Just to make a side note:
for a sustained transfer Firewire is still beating USB2.0 attaining
full ~40 MB/s (or even more) whilst USB2.0 performance is still
highly-depedent on particular drivers and chipsets. So far having
USB2.0
HDD remote device I wasn't able to go over 17 MB/s hooked up to my
USB2.0 capable MB.
If there is choice of IEEE1394 vs USB2.0, I woudl certainly vote for
Firewire (not to be fogotten that teh USB also captures CPU resources -
about 20-30%, while Firewire is peer-to-peer almost freeing your CPU
completely for another tasks).
Alex
--- Ellis Vener <ellis@ellisvener.com> wrote:
>
> On Friday, October 17, 2003, at 06:13 AM, Thys wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > After hunting everywhere for a proper review of the Minolta 5400,
> and
> > not
> > really finding any, I decided to buy the thing. I have been playing
>
> > around
> > with it for a short while only, but I thought I'll share my initial
> > impressions with the group... I have made several
> > scans with a Canon FS4000 which I borrowed for a while and
> therefore
> > can
> > compare the Minolta with scans made with the Canon.
> >
> ...
> > Compared to the FS4000 on a 2.4GHz P4 with 512Mb RAM on Win2k, I
> found
> > the
> > following:
> > - Scan times: At highest resolution, it is slower than the Canon.
> > Using an
> > Adaptec SCSi card on the Canon, I was doing 4 scans @ 4000dpi with
> > Fare on
> > and 3x multi scan (on Vuescan) in about 1 hour. On the Minolta, 4
> > scans on
> > Vuescan with Ice on Medium at 3x multi scan took about 1hour 15
> minutes
> > using USB1. I was rather hoping for the Minolta to be a bit faster,
> but
> > maybe if I upgrade to USB 2 or get Firewire...
>
> three items here:
> 1.) at full resolution the Minolta (@5400ppi and true 16 bit per
> channel color depth) is going to be creating larger data files than
> the Canon FS4000.
> 2.) Firewire and USB 2.0 are much, much faster than regular USB,
> which
> I assume you were using. USB 2.0 maybe faster than firewire depending
>
> on the implementation.
> 3.) ICE will slow you down.
>
>
> > - Image quality - Colour: Looking at the scans side by side, I
> noticed
> > that
> > the Canon's colours are much richer and saturated than the Minolta.
> The
> > Minolta looked duller by comparison, but I hope I can improve that
> > with some
> > scan settings. The true colour of the slide (Fuji Velvia) was
> actually
> > somewhere in between these two results.
>
> What color space (workspace) are you using? Is your monitor
> accurately
> calibrated and profiled?
>
> > - Image quality - sharpness: The Canon was definitely sharper and
> more
> > snappy on the same image. This could be (and I suspect it is) the
> > effect of
> > Digital Ice vs Canon Fare. I intend to do another test with Ice off
> > (unfortunately I scanned all my Canon samples with Fare on) The
> > difference
> > was very obvious and before sharpening, the Minolta scans looked
> > pretty bad
> > compared to the Canon's.
>
> > - Dynamic range: I was very upbeat when I saw the amount of shadow
> > detail
> > and low shadow noise recorded by the Minolta as compared to the
> Canon,
> > until
> > I looked at the highlight detail. The highlights in the Minolta was
>
> > much
> > more blown out than on the Canon. I noted that, for example in a
> > landscape
> > with clouds, I could make out a lot more subtle white variations in
> the
> > clouds of the Canon scan than the Minolta. It is clear to me that I
>
> > have
> > some exposure settings to tune. I suspect, in spite of the much
> higher
> > specification of the Minolta in DRange, there won't not that much
> > difference
> > between the 2 in the end. I'll do more testing there.
>
> > - Other: File sizes are, off course huge (200Mb plus). At high
> > resolutions
> > the difference in pixel size between the two scanners does become
> quite
> > obvious (which is why I bought it in the first place). I also noted
>
> > that
> > there were some artifacts visible in one or two places of the
> Minolta
> > scan
> > (like a line with a few disjointed pixels running across the width
> of
> > the
> > scan) I wonder if that has anything to do with the scan speed (it
> stops
> > several times during the duration of a scan). I saw something
> similar
> > in the
> > Canon scans, using USB, until I plugged it into the SCSI card and
> it
> > disappeared. (With the SCSI, the Canon scanned continuously,
> without
> > stopping)
> >
> > I don't have any definite conclusions yet, because I would be doing
> a
> > lot
> > more scanning and testing with the new Minolta, but so far, I just
> > realized
> > that that the Canon FS4000 is in fact a remarkable scanner for the
> > money,
> > compared to the Minolta which is, at least on paper, the best
> available
> > today.
> >
> > Regards
> > Thys
> >
>
> Thys,
>
> Thanks for this first look. I think in general you are going to b
> helped by more RAM and switching from USB to USB 2.0 or Firewire.
> what
> would really like to see is a Firewire 800 implementation as it is a
> 2x
> faster standard than Firewire or USB 2.0
>
>
> Ellis Vener
> Atlanta, GA
>
> "I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and
> photographers." - Mahatma Gandhi
>
>
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