Originally Posted by
Adam Long
Andy,
I had the same dilemma as you 18 months back. I've had a decent MF scanner for years (Nikon 8000) so have some experience of scanning. A mate locally did a few scans for me on his Epson. Despite him having a well set up machine and knowing how to get the best out of it I was underwhelmed by the results. I didn't really fancy sinking £500 into one after that and kept an eye on ebay for drum scanners. After a few months I picked up a Scanmate 5000 from a graphics company and London for £240. Bit of a drive to pick it up but given the size, weight and fragility you're unlikely to get one shipped. I had to mess about a bit buying SCSI leads and terminators, and setting up a Win XP machine, but the first scan (even dry-mounted) blew the Epson away. You don't get much pre-scan control other than cropping but the results are impressive. It also goes up to 5000dpi so it can squeeze a few more pixels out of MF and 35mm than my Nikon.