High-end scanners [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

QT Luong

10-Dec-2003, 13:08

I am investigating the possibility to buy a high-end scanner suitable for
5x7 and 35mm in the $5000-$7000
range. So far, I've seen three categories of scanners:
<ol>
<li> Used drum scanner (ex: ICG 355i, various Howteks)
<li> Used high end flatbed (ex: Fuji Lanovia, Scitex Eversmart Pro, Screen Cezanne)
<li> Used Imacon flextight scanners
</ol>
Beside the flaar sites, I have seen very little information on the web about
the respective merits of those options (http://www.flexoexchange.com/gorilla/cndnprntrarticle.html).
Apparently the common wisdom is that
the high-end drums will yield better scans than the CCD scanners, but their operation is considerably more cumbersome. How do the high end flatbeds compare to
the Imacons and to the low-end 4000dpi drum scanners such as the Howteks ? Even
used, the Heidelberg Tango is still $25000, way out of my price range.

Doug Dolde

10-Dec-2003, 13:19

There's a Seybold report that tested quite a few of those you listed except for the Tango. I believe the Screen Cezanne was judged best of the bunch.

http://www.seyboldreports.com/WP99/scanners.htm

Al Seyle

10-Dec-2003, 13:58

Just be aware that Seybold eport is dated 1999.

Bruce Watson

10-Dec-2003, 15:05

I made this same choice last year. I bought a used Optronix ColorGetter 3 Pro drum scanner. I'm very happy with my choice.

In the final analysis, the main difference between flat bed scanners (high end, low end, whatever) and drum scanners (high end, low end, whatever) comes down to just a handful of details, IMHO.

1) all flat beds use CCDs, they light the film uniformly with unfocused light.

2) all drum scanners use PMTs and light the film with a controlled focused spot.

3) Software is at least as important as hardware in getting a good image. There is a huge range in software capabilities, but in general the software that controls drum scanners is more flexible and allows you more control of scanning than that for flat beds. This is especially true of entry level flatbeds.

4) wrapping a piece of film around an acrylic drum under oil is still the best mount you can make. It rigidly positions the emulsion exactly where the sensors expect it to be.

The bottom line is, if you are a quality fanatic, drum scanning is going to give you that extra level of quality in your images. Drum scans are sharper because of both the PMTs themselves, and the lighting method. Drum scans also seem to me to carry more detail, both highlight and shadow detail. PMT's are also capable of amazing dynamic range which becomes very important if your film reaches densities over 2.0 (a few negatives might do this, while most chromes do).

Drum scanners are as different from flatbed scanners as LF is from 35mm. Both 35mm and flatbead scans are easier to do than drum scans and LF. But the learning curves are not as numerous nor as steep as many people (usually the inexperienced) make them out to be.

If I can do it, you can do it. The question really is, do you *want* to do it? That's a question that only you can answer.

Henry Ambrose

10-Dec-2003, 15:31

Watch out for the older drum scanners - extremely high, or perhaps unavailable service and parts. I've seen some go unsold at bankruptcy auctions, no one would buy them - machines that were $250,000 ten-twelve years ago.

As digital capture becomes the commercial standard (it is already) the new scanner market is going to dry up - not entirely but manufacturers don't make things that no one buys. If you buy something older and more expensive originally make sure the price is good enough that you can walk away from it after it dies in six months and not feel bad. The Howteks are good but check out service and parts with an eye to the next few years.

I'd probably go for the Imacon if I was going to buy something for 5X7 but really its hard to make sense out of this unless you are planning on scanning huge quantities of very high res scans and have nothing better to do with your time. For all that time and expense you'll be getting very low return on your investment and your time. I suggest you pay for scans as needed. I think you'd save quite a bit of money in the long-run. You might even find someone who would scan for you in downtime with slow turn-around for much less than standard fees.

Spend your time and money shooting.

