Hello everyone!
I use 8x10 and tend to print at great scale from a digital file, which leads me to drum scan my negs at 1.5 GB or so. Needless to say, this is tremendously costly, and so I tend not to scan at this quality until I am 100% sure I'll be reproducing that work. If I'm not certain of its future, it's very difficult to justify such expense.
This leads me to my first question... I need to produce many 16x20 prints for a high-quality portfolio. I have recently gone on an excursion during which I took at least 50 images that need to be scanned. Even at the lower quality drum scanning cost (to go to 16x20) it would total almost 5000 dollars to scan. I'd rather not spend that, and figured perhaps I could buy some hardware at a far lower cost, and learn how to use it.
1. Should I buy a V850 and oil mount the negs? Would this produce a scan of equal quality than a drum scan that was scanned to 16x20? Are there other options out there that would be superior? I haven't been in this market for a while, so I don't really know what the highest quality technology that isn't at the level of an Aztek/ICG/Creo. Although I need this immediately for this particular project, I also see it as an opportunity to invest in technology that could benefit me long into the future.
2. I have been using a company that uses a Heidelberg for my biggest scans. It produces the most sumptuous scans I've seen. But, it comes at a ridiculous cost. There is another guy in the area who has an Aztek and offers the same size scans for less than half the cost. I've compared the work and while the Aztek does seem quite nice, there's something missing, even though the detail is equivalent. Can anyone describe the distinctions that exist between the Heidelberg and the Aztek? I would save a lot of money if I went with the latter guy, but I'm really happy with the results of the former and am reluctant to change.
Any thoughts on either matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you, all!
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