Drum scanning as part of a business

[Lenny Eiger]

> Now its my turn to say "it depends on what you need." 20 inches times 2500 is 50,000 pixels.
Even with Color LF film, Velvia, recording 50 lp/mm to film, is 2500 ppi.... considering NO scanner is 100% eff., you need a min. of ~ 3000 ppi scan to grab all the data. Most of us prefer to "scan once", its easy to downsize, vs. re scanning for larger prints at a later date. With MF at f8, I would scan at about 3500 ppi. Of course, with B&W... 2500 dpi max. leaves too much on the table. So, why purchase a scanner that often falls short? IMO, that is the weakness of the Howtek 7500's, or the later GRANDS.

With MF, you use the smaller drum, which scans at 5000 dpi. It's only when things are large that you scan them at 2500. As it was, the scan was about 6 Gigabytes.

> I didn't do this research, but it was explained to me that flatbeds know where they are within 20-30 microns, where as drums know where they are within 1 or 2.
this sounds like it came from Phil L, your mentor. A CCD lens is dumb, (as are all imaging lenses) it has no knowledge of the resolution it projects. A CCD lens operates at a fixed aperture.... as the lens is designed to be at its sharpest at this apt. A common aperture for scan lenses is f5.6.... which, if diffraction limited would project 268 lp/mm on to the CCD sensor. 268 lp/mm = 2 microns.

Phil was a tough guy to follow. He made a lot of seemingly unsupportable statements. People are either in the Phil camp or they aren't. Some like him, some disagree fervently (like yourself). I challenged him on a lot of what he said and he proved much of to me... often to my dismay. According to him, he was responsible for a lot of engineering that goes into a lot of the scanners. I wasn't there for that either...

The only thing I can really say for sure is that I am very happy with what this device can do. It does it very well, better than I ever expected.

Lenny

[IanMazursky]

I have had no real trouble with my 7500. It has no shortcomings imho other than the vibrations but you get used to it.
The vibrations tell me how the scanner is feeling and if there is anything wrong.

She is a great scanner and does exactly what my customers need. We scan a lot of large film up to 16x20 so a 8000 or premier is out of the question.
We have 4 large and 2 small drums (for now!). I have made some modifications to the scanner itself and the mounting station to fix some of the issues.
Other than that im very happy especially with the support from Evan and Pam over at Aztek.

I still have a few other good stories about the life and times of an scanner operator is anyone is interested.
Many of them come from personal experiences and a few close friends who have been operators for over 25+ years.

[bglick]

> Phil was a tough guy to follow. He made a lot of seemingly unsupportable statements.


"a lot" is an understatement. Phil was a very engaging guy.... the issues had nothing to with like / dislike him, but rather, the zero validity to many of his claims. Of course, he was trying to sell a product, and with that comes the usual hype.....


Anyway, some of this continues with scanned file MP claims...

As for the GRAND scanner, the MF film as mentioned previously was from a Seitz 220VR round shot, 18" long, the small drums were useless. And if you keep resorting back to the small drums for the added dpi, the benefit of the large drums never gets utilized. So you buy the smaller scanner, like you have. These scanners have a 3d footprint the size of a bath tub.... :-)

Ian mentioned the sweet spot for the 7500, 16x20 film....as the recorded resolution on film this size fits within the 2500 dpi max with no waste. From my understanding, only a few prototypes of the GRAND (last 7500 version) was ever built... is this true? I always wondered why you never see them on the used market.

[bglick]

> I still have a few other good stories about the life and times of an scanner operator is anyone is interested.


YES! bring em on! Any stories regarding the health impact of the continued exposure to the mount cleaners, film cleaners, mount fluids?

[IanMazursky]

Thanks.

Well the dumbest one that comes to mind...A friend of my ex business partner was cleaning the inside of a Hell 3300 drum with lighter fluid or film kleen. The exact fluid is a bit fuzzy but the rest isnt. The ding dong was wearing a sweater. Well you can do the math...the static electricity caused the inside of the drum to become a flame thrower. He had his hand all the way in and lost all of his hair on his arms. He also ended up with superficial burn on his hand and arm.