Rainer

10-Dec-2003, 15:33

be brave.... buy a drum scanner. you wont regret it, if you dont have bad luck and there is some unexpected fault on your scanner. but this could happen with a used imacon also,- and it wont be cheap to mend the imacon too. as said before the learning curve for drumscanning is not so hard. the only thing you have to learn more is how to mount the scans. the scanning process itself will be the same,- it depends on the software, your monitoring and your eyes,- nothing else.

the dust problem with ccd scanners and higher resolutions is unacceptable imo. equal if flatbed or imacon.

i advice you a screen 1030ai or a scanmate 4000 or 5000 drum scanner. both companies offer still service and parts ( at least here in germany ). the software of the scanmate is updated till now, the screen software is old but functional. the screen seems to be very robust and has a great sharpening tool, it use therefore a fourth tube. the scanmate is faster and more modern designed,- also it seems therefore less robust than the screen. anyway my scanmate 5000 runs now nearly 1 year without a problem ( app. 1 - 2000 scanns ). howteks seem to have its individual problems,- anyway i dont have personal experience with them, but this is what i noticed in contact with two photographers around me who have one. the howteks seem to be really loud and slow. also some banding problems with hi resolutions can appear, if the belts and this things are not absolute acuurately- i hope the howtek owners will forgive me,- its just my impression i had communicating with the owners of the drum scanners lasr year. but you will find modern software of many companies ( silverfast, vuescan and many more ) and a great community use them, so you will find easy support and help. the scanning quality of all this machines is very hi,- if you know to use them.

Al Seyle

10-Dec-2003, 15:54

I do high-end brochure work and scan using the first Imacon Flextight Precision (4x5 max). It's been chugging faithfully along daily for over six years and over 4000 scans with zero maintenance--not even adjustments. Quality has never been an issue for cmyk press printing or 20x24 display prints. I have no connection to Imacon, financial or otherwise.

QT Luong

10-Dec-2003, 15:59

Hogarth, thanks for your reply. I saw a few Optronics for sale, but I was concerned about the fact that the company had gone out of business.

Are you saying that whatever drum scans are better than whatever flatbed ? It would seem, looking at the specs, that high-end flatbeds would scan to 5000dpi. The Howtek 4000 and 4500 series can to 4000dpi. Your drum, and others, scan to 8000dpi, but there is probably no need to go above 5000dpi on normal film. On paper, all of them claim D3.9 or D4.0. Only the Tango has a claim for D4.2. I know that the specs for the low-end flatbeds are grossly overstated, but I thought that those for the high-end flatbeds were accurate. Those are manufactured by the same companies that manufacture drums, and targetted to the same public. The link that I posted has a representative from Screen stating that some of their flatbeds and drums perform the "same". Do you have any evidence that this is not true ?

LF gives an order of magnitude improvement over 35mm, but, at least from the specs (assuming again they are realistic) the high-end flatbeds are very close to most drums (at least to those under 10K) and appear significantly easier to operate. I am not talking about Epson or Microtek scanners.

I understand the point about wet-mounting, I thought you could (should ?) do it on a flatbed as well.

Bruce Watson

10-Dec-2003, 17:20

The big historical market for drum scanners was pre-press. That market completely imploded with the advent of pro-quality digital capture in the mid 1990s. The only people buying drum scanners today are photographers, and most of them are LF types. That is what makes the things "affordable" to us. My little ColorGetter sold for more than USD 50K new, and I bought the entire system, computer and all the extras, for less than 1/10 that. That aught to tell you that there *is* no market.

This lack of demand by the pre-press houses is why all the major makers of drum scanners bailed. AFAIK, there is a single supplier of drum scanners today, that being Aztek. I just wish I liked their design better. Howteks (Aztek bought the scanner biz from Howtek in the late 1990s IIRC) use belt drive to run the drum. They are well known for banding because of the drive system. It's not a big deal, just a maintenance issue to keep some belts around.

Even if the manufacturers aren't supplying new units, there are plenty of players out there selling parts and service. That's not really a problem, IMHO. Of course, your mileage, and comfort level, may vary.

Now for the flames I'm about to get: "Are you saying that whatever drum scans are better than whatever flatbed?" From a quality-of-the-final-scan perspective, I would take a mid 1990s PMT over a 2003 CCD, yes I would. Clearly a poorly performing PMT would be swamped by a state of the art CCD. But a state of the mid 1990s PMT can easily out perform a state of the art CCD. That said, CCDs get better every day.

