J
john
I realise that this is a rather familiar story and I have done an
extensive archives search on this and other forums. However I would be
grateful for a bit of specific advice.
The two slides scanners I'm considering are the Minolta dual scanner
4 and the Nikon Coolscan 5.
I don't have vast numbers of slides to scan, I have about 1000
Kodachrome slides and a few hundred non Kodachrome. I would imagine
scanning about 100 Kodachrome slides and may be 50 non Kodachrome
slides over six months to a year. Some of the slides are very dusty.
I've had a play for a few hours with a dual scan 3 and was generally
pretty pleased with the results. I've had 2 of the images printed 8 by
10 and I'm very pleased with the detail, suggesting that I don't need
more resolution (this would be the size I would print most of my
scans).
However the process did highlight a number of issues that could be
improved
One of the slides was quite hard to colour balance and the saturation
needed boosting. (Pixel polish helped but didn't completely solve the
problems)
The other slide needed quite a lot of dust removal and I didn't get rid
of all of it. Obviously practice would help.
The sky was quite "noisy" and was improved enormously buy using "neat
image"
So now I'm in two minds:
Buy the Minolta it's the right price scanner for you. What you need is
a cheap scanner, for a finite job of fixed size and the way forward is
with digital cameras. There's no point wasting money on ICE if it'll be
turned off the whole time. You'll get the images you want you'll just
have to put in a little work. It does multisampling in a single pass to
help chew out the detail from really dark slides. You can always spend
some of the saved money on a graphics tablet to speed up spotting. I
hear rumours that the Minolta light source is better on Kodachrome
The other says go the extra mile for the nikon. It's a lot of money but
it's worth it. ICE will probably work on 90 percent of Kodachrome's and
save you time. Even if it doesn't the GEM will ease the workflow in
terms of grain reduction. It's a better scanner so will produce better
pictures. The images scanning modern slide film will be great, so
great that it will pay for itself by pushing back the inevitable
digital SLR purchase and bring my old SLR out of the cupboard and
alongside the digicam
Or is there a clever compromise in buying a second-hand Coolscan 4.
The main things that put me off this are that its a 12 bit scanner and
the terrible scan of the train slide on imaging-resource.com
All comments welcome. Although I'm fairly certain that the 5400
Minolta is a stretched too far in terms of price.
extensive archives search on this and other forums. However I would be
grateful for a bit of specific advice.
The two slides scanners I'm considering are the Minolta dual scanner
4 and the Nikon Coolscan 5.
I don't have vast numbers of slides to scan, I have about 1000
Kodachrome slides and a few hundred non Kodachrome. I would imagine
scanning about 100 Kodachrome slides and may be 50 non Kodachrome
slides over six months to a year. Some of the slides are very dusty.
I've had a play for a few hours with a dual scan 3 and was generally
pretty pleased with the results. I've had 2 of the images printed 8 by
10 and I'm very pleased with the detail, suggesting that I don't need
more resolution (this would be the size I would print most of my
scans).
However the process did highlight a number of issues that could be
improved
One of the slides was quite hard to colour balance and the saturation
needed boosting. (Pixel polish helped but didn't completely solve the
problems)
The other slide needed quite a lot of dust removal and I didn't get rid
of all of it. Obviously practice would help.
The sky was quite "noisy" and was improved enormously buy using "neat
image"
So now I'm in two minds:
Buy the Minolta it's the right price scanner for you. What you need is
a cheap scanner, for a finite job of fixed size and the way forward is
with digital cameras. There's no point wasting money on ICE if it'll be
turned off the whole time. You'll get the images you want you'll just
have to put in a little work. It does multisampling in a single pass to
help chew out the detail from really dark slides. You can always spend
some of the saved money on a graphics tablet to speed up spotting. I
hear rumours that the Minolta light source is better on Kodachrome
The other says go the extra mile for the nikon. It's a lot of money but
it's worth it. ICE will probably work on 90 percent of Kodachrome's and
save you time. Even if it doesn't the GEM will ease the workflow in
terms of grain reduction. It's a better scanner so will produce better
pictures. The images scanning modern slide film will be great, so
great that it will pay for itself by pushing back the inevitable
digital SLR purchase and bring my old SLR out of the cupboard and
alongside the digicam
Or is there a clever compromise in buying a second-hand Coolscan 4.
The main things that put me off this are that its a 12 bit scanner and
the terrible scan of the train slide on imaging-resource.com
All comments welcome. Although I'm fairly certain that the 5400
Minolta is a stretched too far in terms of price.
