[filmscanners] Re: high-iso scanning: minolta 5400 or nikon LS-50 ??

["Paul Roberts" <mail@paul-roberts.com>]

I've seen there is now a DS IV out now as well, it's hard to tell from the 
specs what has an IR channel and what hasn't.

Best Wishes

Paul Roberts
mail at Paul-Roberts dot com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arthur Entlich" <artistic-1@shaw.ca>
To: <mail@paul-roberts.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 10:16 AM
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: high-iso scanning: minolta 5400 or nikon LS-50 ??


Hi Simon,

I think you have a good basic understanding of your options.

Grain Aliasing is going to likely be a problem with any scanner in the
2400-2900 dpi range, especially with a higher grain film like ASA/ISO
800 types.

I also own a DS II, and I know from where you speak about grain and dust
problems, and noisy shadows.

I would suggest you consider, especially with the current pricing, the
discontinued Elite II, which is basically the SD II with IR digital dust
reduction and a wider bit A>D converter.  That should both remove the
dust problem, reduce grain, and noise.  It uses a USB 1.1 interface.

To further reduce grain, consider buying the diffusion filter being sold
3rd party.  It better mixes the lighting making grain edges less extreme
and reducing dust even in images where due to film type dICE cannot be used.

Another option is the DS III.  No IR cleaning but higher bit depth on
the A>D, and a USB 2.0 connection, which speeds things considerably.
ALso, a new software driver.

Both of these Minoltas are value priced.

The newer 5400 has higher res, reducing grain aliasing problems, and
also has dICE.

The Nikons will indeed have much more limited DOF, which can be
problematical with even mildly warped films, and dICE is a must, because
it even picks up dust and surface defects more easily than the DS II or III.

The FS4000 Canon is not a bad choice at current pricing (starting at
about $500 US).  They have their own IR cleaning (FARE) and 4000 dpi
resolution which limits grain aliasing.  It has both SCSI and USB 1.1
interfaces.


Art

simpy wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've been using a Minolta Scan Dual II to scan my films for the past
> year. However, I had the unit on loan and recently had to return it.
> Therefore I'm in the market for a new scanner. Based on my experience
> with the DS2, it should
>
> 1) have an IR channel. With the DS2 I have noticed that dust spotting is
> not my idea of fun...
>
> 2) deal better with grain in images. The DS2 scans often came out
> horribly noisy (much more than prints or other scans). Probably due to
> grain aliasing with my ISO 800 films?
>
> The demand of an IR channel essentially narrows down my choice to two
> models: the Minolta 5400 and the Nikon LS-50 (the canon fs-4000 being
> older, scsi and with less than wonderful software). Based on some
> research on the net and in magazines, I came up with the following
> shortlist of strong and weak points of each of these units:
>
> Minolta 5400
> + resolution (maybe less grain aliasing ?)
> + grain diffuser
> - sloooow
> - lamp drift over time
>
> Nikon LS-50
> + recommended over the Minolta by Ed Hamrick, author of Vuescan, for
> having better colours and channel separation
> - shallow DOF
> - worse Dmax for B&W (according to test in ColorFoto 3/2004)
> + light stability because of LED lightsource
>
>
> Of course which scanner is best will greatly depend on my usage of the
> machine. I shoot negative film almost exclusively, the majority of rolls
> being high ISO colour film (400-1600). In addition I have a decent
> amount of older B&W material, most of it also in the ISO 400-3200
> region. Slides are less important. I regularly shoot one or more rolls
> in bars and on parties and would like to be able to batch-scan most of
> the images with reasonable results. Of course I don't mind spending
> extra time on the _good_ shots.
>
> Does anyone have experience with one or both scanners? Suggestions
> concerning aspects I overlooked, overstressed or otherwise
> misinterpreted? Any help is greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
> Simon
>
>
> PS - For those of you who read both the filmscanners mailing list and
> comp.periphs.scanners , I apologize for double-posting this message.
>
>

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