Who exactly are you referring to as "proponents of the Microteks"?Originally Posted by cobalt
Who exactly are you referring to as "proponents of the Microteks"?
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"
Uhhh..people who recommend them? Duh.
Now you can try growing up and answer a simple question. Who exactly are you referring to? Are you referring to people on this forum? Because when they first came out, both I and Ted Harris recommended them on this forum. The 1800f came out before the 700/750 and had higher resolution and dmax than than the 4990.
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"
Uh...yeah...right. Proof is in the pudding. And, for further reference, personal attacks expose your intelligence...or lack thereof.
I wouldn't and don't recommend any of the 'prosumer' scanners for important work.
Having said that, every single scanner we test is tested exactly the same, using and AIG T20 target and a Stouffer step wedge. The tests are done in real world conditions. All of the 'prosumer' scanners tested in the past three years have preformed within a fairly narrow and consistent range. The Microtek 1800f still has the best DMax and either the Epson V750 or the Microtek has the best resolution (the Microtek 2500f actually has the best resolution but it is long discontinued and was in a different price range). Having aid that both the Microtek 1800f and the Canon scanners seemed to have some real quality control problems with an inordinate number seeming to have to be returned for replacement. In Microtek's case the issues were limited to the 1800f and neither the i800 or i900 seemed to have similar issues. Epson, OTOH, has had issues with significant variability in performance from one unit to another. All any of this is really telling us is that you get what you pay for and the fact is that you get a helluva lot for your money today. What you don't get is performance that comes even close to that of the high-end scanners but then you don't pay anywhere near the price.
Going all the way back to the OP's original question .... problems can occur with any scanner. I have seen scanning "artifacts" including lines and banding, on scans from a Tango, Imacon 949, IQsmart 3, Howtek 7500, etc ....... and those are just the ones I've been asked to evaluate in the past month or so. I'll add that with the high end problems it was possible to track down and correct the problem.
A very long winded way of saying that I would suggest you either invest in a high end scanner for your important work or send it out to be scanned.
Ted, you used to recommend, on this forum, the 1800f "IMO you will find that the 1800f performs excellently for prints up to and slightly beyond 16x20. When I intend to print larger than that I still go with a drum scan", which was why I bought one and frankly I agreed with you when I tested it against a 4990. After using one though (with some complete melt downs and subsequent returns), frankly my standards went up and I realize now just how inferior they are (were-I sold mine when I got the 750) to a professional flatbed or drum scan.
I think for many years there we all had high hopes for what seemed to be the rapidly advancing technology of cheap flatbeds. While they certainly are enormously superior to what was available even 6 years ago, they are still a far cry from a professional scanner, I realized after owning almost a dozen of them.
By the way by my tests the 1800f had ever ever ever so slightly higher resolution than the 750 and only slightly better d-max. But it did not have Digital Ice, which I need 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"
Kirk reinforces my first sentence in the post directly above. I still think the 1800f is a great scanner in the prosumer class. I am also quite aware of hardware problems that more than a (to me) reasonanble number of people have ha with that particular scanner. When the problems were cropping up I had a number of lengthy phone conversations with the folks at Microtek USA and, while they wouldn't confirm or deny my suspicions, most of the issues appeared to be from one manufacturing run. o sense in beating that horse anymore since the 1800f has now been discontiued for more than a year and the problems didn't extend to other Microtek scanners. I realized some three years ago that prosumer scanners were reaching a dead end in terms of technologically possible advances without some revolutionary breakthrough and I said about that in one of the continuing articles on scanners in View Camera. That is what started me on my search for a high-end scanner and let to my eventual acquisition of a Screen Ceznane and a Kodak/Creo IQsmart 3. Yes, the costs for these machines, even used, is four to six times that of the prosumers new, even more sometimes but they are worth the price.
None of the prosumers on the market today will produce a scan of sufficient quality to give those of us who are picky anything beyond an acceptable 16x20 print from a full 4x5 frame. Further, if you lay that print down next to a similar print from the same transparency scanned on a high end scanner the differences will immediately be apparent. Kirk and I and others have all done that. The differences are, as I have frequently said, not just in resolution, but in overall image clarity, e.g. tonal range, shadow and highlight detail, subtle color variations, etc.
If you seldom print larger than 11x14 will you or the viewers of your prints be able to tell how the image was scanned? Only if you put two prints side-by-side and then they will almost always pick the print that originated with the high end scan.
Having said that, it really is no different than the millions of prints that have been produced for many many years using poor constructed, unsatble, misaligned enlargers equipped with inexpensive lenses. Some of those prints appear spectacular. Would they be more spectacular if they had been produced using a top-of-the-line Durst or DeVere with the best Schneider or Rodenstock optics? Probably. You won't know unless you do a side-by-side test.
Bottom line is that it doesn't matter for many of us who do this as a hobby, for relaxation and for self satisfaction and who do it on a limited budget. OTOH, for those of us who do it for a living any technology that will improve the final image, that will improve our sales, that will increase exhibition sales, that will make clients happier is likely worth the price. What cleints are willing to pay for is the subject of another discussion.
FWIW,
I once was contacted by a person on this forum asking me how to change the metadata on a scan, because he didn't want his client to know it was done on 4990 in favor of drum scan metadata. When questioned further it became clear that he had a knowledgeable client who would probably only look at the metadata because they would notice the inferior scan. Changing the metadata wouldn't really solve his problem. His problem was the scan itself.
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"
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