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Thread: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

  1. #21
    The Deer Gunter's Avatar
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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    Hi mob81,
    It seems like I'm following your example, now 4 years later. I'll have permanent access to a virtually new iQsmart3 at home. I already have som experience with the device:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedeergunter/6250812458/
    ... but it's only now I will find the time to really study it.

    Have you been successful mastering your iQsmart? How do you feel about it after 4 years?
    Did you find any other sites/blogs where the iQsmart scanners are discussed? They are still not widely spread around this planet, it seems ;-)

    Thanks for your time!

  2. #22

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    I'd be interested in the answers to these questions too.

    There's very little online about the iQsmarts. Even Flickr doesn't have many images scanned with them. I'm currently using a Coolscan 9000 and while it delivers nice results (and great results when wet mounting using the Image Mechanics tray) I dislike the shadow noise I get particularly on C41. The post-processing steps necessary to counter that degrade the image too much sometimes.

    So I'd be very interested in knowing how the iQsmart 2 and 3 compare to the 9000. I've been led to believe they will give much better results on 135 and 120 (which is what I shoot) but I have never seen any side-by-side comparisons. Perhaps there aren't any.

    Br
    Philip

  3. #23
    The Deer Gunter's Avatar
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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    Dear Philip,

    I think I understand why iQsmart scanners are not as popular as a Nikon CoolScan 9000, and it's also the reason why they're not regularly the subject of a scanner comparison. They are so called high end devices and on top of that they were not immediately the cheapest you could get. It means that the iQsmart series didn't end up with the average 'Nikon-Epson-Canon' consumer, but with companies in the pre-press who could afford a + 20K device, who could afford the high maintenace costs and software upgrade costs, and who made full use of the batch scanning features to eventually do justice to all these expenses. So no offence to the consumers among us (to whom I belong myself), but the iQsmart scanners simply belong to a different league, and it makes little use to compare them to a Nikon9000 and the alike. Although, on the 'Collaborative Large Format Scanner Comparison' you'll find both high end scanners (including iQsmart3) and consumer scanners (unfortunately not including the Nikon9000). But I think you'll get the idea looking at the comparisons.
    I also believe that the companies who owned the iQsmart scanners at first were not very keen on sharing their knowledge on using these devices. They were after all quite an investment, and they preferred to keep that knowledge to themselves, for obvious reasons.
    Today, we speak 2015, Kodak discontinued the iQsmart range and left the scanner business alltogether since 2008, and the support for the scanners ended 5 years later in 2013. If you acquire one of the iQsmart scanners, make sure it is in perfect order as it becomes more and more difficult every year to find proper support for them. But despite everything, they are truly wonderful pieces of technique, designed and developed by an extraordinary team formerly known as Creo.

    And finally, I don't understand why you complain about the shadow rendering of the CoolScan 9000. It should not be a problem in my opinion. Are you sure the white calibration of the scanner is still clean?

    Gunter.
    Last edited by The Deer Gunter; 23-Jul-2015 at 14:27.

  4. #24

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    Hello Gunter, thank you very much for replying, I hoped you would reply actually.

    I should say that I had seen the collaborative comparison, which is instructive but as you say doesn't contain a Coolscan for comparison. I know the iQsmarts are very different from consumer scanners. I would happily spend the money (within reason of course) on such a scanner if I knew it could handle, in particular, 135 film (esp C41) well. I have not seen any examples of this unfortunately.

    I realise this is a LF forum so I very much hope I am not violating any rules here, but this is what I mean by poor shadow performance of the 9000 when it comes to C41.
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    Dry mounted versions in the next post.

  5. #25

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    Click image for larger version. 

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    I include downrez'd files because I've read that this would reduce the impression of the noise. Btw, this is a frame from a 135 neg (Fuji Pro 160S).

    I must admit I feel like a bit of an idiot, even though I've used Coolscans for over 10 years - what do you mean by the "white calibration"? A few months ago I cleaned the mirror and the lens of the scanner (easily done) so that's in good shape.

    Thanks in advance for any insight/help
    Philip

  6. #26
    The Deer Gunter's Avatar
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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    Hi Philip,

    No worries! You should not feel like an idiot. Trouble shooting scanner problems is not always easy to do. But in this case I honestly don't think you're dealing with a scanner problem. This looks more like underdeveloped film to me. The funny (or sad) thing is that I've been dealing with the same problem for some time now. I'm currently looking around for another lab, which isn't an obvious move to make these days. Anyway, back to your case. Typical for an underdeveloped film is that the shadow areas are still showing some detail, but the overall contrast of the negative is very low. If you put the film on a light table, I bet you'll see a rather faint image with shadow areas that show hardly any difference with the film base fog.
    Another thing which showed up a couple of times in my case, is that the film base fog is not constant from the beginning to the end of the film. I was shocked when I found out about it. One of my films goes from a dense grayisch orange to a clear orange, and this on a length of only one 120 roll.
    I posted a couple of these shots anyway, because luckily even when something goes wrong with a film exposure/development, it still produces something useable, something surprisingly charming at times. You may recognize the symptoms ...

