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Does anyone have any real world experience with these scanners? The iQSmart is what caught my eye initially but the older models look good as well. Although they start at $8500 new, I wonder if a nice used one might be bought for much less. First factor is quality though - anyone used one or seen scans?
I had a test scan of a 4x5 tranny done on the IQ2 by Creo. As good as a Tango drum scan when wet mounted.
Ask them...they will do one for you.
I had 4x5 comparison scans done with IQSmart3 and Microtek 1800f. The Creo won by a large amount-it had fine detail that was lacking in the 1800f's scan.
The IQSmart1's specs. are a little misleading. They quote 3200DPI, but it is interpolated for larger scans. It's down to 2000DPI for 4x5 and 1200 DPI for 8x10.
I'd recommend the IQSmart2 which is used by Clyde Butcher. I've seen his digital output (printed on an Epson 9600) and it's outstanding.
"The IQSmart1's specs. are a little misleading. They quote 3200DPI, but it is interpolated for larger scans. It's down to 2000DPI for 4x5 and 1200 DPI for 8x10."
Ohhhh Dang!
And how big a negative can be scanned?
The latest info I have found is that the Smart loses resolution as the film size goes up. The EverSmart and iQSmart do not. Eversmart is 2540 with the Pro model at 3170, the iQSmart1 is 3200. There are also higher res iQSmarts for lots of money. As far as I can tell this is over the whole bed. I think any of those figures is plenty good for my needs on 4X5 and would seem to be plenty for sure for larger formats. This assumes that the files are truly excellent quality and the machine has the dynamic range it is advertised to have.
The older machines (Smart sand Eversmart) are SCSI and only run on Mac OS up to 9.2. The iQSmart and new EverSmart are Firewire and run only on OSX.
Carl,
The bed is around 11x14 to 12X17 I think this changes on the newer machine to the larger size. I'm not sure on this - might have it backward.
I'm calling Creo tomorrow to get exact details on the various models. I'll write again to let you know what I find.