The rep. from Screen is simply trying to sell you what he has available. He can't sell you a new drum scanner because Screen, like Heidleberg, Crossfeld, DuPont, Fuji, Optronix, IGS, etc. dropped out of the market. Do I have any evidence that their flatbeds perform the same as their drums used to? No, but I very much doubt that claim. Still, I would have to own and operate both to actually know, and I don't have the resources for that. Other people I trust have that experience however. Many of them are on-line at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ScanHi-End/messages

If you can't get your questions answered by looking in the archives, ask the group. This is a group that uses both highend flatbeds and drum scanners. Questions of the "which is better" type usually surface a few opinions ;-)

When I said that LF is to 35mm what drum scans are to flatbeds, I didn't mean in terms of quality. I meant in terms of difficulty. The quality difference here isn't an order of magnitude. It's more like 20%. That's why you should send out an image and have it scanned a few different ways. See if the difference is worth it to you.

Yes, you can certainly fluid mount on a flatbed. You can't, however, pull it as tight as you can around a drum. Does it matter? That would probably depend on how much of an enlargement you are going to make.

Finally, about specs, it seems to me that all the manufacturers of all the scanners lie through their teeth. My ColorGetter, for example, has a claimed resolution over 8000dpi, but in fact has an optical resolution of closer to 4000 dpi (6.25 micron aperture). However, its scaling algorithms are pretty darn good, compared to Photoshop say. The Tango is even worse. I believe it's smallest aperture was something like 11 microns (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) which would put its optical resolution around 2600 dpi. The software scales that way up over 11,000 dpi though, and does it really well (as I understand this, it isn't straight up scaling, but some interesting tricks with math and optics).

Dmax is a similar story. They all lie it seems to me. There is solid agreement from actual users though that PMTs have a considerable edge over CCDs in DMax still. The answer again is to send out a nice dense chrome and see what kind of file you get back.

Frank Petronio

10-Dec-2003, 18:42

I hate to disagree with Hogarth as I respect his opinions very much .... But....FWIW, I used to operate a pre-press business with a Leaf scanner and Iris proofer in the mid 1990s. I was friends with a photographer who bought a Howtek drum, and another shop in town had the highly regard Screen drum scanner. A printer I worked with had one of the $250,000 Crosfields. And other shops had other good scanners. We all exchanged files, and often worked on each other's projects (this was good and bad...) Bottom line was that the lowly $14,000 Leaf was competitive with all of the drum scanners. Not to brag, but HOW you scan is so much more importnat than getting the last 0.1% of quality out of the machine's specs. If you're trying to pull an extended range out of your film, a slightly better machine may help SOMEWHAT but you will probably have to resort to blending images or using tricks to really get the tonal range you want. I consistently got better scans than my peers with my Leaf because I was willing to learn how to use it, and have a photographer's eye. Had I been using their drum scanners I might have gotten even better scans, but again, based on what I saw coming through, I doubt that it would have made any difference.

Another point in favor of the Imacon is that people like Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe use them, and they can use whatever they want. I honestly think an Imacon will do as well as anything else out there. And Imacon WILL STAY IN BUSINESS and update their software for modern OSs, unlike the big boys (Heidelberg?) who are desparate to exit the scanning biz.

Also, the time spent dustbusting can be spent oil mounting. I think it's a wash.

Nowdays I use a cheap Epson 3200 for most things and a friend's Imacon for larger images and difficult scans. Using a friend's scanner is by far the best option - I hated having $100K in digital gear on lease - I sold the $50K Iris for $1000 a few years ago.

Every photographer starts out saying "I want the ultimate in resolution, etc." but quickly realizes that 1 gigabyte, 16-bit .tif files from 8x10 film and 30x40 Giclee/Lightjet prints are very expensive and usually not worth the investment - but if you can do it, more power to you.

Bruce Watson

10-Dec-2003, 19:41

Frank, Of course, abolutely, you have to learn the scanner and the software to get the most out of it. You'll also over time adjust your film exposure and processing to take more advantage of the scanner. And yes, you can probably make some machines outperform others if you make the effort. I don't doubt it for a minute. I wasn't trying to downplay operator experience.

The question is, how good is good enough? The individual photographer has to decide. Since you can't gain a year's experience (which wouldn't be enough) with every machine you might be intererested in, you have to find another way to make a decision.

It's similar to how you buy a view camera. You research the market, talk to people, ask questions, look at your bank balance. You try to get your hands on a couple and try them out. Then, when you buy, you try to get the biggest bang for your buck.

