[filmscanners] Best orientation to avoid dust?

["" <al@greenspace.freeserve.co.uk>]

>From recent emails it seems that, however carefully a scanner is stored,
some build up of dust on the mirror (and image degradation) is
inevitable.  Eventually this will require a service or a DIY clean.

Most of the more active contributors to these discussions have been
Nikon and Polaroid owners.  I think I'm right in saying that the normal
orientation of pretty well all the current crop of scanners (apart from the
Acer/Benq Scanwit) is to have the film holders horizontal, which would
mean the mirrors would also be tilted on the same plane.  Unless the
mirror is above the film facing down, that would mean a surface onto
which dust could fall.

However, the Nikon LS-30/40 and LS-2000/4000 can also be operated
on their side, which should mean the mirrors would then be in the
vertical plane instead.  I have the older Minolta Elite which (like it's
predecessors the Scan Speed and Scan Dual) does scan the film in the
vertical plane as well.

Do any Nikon owners have any experience of whether changing the
orientation does actually have a bearing on the rate of dust build up on
the mirrors?  If this is the case, is there some other design criteria which
makes keeping the film in the horizontal plane more important than
keeping dust of the mirror?

After all, for the owners at least, anything that keeps a scanner from
needing a service has to be a good thing!





Al Bond

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