I have a fair amount of experience scanning and have access to both the new Imacons and an IQSmart 3 (I also own a 750 and a Jazz+). When I need speed and a medium size print (not larger than 24x30) on a good sharp well exposed and processed negative I find the Imacon adequate. When I have the time I use the IQSmart 3 which does a fine job once you learn its quirky software for even very large prints. But when I have a problem negative say with somewhat underexposed shadows and very bright highlights I always spring for a first rate drum scan.
On a recent landscape I used a red filter (and with rapidly changing light) and where I should have given more exposure to lighten open up the green grass in the foreground and paired it with minus development to hold the detail in sunlit thunderheads, instead I gave it the usual filter factor and normal development resulting in the foreground shaded grass being nearly clear on the film-like big globs of nearly pure black looming large in the foreground. Anyway my attempts to do a good scan of this neg didn't solve the problem, but Lenny pulled it off extracting more detail and separation from those areas than I thought possible.
Thanks as always Lenny!
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