[filmscanners] Re: 3 year wait

["Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>]

Hi James,

I empathize with your sense of dread about what's around the corner.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) depending on how you look at it, this
will continue for the future of technology.  It marches forward.  The
question is always "can I get something which basically accomplishes
what I need at a price I can afford, or wish to pay"...

There are higher res scanners out there, they just cost more money.
Will a higher res scanner with better dynamic range and dMAX come out in
the future, almost certainly.  And will scanner prices continue to drop,
ditto.

So, you need to know that no matter when you jump in the river remains
in flow and there is no perfect time.  What you can look at is that the
4000 dpi scanners are providing good results with lower noise.  However,
keep in mind a few things.  Currently, a 16 bit 4000 dpi scan on the
SS4000+ makes a 112 meg tif file.  If you want/need higher res and big
depth still, expect the file size to grow again as well.  SO, how many
images do you want one CD to archive?

  Even the best CCD prosumer scanners out there today have some problems
with highly underexposed slides.  Maybe the next generation will see
through those densities.  But how long do you want to amass those rolls for?

One solution for you might be to buy a state of the art scanner now,
and scan everything that fits in the normal range of density, since
today's scanners do a pretty good job with average density images.  Then
years from now you can sell off the scanner, and buy a new model which
might have improved ability to see through those difficult images, and
scan those difficult later.


Art

James Hamilton wrote:

> Hello
>
> I've been intending to buy a film scanner for 3 years now. I have a
> collection of 3500+ consumer grade negatives (Kodak, Fuji, 100 - 400) and
> this grows weekly. Should I buy a filmscanner now or should I wait even
> longer for a better iteration of technology :-(
>
> I want to scan the negatives once only as there are so many of them. So I
> have to get it right first time. I am scanning for archival purposes, that
> means getting every last bit of information out of the negatives.
>
> I don't want to scan everything and find that in fact a 5000 dpi 4.0
> scanner released later in the year resolves more detail in the film.
> Should I just buy a Nikon 4000 ED or a Polariod 4000+ now?
>
> I have everyhing else, the enormous PC, the file format (JPEG 2000) and the
> CD writer.
>
> Any advice appreciated
> James
>


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body