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Thread: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

  1. #11
    EOTS's Avatar
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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Watson View Post
    ... That is, small enlargement, ....
    If you ever want to make bigger enlargements than a tabloid magazine, a Howtek is a better choice.
    The Howtek max resolution is 4000dpi, AFAIK the tango resolves 5500dpi optically.
    From what I've seen, the Tango's resolution is at least equal, if not better.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Watson View Post
    and trannies only ...
    If you ever want to take advantage of the much better dynamic range of negative films, a Howtek is a much better choice.
    I'm only using trannies most of the time.
    But of course the Custom CMS feature comes in handy with negs.
    At the moment I'm having an issue with light stripes all over the scans, showing especially with negs and linear scans, especially when applying extreme curves.
    Still have to isolate if it's caused by the calibration strip.

    From what I hear the build quality of the Tango is superior,
    and there is a possiblity to have the scanner tuned professionally, which does not exist in Europe ...

    Best regards,
    Martin

  2. #12
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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Martin,

    Contact Karl. He's been helpful with some of my questions in the past, wouldn't see why he wouldn't be now. Sometimes it can take a while to get a reply, as he can be busy doing jobs. He still operates a EU-based office, IIRC, in addition to his US office. Heidelberg scanners WERE made in Germany, remember !

    I'd have purchased a Heidelberg if I had not purchased a DPL8000 early on in my search for a drum scanner. Nice small unit, but having a larger drum to mount on would be nice, especially for those of us who use larger formats, or want to mount many shots all at once during a scanning session.

    But talk with Karl, he'll set you straight on software/hardware questions.

    -Dan

  3. #13
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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Thanks Dan!

    I'm planning to, but didn't want to disturb him before being sure about doing it.

    Wow, isn't the Aztek DPL8000 is a larger and higher resolving scanner already, at least larger drums than SM4500?

    Best regards,
    Martin

  4. #14

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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Quote Originally Posted by EOTS View Post
    The Howtek max resolution is 4000dpi, AFAIK the tango resolves 5500dpi optically.
    From what I've seen, the Tango's resolution is at least equal, if not better.
    From what I hear the build quality of the Tango is superior,
    and there is a possiblity to have the scanner tuned professionally, which does not exist in Europe ...

    Best regards,
    Martin
    Martin,

    You appear to want to believe your own words vs listening to the people taking the time to answer your questions. Bruce Watson is an accomplished and experienced expert, one of the people here who really knows what he is talking about.

    Your statements are simply not true. The Tango doesn't resolve to 5500. Both the 4500 and the Tango are 6 micron engines. They are tuned to be able to deliver 4000. The 8000 and Premier are tuned to 3 microns and when tuned can deliver about 7400 optical.

    I have a Premier now and its build quality is excellent. It is smaller and more compact than a Tango and everything is put together very well.

    Your issues are probably with bulbs, and you probably shouldn't be doing curves that are too dramatic on a scanner. Scanners are best used to deliver a full range of tonalities that you then manipulate (if you want) in another program, such as PhotoShop.

    Lenny
    EigerStudios
    EigerStudios
    Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing

  5. #15

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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    NewColor runs on a G4 with OSX up to 10.2.8.
    Beyond that there is no SCSI support from Apple.
    Talk to Karl about NewColor.
    Tangos are excellent no matter what people (without owning them) say.
    Check out the http://www.largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison/ if you have not done so. Tangos' shadows are virtually noise free.
    If you planning on scanning Color Negs and happen not like what NewColor does for you - scan them as positives and do the conversion in PS (a 5 minute job). All scanners scan Negs as positives anyway.

    Good luck,
    SergeyT.

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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    I don't know anything about Tango scanners, but what I read is confusing and some clarification would be appreciated. Some drum scanner operators who use Tangos advertise 11,000 spi optical, but my understanding is that the minimum aperture of this machine is 10 microns. How do you get 11,000 spi optical with 10 microns? For example.

    We offer a professional drum scanning service with our Heidelberg Tango drum scanner. The Tango offers an impressive 11,000 ppi optical scanning resolution with a dynamic range of 4.2 DMax; scanning film up to 16″ x 18″, color negs, transparencies, or B&W; and sets the industry benchmark for precision quality and true colour output.

