[filmscanners] Re: Polaroid Dust and Scratch Removal

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

Well, they say necessity is the mother of invention, and that does
follow in this case.  I'm not saying that IR cleaning isn't a valuable
breakthrough, its just more valuable for some scanners than others.

It was the setback caused by Nikon's lighting design as resolutions
improved, that required either they change their lighting source, making
for a full revamp of their product, after considerable investment in
their design (which isn't just about having an LED versus a cold cathode
lighting method, but a completely unique CCD usage ( a single or triline
monochrome CCD versus a triline RGB filtered one), firmware (flashing
different colored lamps and taking separate CCD readings from the one
CCD line, versus taking simultaneous readings of three filtered CCD
lines), carriage movement (they went from moving the film to moving the
scanner module, and eventually going back to moving the film) or coming
up with another method of mediating exaggerated dust, dirt and scratch
"situation" (if you like that word better than "problem").

Maris V. Lidaka Sr. wrote:

> Yes, lengthy can be good, and it was a friendly and honorable "curmudgeon".
>


Yes, it was taken that way, hence as the ;-).


> In all honesty, I very much appreciate all of the detailed information you
> have provided over the years.  But I think your statement below about how IR
> cleaning firmware came to desktop indicates an improvement in software over
> the years, but not a Nikon scanner defect.
>


It was a circumstance which required something be done to make the
scanner usable.  Without IR cleaning, Nikon would have lost their
marketshare to scanners not manifesting this "feature" (Is that a better
word still?)  IR cleaning allowed Nikon to continue to produce a scanner
using their lighting technology.  It still has a "feature" of limited
DOF.  Even Nikon added diffusion lighting to their top of the line
LS8000 to deal with some of this.

If new LEDs or CCDs are made available at the right price which are
brighter, or more light sensitive without adding noise, the Nikon
lighting and associated designs may be able to integrate enough
diffusion and lens stop down to mitigate the "features" we have been
alluding to.  That might either mean they will no longer require an IR
cleaning system (thus lowering the price of production and licensing) or
it will be an extra bell and whistle rather than a required "feature".

Art


> Maris
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>
> To: <mlidaka@ameritech.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 7:21 PM
> Subject: [filmscanners] Re: Polaroid Dust and Scratch Removal
>
>
> Hey, lengthy can be good ;-)
>
> Your comment is fair to a point, in the same way that saying a car that
> gets pushed off the road by pea gravel on the roadway is not the fault
> of an over-active suspension, or the car's or tire's design... after
> all, the pea gravel was on the road, wasn't it? ;-)
>
> And, as with the word "lengthy" the term "curmudgeon" is relative...
> come to think of it, all my relatives! ;-)
>
> BTW, the inside scoop on how IR cleaning firmware came to desktop
> scanners, indicates that Nikon recognized they needed it to continue to
> market their scanner design, especially as the resolution was improved.
>
> Up to that point, IR cleaning systems were in use, but were used on
> larger production machines only.
>
> Art
>
> PS: I hope that response is both short and concise enough not to violate
> any internet regulations or your attention span ;-) (A poke in the ribs,
> not the eye ;-))
>
> Maris V. Lidaka Sr. wrote:
>
>
>>Art, you curmudgeon,
>>
>>I for one read and respect your posts, as they are intelligent if lengthy.
>>But I have to take issue with your statement that Nikon manifests problems
>>from dust and scratches - the dust and scratches are on the film, not in
>>
> the
>
>>Nikon scanner hardware, are they not?
>>
>>Maris
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>
>>To: <mlidaka@ameritech.net>
>>Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 5:37 AM
>>Subject: [filmscanners] Re: Polaroid Dust and Scratch Removal
>>
>>
>>[snipped]
>>
>>This software is not a replacement for IR cleaning, but then again it
>>doesn't really need to be on a Polaroid scanner.  After all, Polaroid
>>scanner simply do not suffer from the problems that Nikon's manifest
>>from dust and scratches, so why should it be designed to fix Nikon's
>>problems?
>>
>>[remainder snipped]
>>


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