The lesson, be very careful with static around the fluids used in drum scanning. Always ground yourself before touching the drum or fluids.

Another colleague was cleaning a drum (without a sweater) and he didn't notice that he was getting stoned. Or maybe he did but he set the drum down and started to getup to leave and he passed out.

The lesson, proper ventilation is key to not cracking your skull open on the floor. Also to prevent lung cancers that are probably caused by some of the chemicals.

Another guy that worked with my ex partner had just loaded a drum onto a Hell scanner. It was one of those days that the VP's and clients were in the building so everyone had to dress up. He wore a tie.
Well this one i wish i was there for! He didn't have a tie tack and the little voice in his head was out to lunch.
The drum spun up and he was leaning to close to the scanner, it sucked the tie in and smashed his head against the drum.
Crack!!!! Bam!!! Boom!!! The drum stayed on, someone hit the emergency stop in time and he lived but he tie didn't make it. The scanner had to be taken out of service until they could re align everything.

The lesson....well you can figure that one out.

I think i have a few more rattling around in the old noggin.

[Lenny Eiger]

Well the dumbest one that comes to mind...

Hilarious! Loved it...

Lenny

[DrPablo]

I don't really do this professionally, but I do a few orders for people now and then. And I'm in the middle of a big order for someone and I've gotten very lightheaded from the Prazio drum cleaner and even moreso from Kami film cleaner. The mounting solutions don't bother me.

The drum cleaner also has made my hands break out in eczema, which has never been a problem on my hands before. It's a big deal because I treat a lot of patients with staph infections (including MRSA) and staph loves to infect people with eczema on their hands. So my advice is to wash your hands asap after using these solutions and to moisturize a lot to prevent eczema.

[bglick]

Paul, the Kami mount seems easy on the body, but the film and drum cleaner can really be hard on those chemically sensitive. I get light-headed and headaches as well..... I use a respirator if I will be around the smell for a long time. It seems all aspects of film requires the use of these harsh chemicals.... However, in the past, I have used some film cleaners much worse than the Kami.

Is there any more "health friendly" scanning fluids out there?

[DrPablo]

Paul, the Kami mount seems easy on the body, but the film and drum cleaner can really be hard on those chemically sensitive.

I mostly use Prazio mount, and occasionally SDS montage gel, and both are fine for mounting. Even when done, though, I need to make sure the wet scanner wipes or kimwipes are disposed of in something covered, or the chemical lingers in the air.

Edwal cleaning solution is harsher than Kami, and it doesn't work as well for cleaning up mounting solution.

[WalkerBlackwell]

Just a quick follow-up note here. I've run drum-scanning as part of Black Point Editions' business for years now. It is approx 50% of our business at this point. Although I'm no-longer directly related to the day-to-day work (I've moved to Vermont), I still run scan-jobs in VT. We still have the Chicago office as well. I'm actually looking for a good 8x10 field body or a light "Ritter" style camera. I'd be willing to trade drum-scanning. I use the Scanmate 11000 with Kami fluid. I believe the optical resolution is 6 microns. Better than the Heidels. We don't charge by megabyte and never have. The reason? We've found that there are optimal resolutions for different types of films and for each type of drumscanner we use. It would be silly for us to charge more for one film/scanner combo. Coupled with that, we normally scan at 400-900 megabytes in 8bit LaB (converts to 16bit grayscale for BW film). The way we look at it, a drum-scan should only be done once. The labor is nearly the same between a 100mgb and 700mgb scan. If you have multiple drum-scanners, your scanning frequency really doesn't change even if you have long scan-times. So as a business, we are able to offer really low prices for large file-sizes. That said, we don't do anything but "fine-art" work. So we are building a business around a group of people who often don't have much money to begin with.

Anyone interested digital LF should get a drum-scanner, learn how to use it, and get connections in the high-end scanner community. It's the way to go.

All the best,
Walker