    The question has personal interest to me because I correspond with a photographer who use TMY and develops in Pyrocat and he has shared some scan samples with me. This photographer owns a Howtek 4500, but sends his 35mm TMY negatives to a Tango operator to scan at 11,000 spi optical, which he says is necessary to scan beyond grain aliasing which is evident at 4000 spi - 5000 spi. But I don't understand how you can get 11,000 spi from a 10 micro aperture without interpolation.

    Any ideas about this?

    Sandy
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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Just speculating here, but there could (should) be overlap of the aperture between consecutive samples, resulting in some information being recorded beyond the smallest aperture size. Local contrast would be low, due to averaging of the output.

  8. #18
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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Hello Lenny,

    Quote Originally Posted by Lenny Eiger View Post
    You appear to want to believe your own words vs listening to the people taking the time to answer your questions. Bruce Watson is an accomplished and experienced expert, one of the people here who really knows what he is talking about.

    Your statements are simply not true. The Tango doesn't resolve to 5500. Both the 4500 and the Tango are 6 micron engines. They are tuned to be able to deliver 4000. The 8000 and Premier are tuned to 3 microns and when tuned can deliver about 7400 optical.
    I have read his words, but at the same time have read opposite words,
    therefore I'm having a hard time bringing all of them into accord.

    From the Tango, I have had the information that 11000dpi is the max resolution, but only 5500dpi is delivered optically.
    I have not done side by side comparisons of my slides yet, which is what I have to do anyway.
    From the only tests I had seen, a setting of 6000dpi made an improvement over a setting of 4000dpi:
    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T6EkiAZYUm...600/zugPPI.jpg
    (which I found in this blog: http://drumscan.blogspot.co.at )

    So are you saying, that when setting the scanner is set to 6000dpi, only 4000dpi are effectively ("optically") delivered?
    And when setting to 4000dpi, even less.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lenny Eiger View Post
    I have a Premier now and its build quality is excellent. It is smaller and more compact than a Tango and everything is put together very well.
    I know about the excellency of the Aztek Premier, but sadly from its price point it's out of reach for me.

    Your issues are probably with bulbs, and you probably shouldn't be doing curves that are too dramatic on a scanner. Scanners are best used to deliver a full range of tonalities that you then manipulate (if you want) in another program, such as PhotoShop.
    Sorry for my inprecision, with curves I was referring to PhotoShop-Curves.
    But the stripes can also be seen without applying a curve, it only makes them more obvious.

    Thanks for the hint with the bulbs, I've already ordered bulbs and will see if replacing them helps.
    It could also be an issue with the calibration area.

    Best regards,
    Martin

  9. #19
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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Quote Originally Posted by EOTS View Post

    Wow, isn't the Aztek DPL8000 is a larger and higher resolving scanner already, at least larger drums than SM4500?
    Well, the Howtek HR 8000 and the Howtek SM 4500 have drums that are almost exactly the same. The 8000 has a scanning area of 11.5" x 12" and the 4500 has a scanning area of 11.0" x 11.8". The drum is the same physical size, but the 8000 drum has thinner edges (calibration strips) to increase the scannable area.

    The Aztek DPL 8000 is an improved version of the Howtek HR 8000 that uses a bit different drum and can scan 12x12". The Aztek Premier is a further improved version of this scanner, and also scans up to 12x12" at 8000 DPI.

    As Lenny said, the 4500 is 6 micron and the 8000/Premier models are 3 micron. Roughly speaking, 4000 DPI and 8000 DPI, respectively. Your results may vary of course.

    The big advantage of Howtek/Aztek scanners is that they are still very well-supported by Aztek. If you have an issue, they are very helpful with tech support and also carry a lot of spare parts. They are located in California, so if you're in the USA, it is hard to beat. Plus, their DPL software is great, and you can use it on a modern computer with Windows 7.

    If you are in Europe though, a Heidelberg or Imacon might be preferable in order to have service close by.

  10. #20

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    Re: Drum Scanners: Upgrade from Howtek 4500 to Heidelberg Tango?

