[filmscanners] Re: Filmscanners - is this about as good as itgets?

["Mats Petersson" <mats.petersson@btconnect.com>]

Tim,

Tim wrote:
>For a few years, Nikon, Canon, Polaroid, Minolta were all outdoing each
>other producing better general level filmscanners culminating in, for
>example, the LS2000 or 4000 for Nikon.
>
>My feeling is, that with the huge boom in pro level digital, the need for
>these kind of scanners has reduced (or at least levelled off), and the
>scanners themselves seem to have reached a level of performance that is
>acceptable for most requirements.
>
>So, as far as desktop film scanners go, do people think that this is about
>as good as it gets for now?
>
>I can see some moderate improvements being made here and there, and maybe a
>new model or two. But I think that for the foreseeable future, the sort of
>rapid development and arrival of new models has probably levelled out.
>
>What do people think?


You make a good argument in the the current technology is good enough for
almost every purpose, and in a reasonably affordable price range as well.

The only reason to improve on the current technology (looking from the
producers perspective, not the customers) would be on of the following:
- If it is percieved that the current product is not selling as well as
it's competitors because some feature/capability is missing.
- If some components in the design is being phased out by the manufacturer
(say the microprocessor in the scanner is being made obsolete by the
producer of microcontroller).
- If some new component will dramatically reduce the price of a new design
that would replace the current product.
- If some new component will noticably improve the performance of a scanner
in some way (resolution, sensitivity, speed) without increased cost in a
new design.

All of the above points will be used to improve by small steps, the current
products. It will probably not be in as big steps as previously, but I'm
sure that if, say, Nikon can produce a 6000 dpi scanner for the same amount
of money as the current generation 4000 dpi scanners, then they would
probably introduce such a product at some point. This would of course force
the price of the 4000 dpi product to lowered, and other manufacturers will
be forced to either follow suit in lower price or higher resolution.

I understand that a large number of the list members here would be able to
tell that 6000 dpi is probably not worth having other than for very special
uses, as it's probably a higher resolution than even the best films out
there (or at least very close to). But I'm also pretty sure that Nikon,
Canon, Minolta or whoever comes out with such a product first, will sell
quite a few at a 50% premium above the current generation at 4000 dpi. Or
sell a boat-load more at the same price as the 4000 dpi model, increasing
their market-share.

Equally, getting real 16 bits per sample scanning would probably be
appreciated by some users (or at least some marketing people ;-), even if
in reality it doesn't make any difference...

I don't think there is such a thing as a slowing down of producing "better"
products in a market that is growing, and I believe film scanners are still
a growing market in number of units sold, even if it's always going to be
small compared to flat-bed scanners (almost every other computer has a
flat-bed scanner, and I only know one or two other people who has a film
scanner).

Or maybe I've just been in the computer industry for too long, and I'm
thinking too much in computer business terms, rather than photographic
terms. But I believe in what I'm saying. Some others will probably disagree
to some of the points. It would be interesting to see what those areas of
disagreement are...

--
Mats

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