5x4 choosing a scanner

[ISO 2]

The Epson F-3200 Film scanner is rumoured to be affordable. For your colour work, 48 bit should do it.

www.epson.co.uk/products/scanner/F-3200.htm

[martin_4668]

I am just curious. I know many of the readers and contributeurs are having LF and ULF as hobbies, and therefore has a limited budget.
but......I have to the day not seen anyone saying that these flatbeds scanners are crap...wich they are. Not in value for money....but if anyone has ever put a TriX or Velvia in an Imacon Flextight scanner, they will concour that this type of scan is much much much better. Colour depht, resolution, contrast etc is just in another league.
Due to a lot of photographers are going digi, from scanner to DCB (digital camera back) a lot of these high end 10.000 USD scanner (or even 20.000,-) has ended up on the secondhand market.
I´ve got my Flextight Photo (up to 6x17cm) for just 1500,- USD, new price was 10.000 USD just 4 years ago.

Any other with experiences like that.??

[james silverman]

finding a flextight second hand is difficult where did you find yours? bear in mind i live in Sweden..

I have been scanning with the latest flextight 900 series 6x6 trannies ..hiring by the hour which works out £30 an hour...and have for some reason not seen magazines print my scans particularly well even though my screen is callibrated..So i feel a bit disilusioned with handing in digital files all together but i know that it is the way to sell stories quicker.

[Ralph Barker]

Martin - I don't think many here would dispute that Imacon scanners do an excellent job on the sizes they can handle, nor that desktop scanners can compete with Imacons or drum scanners. Affordability is a key factor for many, however, and getting the best possible scanner in the sub-$500 range is often the goal. Individual images aimed at large digital reproduction can always be sent out for drum scans, if necessary.

James - magazine reproduction is often questionable due to the limitations of both the paper they use and the printing process. The color balance of images can easily be affected (usually adversely) by colors used in ads within the same "signature". Ads using large areas of striking color can be particularly troublesome for photos falling in the same signature. Keeping the brightness range within 3½ to 4 stops, as is done with most ad photos, can help, but not all images lend themselves to that sort of control.

[Brian Ellis]

When I attended a digital workshop at the Palm Beach Photographic Workshops a couple years ago I asked them to scan a 6x7 black and white negative on their Imacon scanner for me. I don't know the model of their Imacon, I remember it was a very big upright affair. I was expecting that the Imacon would knock my socks off in comparison with the same negative scanned on my Linoscan 1400 flatbed scanner ($1,000 or so when new, now discontinued). I was surprised to see not much difference at all. A very little more detail in the darkest shadows and when viewed at actual pixels the blades of grass were a very little bit shaprer. That was about it for $15,000 or so. Maybe a color negative would show greater differences or maybe my negative for some reason didn't allow the Imacon to show all it could do, but it sure didn't produce $15,000 worth of difference to me.