All I'm telling QT really is, drum scanners aren't that hard to use, fluid mounting is worth the effort and not that hard to do, and the bang-for-the-buck quotent is very high since drum scanners are suddenly so inexpensive.

I'm also telling him and anyone else that wants to know that it might be wise to find out if the quality level works for what you want to do. For you, drum scans aren't worth it. For me they are (but not at the level of a Crosfield 6250, or a six ton Hell 3400). For what we do, we are probably both right.

Henry Ambrose

10-Dec-2003, 20:23

Lots of good advice given. I wonder what end product you have in mind? Print reproduction for magazines? Photographic prints up to 16X20? Murals?

In the mid 90s I tested the Polaroid and Nikon 2700 ppi 35mm film scanners against a Howtek 7500. I was pretty sure the Howtek would smear the little desktop machines. What I discovered was that up to about 600 percent enlargement I could not tell any difference! Above 600 percent the Howtek won with the difference growing as reproduction size grew. Those early desktop film scanners are pretty poor compared to today's machines but made very good scans within their meager limits.

Hogarth's last post contains the very best advice - you really should test to determine just how "good" a scanner you want/need. I suggest you start with the end product you desire and work backwards to find what machine is needed to make that happen.

Resolution will probably take your first attention but don't overlook speed and ease of use, they are also major factors. After you do a few dozen scans and get over the "new toy factor" you'll hate sitting there waiting for the scan to finish or wrestling with a film holder or mounting system that requires three hands to make work.

There is something about looking at my latest photograph on screen at high magnification that I still find THRILLING! There are not many things in photo world as juicy as a big fat sharp 250MB scan of a piece of large format film. As wonderful as that is I want it to happen as easy and fast as possible.

Martin Miller

10-Dec-2003, 20:27

Microtek just announced a new flatbed scanner, the Scanmaker i900. It is a new design with a drawer for glassless film scanning up to 8x10. The main specs are: 48-bit color, 4.2 DMAX, and 6400x3200 ppi optical resolution. Silverfast will be bundled with the pro version. Price will be "sub-$1000". See http://www.microtekusa.com/images/broi900.pdf

I suspect that Epson won't be far behind replacing their Expression 1680 with something similar. The Epson online store has been out of the 1680 for some time now. I can think of only one reason for that at this late stage in its marketing. This new generation of flatbeds may be worth a look. - Martin (www.millervisuals.com)

Jonathan Brewer

10-Dec-2003, 20:34

What about the Fuji flatbed scanners that the Flaar folks are raving about, are they good enough to get you in the ballpark of what you can get from the drums and top flatbeds of other manufacturers?

John Hennessy

10-Dec-2003, 21:30

This may be a question the answer to which everyone but me already knows and therefore it has not been asked. But if PMT scanners are inherently better than CCD scanners, why are none still made? Of course there is huge market for the cheap scanners but there seems to be a good market for more expensive digital equipment. QT, as an example, is ready to spend 20 times more than a Epson 3200 costs.

Another way to put my question is: what is the relationship between PMT and a drum and CCD's and dedicated film or flat-bed scanners? If PMT's are always better and if there unbreakable relationship between PMT and a drum platform, couldn't Imagon or Microtek make one for $5000 to $15000?

I'm from Missouri; so show me!

Jeff Moore

10-Dec-2003, 21:52

To follow up on Hogarth's comment with respect to the imploding market for drum scanners:

Recently (I believe it was on this site, but possibly another,) a Denver newspaper advertised two, yes two, Crosfield scanners and supplemental software and computer hardware for FREE. The scanners were there for the taking for anyone willing to pick them up. I enquired about these scanners and was sincerely interested. The person I spoke with informed me that the original purchase price for these scanners and the associated hardware and software exceeded a half-million dollars!! And they were giving them away, literally. And from what I gathered, not having much luck at it.

After my initial contact with the party to make them aware of my interest, I spoke to three different people in my area (Nashville, TN) about these scanners. Each of these people has over twenty years experience in the pre-press industry, two as scanning technicians and the third as owner of a mid-size publishing firm. All three were generous in their time answering the questions I had (I have zero experience drum scanning). Without hesitation or equivocation, all three of these very experienced individuals advised me to take a pass on this equipment, even if the scanners were to be delivered to my doorstep for free (I was going to incur considerable expense in transporting them from Denver to Nashville.)

