[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK

["Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com>]

It sounds like you're confusing chrome and neg scan capability using CCD
scanners.  Seeing all the "dynamic range" in color neg shadows is cake for
nearly any scanner, as this is the part of the film with least density above
film base plus fog.

I will disagree with your assessment of the LS-30 and Vuescan after owning
that scanner for a few years.  With color negs particularly Vuescan blows
away what you can get with concurrent versions of NikonScan in terms of tone
scale accuracy (in the shadows particularly), and in the absence of
NikonScan's famous "jaggies".  In terms of real world results, particularly
if looking at resulting prints,  I would put the "lowly" LS-30 up against
better scanners with inferior software if one stays within the resolution
limits imposed by the LS-30, and expect better results.  More than once I've
heard knowledgeable folks say the software is more important than the
scanner (within reasonable limits).

Apparently Flextight has sharpening at the default settings.  Regarding edge
to edge sharpness, there are less expensive ways to get film flat for
scanning than buying a Flextight.  Please note I'm not saying there is
anything wrong with Flextight scanners beyond the disadvantageous
price/performance ratios.

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com>
To: <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 6:20 PM
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK


Dave

I accept that the software can assist in pulling more information out of a
negative but if the scanner does not have the capability in the hardware to
read it then it isn't going to materialise in the output scan file.  I doubt
that Vuescan will ever get my lowly LS30 to perform better than it does now,
and it will never meet the level of the Flextight, SS120, MDSMP or Nikon
8000.

I have seen the review of the MDSMP where a scan showed a lot of noise in a
particularly dark part of the scan.  16x multisampling erradicated most of
it although there was visible banding.

Simon

Dave King wrote:

> I didn't say edge to edge sharpness is a software issue, but shadow detail
> and noise in color negs scans certainly is.  That is the part of the neg
> that is the easiest for the hardware to deal with.
> Dave
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com>
> To: <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 6:08 AM
> Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
>
>
> That is not so Dave.  Edge to edge sharpness is not a software issue, it
is
> a film flatness issue in the scaner, and an area where the curving of the
> film in the Flextight helps greatly.  Shadow detail, and particularly
noise
> in teh shadow detail, is not a software issue, it is an issue of how the
> scanning light source and hardware create the noise and accentuate grain.
> The depth of detail extracted from the shadow areas is not a software
issue
> (altough software can help) but also to do with the Dmax of the scanner.
> Colour and clarity can also be assisted using Vuwscan, but the scanner has
> to be able to record them reasonably accurately in the first place.
>
> I am confident that Vuescan will not help to resolve some of these issue,
> particularly edge to edge sharpness.  I use Vuescan all the time and will
> try and re-do my comparison using it with the SS120 and MSMP.
>
> Simon
>
> Dave King wrpte:
>
> > When you're scanning color negs software is the determining factor in
all
> > the parameters you mention except detail resolution.  I don't know how
> much
> > the price of the Flextight has fallen, but those using the other
scanners
> > you mention can take heart in the fact that Vuescan exists.

> > David Lewiston wrote:
> >
> > > Simon
> > >
> > > To answer my own question about 'how much scanner?'...
> > >
> > > Just did another websearch on Imacon. At the Luminous Landscape site I
> > found
> > > the following entry for Oct 24, 2001: "At the beginning of this month
> > Imacon
> > > announced that they had reduced the price of the Imacon Flextight
Photo
> to
> > > US$6,495 from its original price of $9,995. I have just been informed
> that
> > > Imacon is currently offering a limited-time US$1,500 mail-in rebate
> which
> > > effectively reduces the net cost to the end-user to $4,995."
> > >
> > > It seems to be the Flextight 1, which does 35mm only at a resolution
of
> > > 3,200 dpi, about half the resolution of its big brother.
> > >
> >
> > David
> >
> > It is indeed the Flextight Photo.  I used this in the dealer to scan a
> 35mm
> > and 6x6 neg on a Sprintscan 120, Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and the
> > Flextight Photo.  At 3200 dpi and with a Dmax of 4.1 the Flextight blew
> the
> > others away with far superior scans in detail (shadow and highlight),
> > clarity, colour, edge to edge sharpness etc. etc.
> >
> > I will be getting my one on Monday :-)
> >
> > Simon


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