Here are my inital thoughts after playing with both the Minolta scan elite 5400
and dual scan IV using 100asa
fuji superia (negative)
The main differences are that that the scan elite is higher resolution, an
infra red channel to detect scratches and dust,
has firewire as well as USB, has a hardware grain desolver and you can
insert, scan and remove a one slide without having to eject the slide
carrier. The 5400 has an automatically opening and closing film holder
door. The IV is manual.
However, if you plan to **only** scan negatives many of these advantages
disapear,
At 5400 dpi all of the negatives I scaned showed considerable
grain which I could not consider unacceptable. reducing the resolution to
2700 seemed to be about the limit for what I could extract from the
superia and still showed grain in dark areas. I believe 5400dpi is simply
more resolution than the superia film can handle. Using the
hardware grain desolver seemed to remove about 1-2 stops off
the dynamic range making the pictures over exposed and white washed -
useless. (it criptically warns in the manual that you may lose some
highlights well the sky went white and the buildings where too...)
The Minolta 5400 software also has a problem with Ir cleaning. If you
switch on
the infra red cleaning it **automatically** switches on the grain desolver
runining the scans. I have **not** found out how to switch them on and off
independantly. The manual **seems** to suggest they are linked....
However, if
you use **vuescan** you **can** switch them on and off independantly so I
think it
is simply the minolta software taking away your choices rather than poor
hardware design. Using vuescan you get a simular whiteout with the
hardware grain desolver...
I can see little colour of sharpness differences between the two scaners
with superia and the software bundle is identical.
to conclude.
If you want to scan only negatives and not use vuescan I can see no advantage
in the 5400 at
all except firewire. However, the firewire connection on my machine is
**slower** than the USB 2 and again the manual says this is the case.
If you are willing to buy vuescan the only advantage to the 5400 is
the infra red cleaning. Which works reasonably well. However, vuescan
recommends that you lock the exposure for
scanning a roll of film. Unfortunately this *also* *locks* the *infra*
*red* *exposure* and for films with lots of highlights it can result in
cleaning being triggered. It would be nice to see the ability to lock the RGB
exposure independantly of the IR.
If you plan to scan slides the 5400 offers more than the IV. The higher
reslution is justified because of the finer grain and higher sharpness
and resolution of slides. The ability to quickly exchange a slide is nice to.
Regards
James
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