Scanner choice

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apr

I'm on the way to replace my (very) old Scanjet IIc for a new one
( Fourteen years and still working, but slow, only 400 dpi and forgotten by
software vendors )
I'm looking for something inexpensive mainly for documents and some 35mm
slides/negatives.
Right now my choice would be either a Canonscan 4200F or an Epson Perfection
3490
Price is similar as is resolution. 3200x6400 dpi.
Anyone with experience on those units or something on this price segment ?
Thanks in advance and HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody
Arturo
 
apr said:
I'm on the way to replace my (very) old Scanjet IIc for a new one
( Fourteen years and still working, but slow, only 400 dpi and forgotten
by
software vendors )
I'm looking for something inexpensive mainly for documents and some 35mm
slides/negatives.
Right now my choice would be either a Canonscan 4200F or an Epson
Perfection
3490
Price is similar as is resolution. 3200x6400 dpi.
Anyone with experience on those units or something on this price segment ?
Thanks in advance and HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody
Arturo
Click to expand...
On the Canon send a little more money and move up to the CanoScan 8400F. It
will scan up to 120 film where the 4200F only does 35 mm.

The 8400F is also Mac compatible where the 4200F is Windows only.
The CanoScan 8400F gives more bang for the buck.
 
I'm on the way to replace my (very) old Scanjet IIc for a new one
( Fourteen years and still working, but slow, only 400 dpi and forgotten by
software vendors )
Click to expand...

That's plenty good enough for documents and photo prints.
I'm looking for something inexpensive mainly for documents and some 35mm
slides/negatives.
Right now my choice would be either a Canonscan 4200F or an Epson Perfection
3490
Price is similar as is resolution. 3200x6400 dpi.
Anyone with experience on those units or something on this price segment ?
Thanks in advance and HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody
Click to expand...

There are few times if ever, you will need that kind of resolution in
a flat bed.

Several do come with film and slide adapters, but none that I know of
come any where near that of a dedicated film scanner and most that are
passable are considered acceptable for incidental work only.

They are getting better, but I don't think any would be considered
much good for scanning slides and negatives to make anything larger
than standard size prints, or maybe for a computer screen display.

I have a scanjet 5470 that does a very good job on documents and
prints. To top it off, the thing is *fast*. It'll take prints faster
than I can feed them. It does have a film and negative adapter with
its own light source. (If you do get one for the ability to scan
negatives and slides get one that has a separate light source for
that). As I do a lot of negative and slide work I have a dedicated
scanner for that (LS5000ED)

Read the reviews of the flatbeds from the sites that do reviews.
Beware the ones written by those with their first scanner who think a
scanner produces fantastic 4 X 6 images from a 35mm negative or slide.
However if that is all you want then don't worry about it. <:-))

I would suggest staying away from scanners powered via USB, Both
scanners here are USB but have their own power supplies. Depending on
the scanner it can add a lot of load to the computer power supply.

One word of caution; Once you start scanning try not to use more
resolution than you really need.

As a comparison, a dedicated film scanner at 4000 to 5000 dpi will
scan right down into the grain on a 35mm negative or slide. The only
thing the 6400 dpi is going to give is a larger file and they are
already *big*. A 35 mm negative at 4000 dpi and 8 bit color depth
creates a file in the 60 megabyte range. At 16 bit color depth it is
on the order of 128 megs. That means a CD can only hold 6 of those
images or less. At 6400 dpi those files are going to be *huge*.
A 4 X 6 print is going to be about 300 dpi so it'll be 1200 X 1800
full size. Scanning a 35mm image at 1200 dpi in a good scanner should
be sufficient.

I bring this up as you are specifically looking in the lower price
segment of the market. Scanning at this resolution means a lot of
CDs, DVDs or Hard Drive space. That storage space can quickly cost
more than the scanner.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
 
On the Canon send a little more money and move up to the CanoScan 8400F.
It
will scan up to 120 film where the 4200F only does 35 mm.

The 8400F is also Mac compatible where the 4200F is Windows only.
The CanoScan 8400F gives more bang for the buck.
Click to expand...
I agree with you, the 8400F is worth the money. If I were purchasing a new
scanner today, I would look for one that also has 64-bit drivers available.
Win XP64 is here now in OEM and Vista is another year away. Lack of 64-bit
driver support will shorten the product lifecycle of many products. Neither
the 4200F or the 3490 presently have 64-bit driver support. There are such
drivers for the 8400F.
 
Thanks a lot for your answer.

The main reason I want to upgrade the old Scanjet is for compatibility and
speed.