The reasons for their opinions were numerous, but the common themes among each of their answers were:

1) The very high cost of maintenance, both in parts and the very specialized labor to perform repairs, which are not a matter of if, but when.

2) The questionable liklihood that parts would even be available in the very near future, when the inevitable breakdown occurs.

3) The learning curve for quality drum scanning, compared to something like an Imacon, is long and steep. While not that steep to get fairly decent results, the road to exceptional results (especially with b/w negatives, my primary interest) is an undertaking of several years experience. One of the techs I spoke with told me emphatically that it was literally impossible to get results from a 4x5 b/w negative out of a $250k Crosfield scanner that could be attained with an Imacon, no matter how many years experience the user had.

4) Drum scan manufacture is clearly a dying industry. The owner of the publishing firm predicted that, with advancing CCD and CMOS technology, the last drum scanner, by any manufacturer, will be made within the next five years, if not sooner. All of his company's drum scanning equipment has been gathering dust for almost two years now.

5) I primarily shoot 4x5 b/w and color transparency, then scan (currently on a Polaroid SprintScan 45 Ultra), and print my color work on an Epson 7600, with ImagePrint and UltraChrome inks; my b/w work is also printed on a 7600, using the StudioPrint RIP and PiezoTone inks. The publishing firm owner wasn't too familiar with these processes. However, the two techs both were, as they are both fairly serious hobbyist photographers. Both of them insisted that the newest Imacon scanner would give superior results--FOR MY PURPOSES--than the Crosfield scanner or almost any other drum scanner, for that matter.

In addition, Larry Danque, scanning technician at Cone Studios, gave me similar advice, especially with respect to the training/learning curve issue, and the maintenance/parts availability issue.

Again, I have no drum scanning experience myself. But the above opinions are from people who should know of what they speak.

Needless to say, I heeded their advice and took a pass on this equipment. Unfortunately for me, the Polaroid will have to do for now, as the Imacon is not in the budget...but, I'm saving my pennies!

I hope this information proves useful.

neil poulsen

10-Dec-2003, 22:09

Just as a comment, it wasn't that long ago, maybe a couple of years, that people who brought digital topics to this forum were really on the fringes of the conversation. It was like, "What the heck is that guy doin' around here? Is he lost?" More than one thread lamented the life threatening effect that digital could have on LF.

It's amazing how quickly things can change.

QT Luong

10-Dec-2003, 23:01

Henry, I plan to scan for reproduction up to 50x70 fine art (ie a 10x enlargement from 5x7). All prints won't be reproduced at that size, but at least some will, and if buying a high-end scanner I want to be able to "scan once for all".

Martin, certainly consummer/prosummer flatbeds scanners will improve, but for now they are pretty much at the low end. For now, dedicated toaster-shaped film scanners (ex: Polaroid Sprint Scan 45) are definitely better. Then the Imacons ("virtual drum" CCD scanners) are definitively better than the toaster film scanners. Many seem to think that the high-end flatbeds mentioned in my original question are better than the Imacons. And then, many seem to think that those are bettered by PMT drum scanners.

Jonathan, that scanner is the Fuji Lanovia. In the Seybold report cited by Doug, it ranked well, but below the two others I mentioned.

Jeff, I also saw those Crossfields and inquired about them. They are 1800dpi scanners, and it wouldn't be surprising that high-end CCD scanners could better them. This, combined with the difficulty of their installation and their sheer size and weight, made me also pass on the offer. However, more modern drum scanners have a much higher resolution (at least on paper), and a much smaller footprint. Last time I saw a comparison between an Imacon scan and a drum scan was on Michael Reichman's luminouslandscape.com (the comparison was indirect, as each of them was compared to a 1Ds file). The drum scan was significantly better.

Frank Petronio

11-Dec-2003, 03:31

"Back in the day" (mid 1990s) and even today most scans for print repro were between 20 to 50 mb. Even a full tabloid spread (17 x 22) would rarely top 200mb. I just did a 14 x 44 billboard that was printed at 9 dpi. It is only the fine art market that prints large and high resolution. This being a relatively small market, it is unlikely that a drum scanner manufacturer will create a product ideal for it (e.g. high res, long tonal range, modern software). I take the Flaar and Luminous Landscape reviews with a grain of salt - instead, look at what the most successful photographers are using in the real world - chances are you will come down to using an Imacon for a host of quality and productivity reasons.

