Re: filmscanners: Nikon 8000

[RogerMillerPhoto@aol.com]

I've added my two cents worth on this dust subject before, but I'm willing to 
do it again.  "If you store your slides/negatives unprotected on the floor of 
a well traveled hallway, you're going to want Nikon's automatic dust removing 
system."  But with a little care on your part, it shouldn't be necessary.  I 
use a professional lab that returns dust free transparencies and negatives.  
I leave them in their package until I'm ready to work with them or scan them. 
 My working environment is by no means a "clean room," but for the short time 
that my slides are out of the box being inspected for dust and mounted in the 
scanner's carrier, they collect virtually no dust.  A Staticmaster brush is 
needed on 20 to 30 percent of the slides to remove an occasional piece of 
dust.  It takes 10 seconds to inspect for and remove the dust.  I generally 
scan one slide at a time so I don't have slides in the carrier that are 
exposed to "outside" air where they can collect dust.  The single slide being 
scanned is inside the scanner where it's protected from dust settling on it.  
(Those of you complaining about dust with the SS4000, are you batch 
scanning?) 

Well, I guess you got a bit more than two cents worth.  But I can guarantee 
you it's 100 per cent certifiable personal opinion backed up by a certain 
amount of logic from a person who has no experience with Nikon scanners.  If 
you like Nikon scanners, you don't have to justify it to me.  And some people 
may actually benefit from an automatic dust removal system because of their 
work flow or work habits.  But it's easier to prevent dust in the first place 
that to fight it after the fact.  Anyone who's worked in a conventional 
darkroom knows how to manage the dust problem.  And they didn't have 
Photoshop to easily repair the damage; all they had were diffusion (as 
opposed to condenser) enlargers.  

In a message dated 8/11/2001 7:33:47 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
darkroom@ix.netcom.com writes:


> > Guess what, as I
> > was ready to
> > launch into my dust and scratch story these folks stopped me in my tricks
> > saying they were not interested. It seems in some photographic segments it
> > is not a valued feature.
>
> I use a Leafscan...and I have never, except for one negative that was
> mis-handled, had the need for any dust and scratch removal.  I guess if it
> was there, I might use it...but then again, I might not...
>
> I make sure my film is dust free...BUT...I do believe that the design of the
> Leafscan is such that dust is minimized.  The chamber is pressurized with
> filtered air.  I do not believe either the Nikon or the Polaroid 120
> scanner(s) do that.  My Polaroid SS4k DID have a dust problem...dust settled
> on the film, no matter what I did.