Originally Posted by
Lars Åke Vinberg
The 1800f has a few design flaws that you will only notice with 8x10. The CCD performs best WRT dynamic range in the middle, so for 4x5 it is much better than for 8x10. With an 8x10 you never get true blacks along the sides of the scan. Also, like all (relatively) cheap scanners it has problems with heat buildup over a long scan. If you scan several 8x10's, or use multisampling to scan an 8x10, then the dynamic range degrades severely towards the end of the scan. This does not seem to be a problem with 4x5, for several reasons: 1. Smaller area means faster scan. 2. Some of the Dmax problem seems to be related to location on the scan bed, so a 4x5 can be positioned away from that area. 3. With 8x10 the internal data buffer is saturated so the scanner has to move the CCD sled back and forth every few seeconds to reposition it correctly. This leads to scan times 3-4x as long as with a more narrow scan area. With 4x5 the scanner scans in one sweep, leading to much quicker scans, thus much less heat buildup which in turn means better Dmax.
I think a good idea for scanning 8x10 on a cheap flatbed is to get an 11x17 scanner and wetmount.
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