Epson 4990 outdated?

[neil poulsen]

I'd like to see a scanner like te mt 2500 come back into existance. I never owned one, but from the comparison on the LF page, it did a good job.

It would be nice to include the mt1800 and maybe one or two of the Imacon Flextight scanners like the 646 in the scanner comparison. That comparison helps one to understand how one scanner compairs to another.

[Brian Ellis]

Kind of interesting how digital is creating a new divide between the photographic haves and the have-nots, the haves being the photographers who can afford the high end stuff (or, more accurately in most cases, who have clients to whom the cost of the high end stuff can be passed on) and those (mostly amateurs) who can't. I don't think that kind of divide used to exist - I could and did use the same cameras and darkroom equipment that Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, or any other equally well-known and successful photographer used. But I'd never pay even $10,000 for a digital back or a scanner, much less the $30,000 and up kind.

[David Honey]

Brian, I don't agree with you there (digital technology being anti-democratic). If anything, it's made accessible to all and sundry the means to produce almost anything one's heart desires -- albeit more often than not in the full splendor of mediocrity (and that without fail being more the fault of the user than of the equipment).

> "...clients to whom the cost of the high end stuff can be passed on) and those (mostly amateurs) who can't." <

-- Isn't the difference there just that one person is able to sell his stuff to the 'right' people (therefore becoming a 'have'), and that the other can't, or can't be bothered (so remaining a 'have-not') ?

BTW, if anyone can tell me how to get $20,000 for a print, I wouldn't mind spending it on a 4x5 digital scanning back (!)

[Ed Richards]

> I could and did use the same cameras and darkroom equipment that Ansel Adams, Brett Weston

As I remember, neither of them made much money until the ends of their lives. The comparison would be the equipment the top commerical studios had, including lights and other supporting equipment. I think there has always been a divide at that end.