UK Drum Scanning Service

[timparkin]

I'm offering drum scanning at a reasonable price of £15 per 4x5 transparency but with no spotting (although I use a positive pressure dust hood and the scans are comparatively clean).

I've created a website that goes through most details at the obviously named :-

http://www.cheapdrumscanning.com

In short: Howtek 4500, Aztek DPL Pro., Hutch Color/Profilemaker profiled, Positive pressure dust booth.

I'm also offering pseudo 20bit scanning - basically making a single scan using a standard curve and then making a log scan for the shadows and combining the two together. The result is incredible shadow detail with smooth tones. First scan on the house.

Regards

p.s. Not sure how to get moderator approval for this so apologies if I've mis-posted! I presume it goes straight to moderation?

[Charles Young]

Good stuff Tim, wish you success!

Cheers,

Charles

[Liam:]

Hi Tim, are you planning on adding 120/135 to the price list?

Thanks

[Ken Lee]

I have moved this thread to the Resources section.

[timparkin]

Thanks Ken!

[wwelti]

I'm so excited about this! I'll send some slides ASAP!

Regards
Wilfried

[ilsiu]

I sent in 3 slides on Thurs, Jan 27 and just received the scans and film back today, so ~9 business day turnaround time*.

This is my first experience with drum scans (I don't have much experience with large format as well), but I'm very satisfied with what I received (I opted for the standard 2000 dpi scans). Tim responded very quickly to my emails, and even sent some jpg proofs late Sunday night so that I could get a preview. The scans are quite sharp, very little signs of dust, and shadow details match the originals quite well. And the price is right.

Thumbs up from me. It might be too late, but I suggest he change the name to cheapandgooddrumscanning.com :)


*I'm currently located in Northern Ireland, so I'm not sure how much of this was transit.

[timparkin]

Hi Tim, are you planning on adding 120/135 to the price list?

Thanks

Yes I can add them - it's more about working out a pricing policy. The price for 120 is probably the same as 4x5 unless you can send me snipped out frames in which case I can do it for 25% off as long as you can send me 6 or more (the price is mostly in preparation and mounting plus the post processing - I do some cleaning and a little checking as well as adding the right profiles and straightening). Plus I scan 120 and 35mm at 4000 dpi so bigger files (especially the 6x17 stuff which are probably more work than 4x5).

Talk to me about what you want to scan and I'll come up with a price..

Tim

[wwelti]

I tried Tim's service, and I think it's fantastic. He's super friendly too :)

Here you can see a tiny 1:1 (actual pixels) crop of a 9734 x 19705 pixel file. This was from a 6x12 slide scanned by him at 4000 dpi.

No postprocessing whatsoever from my side (except converting to sRGB and saving as hi quality jpg)

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5139/5478991587_ced4fc6bcc_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58936876@N07/5478991587/)
Waterfall and flowers crop (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58936876@N07/5478991587/) von wwelti (http://www.flickr.com/people/58936876@N07/) auf Flickr

I have tried a few scanning services before (even one drum scanner), but this is by far the best.

He really knows what he's doing. The scans are spick and span, on some I couldn't find any specks at all -- so DIY dust removal is a breeze. He did a fantastic job cleaning everything upfront.

Resolution, dynamic range, color -- all impressive! And he even managed to recover one overexposed slide.
It's amazing how much shadow detail is recovered, too. It's a bit like cheating :)

I'll send him more slides soon :)

[timparkin]

I have to say that Wilfried's transparencies were incredibly sharp for a 6x12 back on a 4x5 camera (kodak lens I believe). He was also a pleasure to work with and we were chatting about scanner noise and grain and came up with a test to see how much noise is contributed from film grain (defocus and see how much pixel level noise is left).

Tim