[filmscanners] Re: Flatbed for contact sheets?

["Dana Trout" <dana@troutcom.com>]

I have a PowerLook III and use it for (among other things) doing
contact sheets of 35mm filmstrips. It is fine for that job because you
will not be enlarging the images very much nor will you be trying to
get every last bit of shadow detail (if you were, you'd not be leaving
the filmstrips in the Printfile sheets).

Like any flatbed with transparency head, the PowerLook has the
following problems:

 1. Lots of surfaces to keep clean (both sides of the glass in the
head, both sides of the glass in the platen, as well as the light
tubes, the reflectors, and the calibration strips).

 2. Since the light source in the head is not mechanically linked to
the sensor in the bed they do get slightly out of alignment as they
move. The alignment error is cyclical and causes very faint (but
sometimes important) banding along the direction of travel. There are
several sources for this error: slight eccentricity of the gears, and
vibration of the belts driving the light and sensor. This banding is
much more noticeable on long scans than short ones, so for 35mm
filmstrips each frame will show little banding.

Overall, I like the scanner a lot, but do remember it is not really a
high-end filmscanner. I do use it to scan large negatives (100
year-old 3.5" x 5.5" black & whites as well as the occasional 8x10)
and it does just fine for them -- the negatives themselves have enough
problems from improper exposure, washing, and storage that the
scanners foibles are not significant.

I live in Santa Barbara, California. If you would like to send me some
645 or 6x6 negs and chromes to scan I can do that and return them and
a CD to you. Then you can decide whether the scanner is adequate to
your needs. Please email me off-list if you want to do this.

HTH,
  --Dana

----------
From: Lloyd O'Daniel <lodaniel@bham.rr.com>
To: dana@troutcom.com
Subject: [filmscanners] Flatbed for contact sheets?
Date: Sunday, January 06, 2002 2:46 AM

I'm thinking of upgrading my flatbed scanner to one that has a
page-size
tranny adapter so that I can do digital contact sheets. (I sure wish
Epson
had thought of that when designing the 2450. :-( ) The idea is to be
able to
make low-res scans of negatives, preferably while they are still in
the
Printfile sheets. Is anyone out there successfully doing this? I'd
hate to
spring for the scanner only to find out that this won't work.

The scanner would also be used for finish scanning of 645 and 6x6 negs
and
chromes, since I can't justify a Sprintscan 120 right now. I am
thinking of
a Umax Powerlook III or 1100, or a used Epson Expression 1600. I'm a
little
scared of the 1200x2400 dpi resolution of the Umax as being
insufficient.
Primary output would be on Epson 13x19" printers.

I'd appreciate hearing any positive or negative feedback on these
units, or
of the concept in general.

Lloyd


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