It's an old SCSI interface and I have trouble with my actual SCSI
card -Adaptec's 29320- It doesn't seems to go along with the scanner. HP
Deskscan utility no longer works with Win XP and have only access through
WIA driver from Photoshop.

Besides, on color scanning, the unit needs triple pass -slow and irritating-

Color accuracy and dinamic range -8 bits/channel- are poor for today
standards. Finally, although 400 dpi is enough for most print and document
work, the unit can't even take a transparency adapter and if it did, 400 dpi
is useless for negative/slide - So, I got some years ago a dedicated Minolta
film scanner -2880 dip and 10 bits/color

This unit too is SCSI and has still more trouble with my card. It seems to
work properly only with old ISA SCSI cards like Adaptec 1520 or 1540. With
PCI's it takes an eternal time to do a preview, more than on the actual
scanning. I tried different cards and it's no use.

You see, I'm looking for a multipurpose unit, mainly for OCR and
prints/catalogues and incidentally for film/slide

I know it won't replace a good film scanner but, judging for the reviews I'
ve found, Epson's 3490 or 3590 and Canon 8400 aren't bad at all for my
needs. The Canon 4200 doesn't fares so well. HP units seems to be on a
higher price segment for 3200dpi..

2400dpi is overkill for documents, but a bit lacking for film

What about your Scanjet 5470 for OCR.? I did a fair amount of OCR in the
past with the Scanjet IIc and I liked the scanning area of 8.5"x14"-very
useful for spread wide books. Modern unexpensive units are only DIN
A4 -8.5x11.7"



Cheers

Arturo
 
apr said:
Thanks a lot for your answer.

The main reason I want to upgrade the old Scanjet is for compatibility and
speed.
Click to expand...

That's a reason.
It's an old SCSI interface and I have trouble with my actual SCSI
card -Adaptec's 29320- It doesn't seems to go along with the scanner. HP
Deskscan utility no longer works with Win XP and have only access through
WIA driver from Photoshop.
Click to expand...

Strange, strange. I have an Epson Perfection 1200s which is SCSI, I had a
nikon LS2000 (it died recently, considering a new dedicated film scanner)
which was also SCSI. They are connected via Adaptec 2903 PCI card. OS is
WinXP. The Nikon was certainly slower than modern sanners two generations
newer, but the Epson SCSI is still faster than many modern USB scanners at
the same resolution. I was considering to replace it with something newer,
but after experienced their speed decided to do this only in the case my
Epson dies. I usually don't need resolution over 600 dpi. The speed is
especially easy to feel when I make ocassionaly a batch scanning of a book
to an OCR program. In general, no driver problem, whatsoever. Oh, yes, long
time ago I have tried an HP Photosmart film scanner. That one really gave me
problems until HP finally dropped its support for Win2k.

Color accuracy and dinamic range -8 bits/channel- are poor for today
standards.
Click to expand...

Here you should know today many manufactures (if not all) have scanners with
16bit. In most cases it is only interpolated bits, the same way as
resolution "up to 19000 dpi" ;-) The case is if the sensor and other
components are not of really high quality, they produce a comparably high
noise. Normally one wants a 16 bit scanner to get more details, especially
in the darker areas. In reality you get only the same 8 bit noise, not more
details in a bigger file size. Usually the real 16 bit scanners belong to
the higher end line.

This unit too is SCSI and has still more trouble with my card. It seems to
work properly only with old ISA SCSI cards like Adaptec 1520 or 1540. With
PCI's it takes an eternal time to do a preview, more than on the actual
scanning. I tried different cards and it's no use.
Click to expand...

Strange, as I said earlier. Besides ISA is outdated.
HP units seems to be on a higher price segment for 3200dpi..
Click to expand...
My general experience with HP scanners and printers is not so good. I have a
feeling they are orientated to the bussiness segment where they don't thnk
about the price, just "the thing works nicely". Read: they cost more than
avarage. The lower segment of HP line is more for a home user who has seen
HP scanners at his office. In order to work nicely they install a lot of
crap bloaware even without asking you. Thier driver interface is usually
made in a "user friendly" way, where they already know what you want, and
it's not always possible to make it the way you really would like.
Modern unexpensive units are only DIN
A4
Click to expand...

Yes, it's pity. An A3 format scanner cost a lot more.
 
