tony and myself in private mail, due
to the writer only having digest access to this list.

I am publishing it with his permission, as another case of problems with
a recent run of Minolta Dual Dimage Scan II scanners.

Obviously, Minolta has run into a production run problem which is
probably a slew of bad CCD sensors.  The pity is that this scanner has
been well reviewed and those review models were apparently quite
functional. People with earlier models seem to report good results.

I suggest all owners of this scanner take a good look (at minimum) at
the green channel, and report back to Minolta if there is a problem.

Below is Stephan's notice, I will include a short description I reported
a few weeks back with my scanner, for comparison.


Art


Stephan Beck wrote:

> Dear Art and Tony,
> 
> Sorry for not using the list to send this email. But I am only subscribing
> to the digest which does not give me the opportunity to participate. (I
> would not be able to cope with the many individual emails.)
> 
> Well, this is just to tell you that I have exactly the same problem with my
> brand new Dimage Scan II. There are about 5 green pixels which show
> problems, and there is one blue pixel. At least one green 'problem-pixel' is
> so strong that it shows in scans. I have on image with a dark forrest in the
> background. Right through it there is a visible green line.
> 
> To track the problem I have simply taken a pice of black printed paper from
> a magazin ad. By using this I found that the green pixels have considerably
> more overall noise.
> 
> If you want I can send or upload the images with the black paper or the dark
> forrest.
> 
> At the moment I do not yet know what to do. But your discussion has been
> very helpful. I am curious what Minolta come up with.
> 
> I have the added diusadvantage of living the in Dubai. Where there is no
> Minolta service center. I bougt the Scanner from a German mailorder company.
> And I am reluctant to send the scanner between the continents.
> 
> You may post this email on the list.
> 
> Stefan
> 


Art Entlich wrote:

> I recently had my Minolta Dual II replaced by Minolta, after only owning
> it a week.  The second one has lower "noise" in the shadow areas than
> the first. 
> 
> The first had a lot of green noise in the dense areas (on slides) which
> I noted lessened quite a bit using Vuescan.  I haven't tested the new
> one with Vuescan yet.
> 
> Since I'm discussing this, I'll make a brief comment which concerns me. 
> Overall, I like this scanner.  It is both sharper and has better overall
> dynamic range than the HP S-20 I replaced.  However, a few things give
> me pause.  One, the apparent quality control is spotty.  The machines
> appear to vary in terms of the degree of noise they make mechanically
> and optically, and I suspect this has to do with general wide tolerances
> in the manufacturing process.
> 
> More important, however, is my first one had many "bad" elements in the
> CCD.  I was unable to determine if this is a matter of physically bad
> CCD elements or dirt in the unit, or defective filters over the CCD, or
> bad calibration or what.  The first unit had between 3 and 5 bad sensors
> per color.
> 
> The unit I received which replaced it still has some bad sensors.  This
> time one or two per color, but this is not acceptable, especially "out
> of box".