That said, 45 Screen ai scanners sell for only $2500 around here - for that price you could hire a tech to come and give you lessons (and buy a couple of old Mac 9500s to drive it.)

Bruce Watson

11-Dec-2003, 07:12

I've added way to many words to this thread. But....

Just to answer John's question about PMTs and why they aren't being built any longer: money. PMTs are expensive to build themselves, and expensive to use optically and electrically. The whole design of drum scanners comes about because you could only have three sensors and you had to move the film past them (x and y coordinates) somehow.

The design of scanners using CCDs is way more flexible. CCDs are orders of magnitude cheaper to build and use, so cheap that you can build an array of them thousands of sensors wide and use this bar of sensors to make a single pass across a negative. If you can do a single pass like that, there isn't much point in using a drum - might as well use a flatbed to simplify the design even more.

So... why not PMTs? Costs too much.

Henry Ambrose

11-Dec-2003, 07:21

"Henry, I plan to scan for reproduction up to 50x70 fine art (ie a 10x enlargement from 5x7). All prints won't be reproduced at that size, but at least some will, and if buying a high-end scanner I want to be able to "scan once for all". "

You've probably already done this math but here it is again: For 10X enlargements, if your output device needs 200 pixels per inch for high quality results then you'll want about 400MB files from full frame 5X7. Thats about 2000 ppi hardware res needed from your scanner. I base these numbers on my experience with a Durst Lambda. When I make small prints I usually go to 400 ppi at desired output size but for larger sizes 200 gets the job done wonderfully as viewing distance covers any loss. (I only find this loss with the occaisional hard diagonal line in architecture, I'd say it would almost never be an issue with landscapes)

If the machine to do this is too expensive, you might try a scheme that covers 80 percent of your needs, a scanner that will give the quality needed for prints half that size, perhaps 25X35. I say "80 percent of your needs" as I suspect that most of your sales will be for prints this size and smaller, but I'm just guessing at that. I suggest this only because the cost and operation of the perfect machine may be quite high. Of course its your money so spend it as you please. I've always considered digital equipment purchases as necesary business expenses and simply buying the "absolute best" has never been an option for me, although I have dropped a bundle on expensive digital gear lots of which is now obsolete or broken and unrepairable. This stuff is NOT like buying a LF camera that might last two lifetimes.

I'd ask some scanner owners to provide samples of your film scanned on the machines you are considering, it'll be worth the small cost to prove that a given machine will do what you want. Here in Nashville, Chromatics http://www.chromatics.com (http://www.chromatics.com) has a 8000 ppi drum as part of their digital services. I'd use scans from that machine as an ultimate reference. (or similar machines in your area)

Jeff Moore, I'm in the Nashville area. Have we ever met?

Larry Burk

11-Dec-2003, 08:24

This will be a long post so I'll apologise in advance. :)

