Any love, hate or thoughts on Scanview?

[Allen in Montreal]

I am missing my old Linotype, looking for a small cheap drum scanner,
any thoughts on a Scanview if the price was right?
Thanks,

[Andrea Gazzoni]

I love it so much that I am trading wife and daughter for a non working second one for parts. It's just 6000 miles apart... and mine is working great.
But I must work to give it a better future, isn't it? ;)
I've bought here my first Scanmate 5000 over a year ago, it came on a truck from some Eastern Europe village along with cables and mounting station.
Took me days to find space for it in my house, minutes to have it linked to a pc and running with its free ColorTrio software.
Since then, in over one year of use I've run through three or four lamps and many satisfactions.
Except for a couple times switching off the lamp at 85% of an 800mb job, I must say I've never witnessed any strange behaviour in this machine.
It is a solid piece of mechanics and electronics well mixed together in my opinion.
Obviously from another era as for quality of manufacture.
The 5000 has this sort of drawer for the second drum that I find very smart, but don't ever think to use it as a mounting device as it maybe was marketed for. 4000 and 11000 model don't have this feature. Other models like Plus or 3000 have a non removable drum, so I would not suggest buying.
Andrea

[Allen in Montreal]

Thank you Andrea,
That is great advice, I was looking at a rather cheap 3000, but I will pass on it.

[LF_rookie_to_be]

Other models like Plus or 3000 have a non removable drum, so I would not suggest buying.
Andrea

Andrea,

How important it really is to have a removable drum? Is it possible, with some acrobatics, to mount successfully (wet?) on a non-removable drum?

[Andrea Gazzoni]

in my experience wet mounting on a fixed drum could be too difficult.
just to mention one thing, I imagine the mounting fluid or oil dripping inside the scanner... then you could not apply much pressure on the tape by pressing with fingers without the risk of unbalancing the drum or the spindle.
same applies with drum cleaning...

[LF_rookie_to_be]

Is there a way then to avoid Newton rings and focus problems with dry mounting 8x10 film on 3000? How important is the mylar overlay?

[Daniel Stone]

The mylar overlay keeps the film on the drum, also so you don't have to tape the original to the drum.

You might have a problem with newton rings, I never dry mount, fluid mounting is what drum scanning is all about anyhow ;)!

-Dan

[cps]

Allen,

Love it (so far).

I kept my eyes peeled for a local Scanview, and picked up a 5000 last fall for a decent price. It is a great size for a home studio - not much wider than my Epson 3800. I did have to do a little explaining to the wife, but probably not as much as with a scanner that might have required a forklift to install. ;^) Anyway, it did not take much effort to get it up and running rings (not Newton rings) around my Epson 750. I have it hooked up to a Mac g4 (chrome) running ColorQuartet on OSX. There's a little kung fu required to get the software and hardware to do what is expected, but the results are quite worth learning the secret handshakes. The unit itself is a solid piece of machinery and has a little design flair to boot.

This is my first foray into drum scanning, and ironically, I find it quite a bit more productive than dry scanning on my Epson. The extra energy invested in wet mounting is offset by way less time spent spotting dust ex-post. I am not sure if this is a common issue for others, but I find that getting color I like, and agree with, is much easier with the drum scanner. Getting reasonable color using Portra NC on the 750 used to drive me crazy. With the Scanview and ColorQuartet I have been getting quite happy results.

I see my workflow moving quickly toward using the 750 as a decent proofing tool, and the Scanview for pretty much anything I want to look at on a regular basis.

Chris

[bicubic]

Yup, I love mine too and I get some great scans from it (Scanmate 11000).

My new trick is to photograph films on the light table for quick previews (reversal in PS) and then load the selected few into the Scanmate 11000. I can build 60 previews from the digi in 15mins and it beats loading duds onto the drum. It allows me to chew through the films and really enjoy the process of using 35mm proof sheets or 4x5 sheet film—so much faster than any Epson proofing scanner.