If you want more color, use a drum scanner... PMT's are far more sensitive than CCD. However, if you are noticing colors that ought to be more blue or more yellow, red or green, or color casts, this is not the way to judge a scanner. Those things are almost always some distance off based on scanner operator choices and are easily fixed in PhotoShop.Originally Posted by archivue
Lenny
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
My V700 is terrible for colour and transitions. It takes forever to carefully adjust using a variety of profiles to try and get the best tonal range, then correct the colours to something normal. Still, some shots are bad, some are good. Some don't make sense.
As far as sharpness I'm not sure that the two comparison shots are fair if you sharpened one and not the other?
The major issue with this test is running 4000dpi vs. 6400dpi
It's way worse than that. This test (and probably this thread) should be discarded entirely. The PMT's in this machine are bad and the drum speeds are off on the scanner. He posted this on the scan Hi End list... It doesn't represent what a properly tuned drum scanner can do....
I think its fine for a beginner to say, "Hey, look what I found." However, both pieces of equipment should be working properly and tuned, and the operator should be properly trained before anyone takes any of this seriously.
Lenny
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
I am curious how can you tell the drum speed is off and the PMT is bad?
I am also on the Scan Hi-End list and you posted it there. You are having more than your share of problems, and I feel for you.... but it also sort of invalidates the test a little....
I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I just think your comparisons will be better when you get all the issues worked out....
Lenny
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
An odd statement. The amount of color in a scan is mostly due to the settings on the scanner. It really doesn't have anything to do with PMT or CCD. Your statement seems a little contradictory to me. Also a more sensitive scanner would have a higher D-max which if over the D-max of the film would produce washed out, "lower color" images; unless the operator corrects for this by adjusting the curve or black point.
Again, I am still not sure about the CCD versus PMT arguments that you make. I've made C41 Scans on a Supreme and I was blown away by the amount of color definition and subtle tonality the machine was able to pull out of the short D-range of a color Neg.
A CCD scanner like the supreme measures way more actual photons then a PMT drum scanner. The amount of light that strikes the CCD is likely to be more then 10,000 times what reaches a PMT in a drum scanner.
Of course some CCD scanners uses smaller and less sensitive sensors (Supreme = better then epson scanner). The actively cooled CCD sensor in a Supreme is one step better in terms of tonality noise and D-range then the one used by betterlight. This is because of the active cooling which brings the sensor below ambient temperatures. At really cold temperatures a CCD's noise response can be as low as one miscounted photon per hour. Of course the supremes CCD is not that cold, but it is very respectable.
I would think that a supreme would do better with subtle tonal changes than many PMT scanners due to being a true 16 bit machine. A 10, 12, or even 14 bit scanner would be a little more limited due to the electronics in the machine.
Sure it does. It's a different technology, and it has a higher sensitivity. All you have to do is look at real scans....
Lenny
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
Again, I have owned and used 3 different high end CCD and 2 drum scanners. I have seen results first hand and have made my own comparison tests, on kodachromes, E100g and color neg. The Aztek scanner is limited to a D-max of 3.88 and is beat in shadow performance and D-max by a Eversmart Supreme that is in good condition.
For color negs that doesn't matter of course because the D-max isn't that high. I like drum scanners for color negs because of the aperture control. But in terms of being able to pull tones off of a color neg the supremes are amazing. Of course I used the highest quality modes with multi-sampling all done in a 16 bit environment. The drum scanners that I have used are also good, however I have seen scans from lesser drum scanners and I don't think a howtek 4000 or 4500 would be as good for color negs as a Supreme that is in good condition.
Demo one sometime at a respectable dealer. Just make sure you learn about the software first and that you have the descreening options turned off.
Is it true that the aztek is not a real 16 bit scanner? I know it is a rebranded and upgraded howtek 8000. If you look on the manual on their site for the 8000 it clearly states that the analog to digital convertor is only 12 bits.
This site shows that the Supreme is a pure 16-bit machine.
http://www.promarketinc.com/catalog/...-Eversmart.pdf
The light sensitivity might be higher with a PMT but each of the 8000 CCD spots on a supreme receives light at the same time, they are pretty large and receive a lot of light. Plus it can scan multiple times and average the results for more pure data. A PMT converts light to electricity and than multiples the current in a vacuum. A CCD takes light, converts it to energy, builds a charge for each pixel location than sends it to the electronics to be converted into bits and bytes. In the supreme it really doesn't doesn't need to multiply the current because it receives more light. The reason why a PMT uses is a vacuum is to prevent heat from effecting the multiplication. A supremes CCD is actively cooled to deal with heat issues. The Peltier is able to make things really cold. The same technology is used for small portable freezers and is also used by NASA for their high end telescopes. Peltier coolers on CCD sensors are rare, the only other scanner that uses one is the imacon 949/ X5. It costs $8,000 for a new sensor for the supreme.
The parts that convert the charges to bits and bytes (the electronic single handling) are all top of the line in a supreme. They wanted to make the best CCD scanner that scanner money could buy so they only used the best parts they could get. Unlike smaller companies they had the funds to have any type of custom component produced just for their company.
Some CCD scanners deserve more respect then others and the Eversmart Supreme deserves more than you give it.
Last edited by 8x10 user; 27-Jun-2011 at 15:01. Reason: forgot link
We have a problem here with numbers. The Aztek specs quoted are from a test made that was intended to be an independent comparison. They were supposed to be real numbers. The other scanners aren't using real numbers, they are using theoretical ones. We had a rousing argument about this a couple of years ago on Scan Hi-End. The Imacon was quoting some amazing numbers, and one participant finally came up with how those numbers were calculated. They were theoretical, and not real. The Scannerforum test was actual more accurate. Certain manufacturers threatened to sue and made them take the numbers off the site...
I would put the Premier's DMax capabilities at the top of the list. They use PMT's and have tuned their electronics to a higher level of performance than any other scanner company todate. This is partially because their development efforts were later, after some of the companies were already hurting. If you look at the comparisons you will see that there is a category for "Quality CCD's" which have DMax values much lower than any of the drums. A CCD is not going to match a PMT unless it is poorly tuned.... there are physics involved, which can't be denied...
The Premier is a full 16 bit machine....
This is a site where used equipment is sold. They are not scanner experts, by any measure......
Supreme's are impressive scanners. They did some very interesting things. But a PMT is a PMT..
If you're happy with your scans, great. That's all that matters....
Lenny
EigerStudios
Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing
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