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Thread: Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

  1. #21

    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    I'd like to be able to scan 8 x 10s at home. But everytime I get close to buying the 1800f I read a post like this and it makes me think $900 is a lot of paper. With 3000 sheets of AZO left I guess I will wait a little longer.

    I do appreciate the info for when I do buy one!

  2. #22
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Phil,
    It depends on how large you aim to print. Henry Ambrose is no slouch and he gets by with his 4990 on 8x10.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  3. #23

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    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    "I'd like to be able to scan 8 x 10s at home. But everytime I get close to buying the 1800f I read a post like this and it makes me think $900 is a lot of paper. With 3000 sheets of AZO left I guess I will wait a little longer."

    Phil,

    As Kirk noted, quality of the final print is related to magnification factor. If you don't enlarge more than about 3X you should get excellent results from the 4990. One of my scanners is the Epson 4870 and I am enlarging from it up to 3X and the print quality is excellent for 5X7" negatves up to about 14X20". I personally doubt very much that you will see any differnece in quality between this scanner and an Imacon at magnification of 3X or less. I have not, and have carefully compared results with both scanners. Of course, in scanning knowing how to get the most out of the scanner makes a huge difference.

    However, for AZO, the question is, how are you going to make your negatives. If you make them on an inkjet printer there is likely to be a loss in quality (in grain appearance ) when compared to an in-camera negative, even of the same size. For alternative processes on art papers, probably not.
    For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
    [url]https://groups.io/g/carbon

  4. #24

    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Neil,
    On my Mac using the standard Epson software through Photoshop I get these choices:

    Original>

    Document Type>

    (pulldown)

    Reflective
    Film (with Film Holder)
    Film (with Area Guide)

    Whether or not anything moves when using the last two settings I can't say for sure.
    I do know that on the Microteks and the older Agfa versions that the mirror flips over to use either the flat glass on top or the drawer. I'd hope that Epson did not just put a functionless button in to make us monkeys feel better about our purchase. But they could have......................

  5. #25

    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Kirk,
    I am a slouch a good bit of the time. And I've only shot 6 sheets of 8x10 in my life but I do have fine results with 4x5 originals at 11x14 from the 4990 and some pretty good smallish prints from 6x7 and 6x6 film.

    I think Sandy's 3X rule is a good one to apply to these scanners - its a result most folks can count on. To exceed it requires great effort, dealing with a load of frustration and the ability to swallow that you won't always get what you want. It sounds like you have that part figured out. I wish I had 50 architecture scans going out each week!!

  6. #26

    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Hi Sandy,

    Thanks for your insight. I have made a few imagesetter negatives for AZO and the results are quite good. I standardized that for grade 3 paper but may change to 2 because I have more grade 2 paper. Fortunately most of my negatives are in camera.

  7. #27
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Henry,

    I pulled one of mine apart to clean the inside glass. It looked to me like there is no mechnism to change focus except a general mechnical adjustment for the height during assembly. It relies on depth of field. The mask I believe is just for positioning and the button tells the sofware to look for it there or some crap. There has been allot of discussion about this when it came out on other forums. The plane of focus varies slightly depending on the sobriety of the assembler (or robot?) and that is why people shop these to get a good one sometimes.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  8. #28
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Though Epson never says it anywhere, every review I can find refers to it as a fixed focus scanner that focuses 1mm above the glass just as the 3200 and 4870 did.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  9. #29

    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    I don't know if the 4990 is exactly the same as the 4490, but I checked mine with a glass resolution target (several hundred 1951 USAF targets in a 2x2 inch area), tilted at a very slight angle. IMO, the DOF is sufficiently large that there should be no difference between emulsion up or down. The area of best focus was from the surface of the glass to a few film thicknesses above. Now, I understand that people get different results emulsion up vs emulsion down, but I have to wonder if it's due to something other than DOF.

  10. #30

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    Home Testing Flatbed Scanners

    Kirk, I've seen you mentioning that you scan 6x9 in the Epson 4990. Based on the rule-of-thumb saying you can output at 3x with excellent results from this scanner, does this mean your commercial 6x9's are delivered just at 18x27cm (7x10.5")?? Is there a substantial loss in quality if enlarged/printed to 3.5x/4x? (4x is all I need from 6x9 and 3x from 4x5"!)

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