If you want the finest quality scan available as defined by shadow detail, resolution,lack of flare, large dmax and color gamut with E-6 film then a drum scanner should be your choice. All flat bed/CCD scanners suffer from one or more and sometimes all of these defects but they are the scanner of choice if quantity rather than best possible quality is the issue. The wet mounting available to a drum scanner is a virtue not a fault for image quality as it hides much dust and scratches. Although some have wet mounted with flatbeds, it's a kludge at best and not possible on an Imacon. Drum scanners such as Howtek have a true dmax of 3.9 whereas flatbeds can do about 3.1 best case and most are under 2.8, definitely NOT the 4+ advertised by their liars department. I would suggest a used Howtek 4500 for your purpose, a 4000 is less expensive and has the same specs except it is older and has a somewhat smaller drum making it much more difficult to scan 8x10 should you ever want to. The Howtek will scan 35mm-4x5 at up to 4000dpi true optical res (which will resolve down to the film grain) @ 12 bits of depth internally and save as an 8-bit or a 16-bit file. A 4x5 at 4000 dpi and 16-bit depth is about a 1.8 gig file (extremely difficult to process with Photoshop), therefore most people I know scan a 4x5 at either 2000dpi x 16 bit or 4000 dpi x 8 bit. A 5x7 or a 617 can be scanned at up true optical scan of 2000dpi x 16 bit or 4000dpi x 8 bit due to file size limitations. I would not consider a Howtek to be a low end scanner as I have seen very fine scans with it. The scanner seems to be available on the used market although it's easy to get bit by someone if you can't test it (think used car sales). I certainly learned the hard way when I acquired mine from a used pre-press equipment dealer. I use Trident 4.0 software from Colorbyte (same outfit as Imageprint)on a Mac G4. It is extremely capable and fairly easy to learn even though I have always been a PC guy. I initially had the Trident PC version, it flat out would not work so Trident exchanged it with the Mac version. A PC software is available from Aztek as Digital Photolab but they wouln't let me demo it and it also costs quite a lot more, I also demoed Silverfast but I received poor scans from it, it is probably better suited to flatbeds. If you want to know why I had trouble with "a no demo policy" please reread the above about a pig in a poke the first time. The best resource for drum scanning is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ScanHi-End. I learned how to mount as well as scan and operate the Howtek from this group. They are extremely knowlegeable and will gladly share their time. Some members of the group have a list of prepress suppliers to buy from but as always be careful. I suggest you read and ask questions of the group first so as to be more knowlegeable when purchasing, obviously this advice pertains to buying a high end flatbed also. Scanner comparisons can be made at www.scannerforum.com, I believe the info is accurate but as it is compiled by a scanner provider, Aztek, you need to keep an open mind. Aztek is a source of new and used scanners as well as supplies, they will be on the high end but you will get a good scanner that has been completely overhauled before delivery. I sent my scanner to them for a refurb as it did not work right when I received it, they turned a Yugo into a Ferrari :). You must also budget for a mounting station with a drum scanner as it is quite difficult, I'd say impossible without it. All this of course is only my opinion after not being satisfied with Epson 3200 flatbed scans, or Imacon scans that were lacking shadow detail, flared on high contrast images, noisy and were just terrible to try to clean up in Photoshop. Most CCD scanners also only focus well in the center of the bed, but a few very high end CCDs try to emulate a drum by shifting the scan somewhat in a horizontal direction and actively cooling the CCD to reduce noise(not an Imacon).

Mateo_2867

11-Dec-2003, 10:47

So my office happens to be in the room where the two Crosfield scanners in Denver live. Come on guys come get them! Right now I have G5's stacked up on them, and I need more room for my Xserves and RAID racks! BTW thanks for everyone that inquired about them. In the end though, nobody wanted them.

Actually I don't blame any of you for not taking them as the parts and maint issues could be a problem. When we canceled our yearly 24/7 contract with the guys who worked on them, they went out of business about a week later. It looks like these things are headed for the company's "Indiana Jones warehouse" where nothing is ever found again.

Jeff Moore

11-Dec-2003, 11:24

Just to pass this on for those interested: There is currently a refurbished Howtek 4500 up for auction on Ebay.

Michael Chmilar

11-Dec-2003, 12:31

My math:

Assuming Q-T is scanning for output on a Lightjet at 304ppi (res12) for 50x70inch prints.

The scanner must scan at 3040ppi to get an exact pixel-to-pixel match for the 50x70 print. Any less resolution requires up-scaling the data. For example, if Lightjet res8 is acceptable (ie. 200ppi), then 2000ppi scanning will work, and files will be 2/3 of the size.

A 5x7inch film original at 3040ppi and three 8-bit channels gives a file size of 970,368,000 bytes, or approximately .9GB. This is a seriously large file! Photoshop (even CS/8.0) is currently limited to use approx 1.8GB of RAM, even if your machine supports more (like a Mac G5/8GB).

Going for a lower resolution means that, at print time for the largest prints, the file must be up-scaled. My understanding is that the Lightjet software extrapolates res8 files to res12. This could be done instead in Photoshop, usings its builtin extrapolator (bicubic), or one of the third-party plugins, such as Genuine Fractals, if they yield better results.

Finally: The Imacon scanners don't quite handle 5x7inch (12.7 x 17.8cm) transparencies. The Precision III is 12x17cm, and the 646/848 are 12x25cm. A small amount of image cropping is necessary to use the Imacon.

