New Scanners from Microtek

[Scott Rosenberg]

anyone have a clue as to when microtek will be refreshing it's produt line? seems like the venerable 1800F has been around since late 2003... both epson and canon have introduced new models since then.

[Mark McCarvill]

I was just wondering the same thing and e-mailed them. This is the reply I got yesterday from Customer Service [sales@microtek.com]:

“At this point and time we do not have a replacement for the Artixscan 1800f. We do not have any information of another scanner coming out any time soon to replace the Artixscan 1800f.”

[Ed Richards]

Wonder if the new Canon and Epson scanners are just good enough to kill the market for a better scanner like the 1800/2500? It is a small market anyway, so if a few of the folks who would want one think the 9950 is good enough, you cannot make a profit on the rest without making the price too high. It is a shame - I do not need drum scans, just something a little better than my 9950. I am sure a lot of folks are in the same position.

[Ted Harris]

I understand that Microtek will be making some small but interesting additons to their offerings, film holders to handle panoramic 120 negatives and trannies. As for the scanners themselves, the tests Michael Mutmansky and I did clearly showed that the 1800f and the 2500f dramatically outperform the offerings from Epson and Canon and well they should at their price point. Neither the 1800f nor the 2500f compete with the Epson and Canon offerings. There is a small market for 4x5 field cameras, much smaller than the scanner market I would guess, and there is still room for cameras that range in price from $500 to $5000.

If you think the 9950 or the 4990 is good enough then your choice is between them and the Microtek i900; the 1800f and the 2500f are not considerations. The point is that these 'entry level' LF scanners are good enough for many purposes. Perhaps what we may see is further drops in prices at the higher end and then buying decisions will be more difficult.

[Scott Rosenberg]

ted, i am giving serious consideration to the 1800f, as i previously owned both a 4870 and 9950 and was less than satisfied with both. i was hoping that an improved model was on the horizon so that i might save a few bucks on the 1800f.

[Scott Rosenberg]

correction, i previously owned the 4990 and 9950.

[Ed Richards]

> There is a small market for 4x5 field cameras, much smaller than the scanner market I would guess, and there is still room for cameras that range in price from $500 to $5000.

Somewhat different issues - field cameras are great 19th century technology that just demand good metal and wood working skills, with limited economy of scale. High end scanner transports require expensive manufacturing setups that have to be amortized over a lot of units.

What the recently available scanner tests have show is that the Microtext scanners deliver exactly the resolution they promise, which is much better than the consumer units, but the Dmax is way less than their claims. That is really where the work needs to be done - we do not need super high resolution in LF, but more dmax is really useful.

[Mike Chini]

I think we could definitely use much better d-max and color rendtion before anything else. I'd love to have some more resolution but they currently don't sell a computer that I'd want to use for dealing with 16-bit 2GB+ .tiff's! I'm waiting for the next batch of scans from the collaborative scanner comparison to decide whethter to purchase an 1800f for long-term work or a 4990/9950 as a temporary solution. I've heard lots of great and terrible things about almost everything out there and it's wonderful to have some sort of basis of comparison.

[Ed Richards]

I would be a lot more interested in the scanner test series if there was a scan of a step wedge so we could some idea about dmax. An AF glass resolution target would be nice as well. I am having trouble seeing much other that what we already know - really expensive scanners are better than cheap ones.

[Steven Lowes]

I agree with Ted. The competition mentioned is geared more towards the mid range end of the spectrum. There haven't been that many significant changes made in the last few years with the exception of Digital ICE. The 1800f and 2500f are high end scanners that go beyond what Canon and Epson have, even though they came out a few years ago. For example the 2500f has an anti vibration feature, etc. Everyone today makes a good product, they are all very similiar and much of it comes down to personal preference. I've stuck with Microtek in the past because for the money they have always offered me a great product that is dependable for my day in and day out use. I'm sure they will come out with replacements for these products in the near future as they increase the resolution more for marketing rather than sheer practicality.

Steven