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedee...posted-public/
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedee...posted-public/

    When you switch on a scanner, it always does a white calibration. If the white calibration plate is dirty, due to dust, the shadow areas will easily be affected by noise but also lines running through your image, mainly visible in the shadow areas. This is very often seen on a lot of scans posted on the internet. But in your case, I don't see one line, so I expect your white calibration plate is clean. I don't know where the white calibration plate is located in the Nikon CS9000.

    The iQsmarts are very well suitable for 135 mm scanning! They come with dedicated masks for both mounted slides and unmounted/uncut film. And believe me, both the iQsmart2 and iQsmart3 will suck every last bit of detail from your shots! Mounting is really easy, and thanks to the autofocus system of the scan head you never have to worry about the positioning. My previous scanner was an Agfa T2500 which was giving me headaches on this.

    Hope this will help. Good luck!

    Gunter.
    Last edited by The Deer Gunter; 24-Jul-2015 at 14:00.

  7. #27

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    I actually found the iQsmart deliver smoother image (still sharp) than the other scanners I used (Coolscan 4000, Minolta 5400 and plustek 120)
    I did small comparison with the Plustek 120 on Provia 400x Slide
    Scanners Comparison 2 by Mohammed Basamh, on Flickr

    on my flickr there is an album called Creo iQsmart2 with over 400 images if you want to check it.

    I use my plustek 120 for 35mm and iQsmart for larger film.

  8. #28

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    Gunter, Mohammed, thank you very much for your very helpful replies.

    I must admit I don't know where the calibration plate is on the 9000, but I normally don't have any problems with scans so hopefully it's not too dirty at least. I did clean the mirror and lens assembly during the spring (quite dusty actually). I realise that the key thing to achieve for a good scan is an accurate exposure and the photo I posted is not well exposed and is a bit of an extreme case, but it shows the multi-coloured noise well so that's why I picked it.

    Mohammed, the iQsmart 2 album is very exciting for me to look at, not only because of the very nice photographs but because I've seen so few iQsmart scans. I agree with you that it seems based on the test you made that the Plustek gives sharper, or perhaps more defined, scans than the iQsmart 2. How do the iQsmart scans hold up when post-processed, is there any difference between the two scanners in this respect? That's a pretty important factor, I think. At least for me, images are never "done" when they leave the scanner.

    135 film is tricky because of the smaller image areas - in 120 the noise is much less intrusive (I even pushed an expired roll of Provia 400X two stops, shot in a very dark room, and had less intrusive noise than I get at box speed with Fuji Superia 400 in 135). One thing I've seen people do with C41 is to overexpose the film by a stop or even two to lighten the shadows. This works because the highlights can be recovered so well. I've never shot my C41 that way so I'll have to try it out and see if it makes a difference. I hope it does.

    I am still intrigued by the iQsmarts (I'd probably pick a 2 or a 3 given the chance). From the scans I've seen in Muhammed's album, shadow areas in 135 film are rendered much more smoothly; true there is grain (as there should be imho) but there's no noise. Looks really nice.

    Gunter, I hope you find a lab that gives satisfactory (to you) results. I can relate to how frustrating it is when a lab fails to deliver.

    Best and thank you both again very much for your help
    philip

  9. #29

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    I noticed the Plustek 120 (Like my previous Coolscan and Minolta 5400 before) scans are sharpened and it introduce noise (Digital noise) by default. Plus, the Plustek was down-scaled by PS to meet the iQsmart2 scan size which further sharpen the image
    The plustek is good scanner but the iQsmart is much cleaner and smoother tone image (Color or B&W) and once post processed it can give great prints. I'm not good at testing scanner but I can do another one next week and down-Scale the plustek without sharpening if you are interested. Both 120 and 35mm

  10. #30

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    Re: Iqsmart users! Are there any?

    the reason I don't use 35mm with the iQsmart is because it's time consuming to prepare and mount the negatives on the masks (it takes full roll if you like). the plustek is much faster in that regards. 120 film or 4x5 I just lay down the negative in glass and scan away (Easy and beautiful scans)

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