Andy Eads

11-Dec-2003, 13:34

I owned and operated a Leaf 45 for a number of years. I could coax a very nice scan from it most of the time. However, I saw the Aztec scanner and was planning to buy one before I closed my shop. The advantages I saw from the Aztec were many. First, very fast workflow. The time required to mount three strips of 120 negs to the drum was minimal. The scanner is fast. The scanner can scan each of the negs to a separate file, at different resolutions. So one moount operation could yield many scans. Second, the Aztec drum scanner has selectable apertures. The maker has compiled a table of apertures for hundreds of films both past and present. The advantage is that artifacts due to grain sturcture are dramatically reduced with the end result being the highest possible information capture and dramatically reduced grain structure. Third, the drum scanner permits genuine optical unsharp masking as the scan is being made. No flatbed will ever be able to do that. A proper financial analysis would be in order to justify the machine in a given shop but technologically a good drum scanner and the appropriate software is still the superior means to digitize film.

neil poulsen

13-Dec-2003, 10:48

Some additional info, although it may be a little dated:

http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/thread.php?topic=397616

Paul Schilliger

15-Dec-2003, 15:57

I have used a drum scanner (ScanMate) for some years, then the drum motor failed and the price for the refurbishing of the scanner was way over what I could spend on such an aging device, so I found a good deal on a near new Scitex Eversmart, same as the Eversmart Pro, same software but without the multitasking possibility (scan while you edit), and slower. And after using it for 3 years, I still think that it is the best I could get for my money. The output of this model is slow and a A 200 MB scan at 2540 dpi with some edit and using calibration takes 35 minutes, on Apple G4 dual 500 (scanner speed is processor and scratch disk dependent). That's the trade off for the much lower price than the Pro version. But if you do not make your living from the number of scans you can make in a day, this is the perfect scanner. It yelds a fantastic image quality once it is calibrated (preferably with a HCT target), better than the drum scanner I had and with more shadows detail. Very sharp without software sharpening and the D-Max reaches 4.0. This is not the Jazz modell, which is I think a Microtek scanner. The good thing with this scanner is that you can fill the large A3 size, perfectly anti-newton glas with slides, and let it work while you do some other occupation or while you work in Photoshop on the completed scans (it works in the background). It is a solid scanner. Mine has never needed any servicing in the 3 years I have used it. Of course I doesn't work every day. The scanner is a bit noisy at times and is SCSI only. There are some on the used market, for service bureaus who had one quickly realized that it was too slow and changed for the faster models who cost a lot more. But they are perfect for the photographer who wants the highest possible quality without the prohibitive cost of the high production models. I have rarely needed a wet scan, but it is possible to oil mount with a special tray. It is also possible to wet scan by sandwiching the slide between the glas and a transparent sheet, using a special fluid. But I have never needed to mess up with that.

Jesse Goff

16-Jan-2004, 12:35

For my commercial photography business I want to buy a drum scanner (I am not sure which yet) because I believe there are quite a few advantages that can be quickly summarized:

1) the images are sharper, PMTs have better focus
2) the images have more range (especially shadow detail)
3) three is less noise, ccds create noise in shadows
4) they are faster. contrary to popular belief you will save time by not having to remove dust and you can lay up many transparencies at once and leave it all night long to scan everything for you (this is huge for me and not mentioned so far) .
5) there is generally better resolution (not always)
6) film size; one can generally scan much larger film. great for my large panos (12" long transparencies)

negatives:
1) price to maintain?
2) size
3) electricity use?
4) maintenance availability?

I think the Imacons are a good choice for somebody who shoots smaller fine art projects and who has plenty of extra time. I have had 120 film scanned on both Imacon and Heidelberg Tango and I believe the Tango is superior but the Imacon is still very close. But I think the batch scanning is a BIG deal. For me the labor cost of operating our CCD film scanner is expensive and that must be taken into account. Cleanging up files and loading film one by one is so slow.

But here is the problem: which drum scanner should I get? Here are the choices: Tango (18k), Howtek (5k), Fuji Celsis (3k) Crosfield(bought by fuji) (?), Screen(2k-20k?) Which ones can you get parts for? Which ones break a lot? Which ones are easy to maintain and which ones are expensive? I can't seem to get clear answers. I am pretty sure I want a Tango but I don't how much they cost to be maintained (I am in SF and don't even know who to call, the manufacturers support can be bad, I couldn't even find anyone at fuei who knew they made drum scanners). If anyone has input for these questions I would be very thankful.