    Quote Originally Posted by sanking View Post
    I don't know anything about Tango scanners, but what I read is confusing and some clarification would be appreciated. Some drum scanner operators who use Tangos advertise 11,000 spi optical, but my understanding is that the minimum aperture of this machine is 10 microns. How do you get 11,000 spi optical with 10 microns? For example.

    We offer a professional drum scanning service with our Heidelberg Tango drum scanner. The Tango offers an impressive 11,000 ppi optical scanning resolution with a dynamic range of 4.2 DMax; scanning film up to 16″ x 18″, color negs, transparencies, or B&W; and sets the industry benchmark for precision quality and true colour output.

    The question has personal interest to me because I correspond with a photographer who use TMY and develops in Pyrocat and he has shared some scan samples with me. This photographer owns a Howtek 4500, but sends his 35mm TMY negatives to a Tango operator to scan at 11,000 spi optical, which he says is necessary to scan beyond grain aliasing which is evident at 4000 spi - 5000 spi. But I don't understand how you can get 11,000 spi from a 10 micro aperture without interpolation.

    Any ideas about this?

    Sandy
    I'll try and help.

    There are two kinds of resolution - as you know - one is how many pixels a scanner can create; and the other is the optical resolution, which is how many bars it can separate on the test target. They are only somewhat related.

    The "how many pixels" number is a factor of how many stops there are on the stepper motor. Apparently the Tango has 11,000, or more. The Premier has 18,000 steps on the stepper motor. In discussions with Phil Lippincott he told me that they chose to do only 8,000 because they could only optically resolve 8,000 and he didn't want to deliver "fake" or interpolated pixels, only "real data".

    The second number, the optical rez, is a factor of the quality of the overall system and the micron setting. It's like a modern lens that has a coating that is perfected within some very small tolerance all over the lens. The are other factors that come into play such as film and developer choice (and appropriate development time, of course).

    The Tango was built to a 6 micron spec, and should be capable of 4,000 ppi, same as the 4500. Apparently, for most of its lifetime, everyone believed that the aperture on a Tango was fixed to 11 microns, however, Karl corrected me on this a couple of years ago. (This is why they said that it couldn't do color neg, which is often done at 19 microns, and would be an anti-aliased mess at 11.) I don't know where the adjustment is, but Karl is a decent guy, and he wouldn't lie to me.

    The 8000 and Premier were built to a 3 micron spec. There are aperture settings every 2-3 microns and one can clearly see the difference from one to the other. I have personally had a scan done on a Tango that was awful in comparison to my old 4500. Mine had been recently tuned and the Tango was very new so I assume it was tuned as well. However, while the operator was supposed to be very good, maybe he just blew it on that day..

    To get optical resolution, one matches the width of the silver clumps on the film to the aperture. The clumps vary all over the place but it is fairly easy to see which one is better if you try a few apertures. Anti-aliasing happens when you oversample, which is when you choose an aperture smaller than the width of the grains. The drum spins around and samples a portion of it again. (No, koraks, these are not averaged, there is no function to identify each grain.)

    The statement that the lab you quoted makes is entirely and totally false. The idea that at 11,000 you will get less anti-aliasing is pure hogwash. Further, there is no scanner that does 11,000 optical, or that has a Dynamic Range of 4.2. Given that they are outright lying to your friend, or have no idea what their scanner can or can't do, I would suggest he never return there. He would do better to learn how to scan his images on his machine. There is a lot to what one does with the curves that makes a huge difference. (Once again, we are talking about resolution which is far less important than separating tonality - almost to the point of meaninglessness.)

    The 8,000, the Premier, and the ICG 380 are the only machines built to the 3 micron spec. These are exceptional. However, when comparing the 6 micron engines, both the 4500 and the Tango are excellent machines, especially when tuned up. All of these machines are capable of excellent scans in the right hands (a scanner operator vs a lab is a good start). The Tango is not an upgrade from a 4500, its a similar machine, there will be things it does better and things it does less well. My machine was quite a bit sharper than the Tango, but it doesn't mean that it wasn't an unusually sharp one. It could have been the new PMT that Evan installed. On any given day one can make a good scan with either.

    Lenny
    EigerStudios
    Museum Quality Drum Scanning and Printing

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