Since you're not asking for fabulous, ultimate perfomance with film,
I'd suggest you consider a used Nikon IV ($350 recently) from KEH or
other well-warrentied source...it's the cheapest way to get sharp film
with Ice..., along with a refurbed 3200 or similar flatbed, directly
from Epson, which is far more than enough from any print. I personally
use a 3200 for 120 and larger, and for reflective copy...it's quite
good from 120 negs up to 11X14 and beyond. Wen I used the Epson for
35mm I generally anticipated a 6X9 as a practical sharp-looking limit,
but it's certainly capable of much more with undemanding original
subjects. All my 35 is now scanned with a Nikon V, which is grain sharp
and totally reliable...if the film is sharp it always looks great at
12X18 on 13X19 (Epson 2200printer's limit).

The Epson 4990 does better with 35mm than does the 3200, and it has
Ice. An ideal flatbed package might ultimately include Doug's
anti-newton glass carrier...adds sharpness and film flatness.
 
">>
I agree with you, the 8400F is worth the money. If I were purchasing a
new scanner today, I would look for one that also has 64-bit drivers
available. Win XP64 is here now in OEM and Vista is another year away.
Lack of 64-bit driver support will shorten the product lifecycle of many
products. Neither the 4200F or the 3490 presently have 64-bit driver
support. There are such drivers for the 8400F.
Click to expand...

You hit on the nail regarding the XP64 drivers....
I was almost sold on a Epson 3490 but, at present, only the 4590/4990 models
are supported
on XP64
As for Canon, I checked again last night their site and I saw 64 bit drivers
only for the "top model"
Canoscan 9950F, not for the 8400F.
 
Strange, strange. I have an Epson Perfection 1200s which is SCSI, I had a
nikon LS2000 (it died recently, considering a new dedicated film scanner)
which was also SCSI. They are connected via Adaptec 2903 PCI card. OS is
WinXP. The Nikon was certainly slower than modern sanners two generations
newer, but the Epson SCSI is still faster than many modern USB scanners at
the same resolution. I was considering to replace it with something newer,
but after experienced their speed decided to do this only in the case my
Epson dies. I usually don't need resolution over 600 dpi. The speed is
especially easy to feel when I make ocassionaly a batch scanning of a book
to an OCR program. In general, no driver problem, whatsoever. Oh, yes,
long
time ago I have tried an HP Photosmart film scanner. That one really gave
me
problems until HP finally dropped its support for Win2k.
Click to expand...

Well, to be honest, the Scanjet IIc it's a 1991 model, built like a tank
and heavy -30 pounds I guess..
Even so, with my former SCSI card -Adaptec 19160- worked fine on Win ME with
HP's utility Deskscan 2.8 - and on HP's website they said it shouldn't work,
being a model
no longer supported.- Now, there seems to be an issue with Win XP and/or the
29320 SCSI card
Here you should know today many manufactures (if not all) have scanners
with
16bit. In most cases it is only interpolated bits, the same way as
resolution "up to 19000 dpi" ;-) The case is if the sensor and other
components are not of really high quality, they produce a comparably high
noise. Normally one wants a 16 bit scanner to get more details, especially
in the darker areas. In reality you get only the same 8 bit noise, not
more
details in a bigger file size. Usually the real 16 bit scanners belong to
the higher end line.
Click to expand...

I assume today's quality is only average at most, but considering the price
I paid
for the Scanjet IIc in 1991 -fifteen times the price of an Epson 3490 today-
that's to be expected. I don't need a high end unit, only a faster ad
trouble free model
with reasonable color accuracy and dinamic range. Having film scanning is
fine too,
but not the more important to me
Strange, as I said earlier. Besides ISA is outdated.
Click to expand...
As strange as it is, this Minolta model was troublesome from the beginning
due to a not very standard SCSI interface and poor software support. A
pity, because quality wise it is a fine performer
My general experience with HP scanners and printers is not so good. I have
a
feeling they are orientated to the bussiness segment where they don't thnk
about the price, just "the thing works nicely". Read: they cost more than
avarage. The lower segment of HP line is more for a home user who has seen
HP scanners at his office. In order to work nicely they install a lot of
crap bloaware even without asking you. Thier driver interface is usually
made in a "user friendly" way, where they already know what you want, and
it's not always possible to make it the way you really would like.
Click to expand...

You're right about HP, I paid 1500 Euro for the "old monster" 14 years ago
and now I expect to have much better performance paying 100 Euro... I know
it's not fair, but we're spoiled because Epson, Canon and others have cheap
models with theoretical impressive features.
So I think, for a low end model better get an Epson, isn't better than an HP
but it's cheaper.
 
There are 64 bit drivers for the Epson 3170 also. It is an older model with
3200 dpi and 3.2 DMax. It still available new in the states from Staples and
a refurbished unit is available from Epson America for $80US.

Wayne
 
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