> You just don't understand the real criteria yet. Decide for
> infra-red dust elimination above all else.
Amen, bro. Ain't no going back. I'd rank scanners by the
following criteria in this order:
1. IR channel.
2. Dmax rating.
3. Connectivity (USB, Firewire, SCSI)
4. Resolution.
5. Film Handling.
6. Speed.
I bought a Nikon Coolscan V-ED earlier this year and am very
pleased with it. I replaced a Coolscan LS-20. As to dynamic
range, the V-ED on a really bad day (same with the 4000) is
better than I was ever able to get with the LS-20 on the best of
days.
The DoF and focus situation with the Nikon is definitely real.
If you've got an old slide that was projected it will be bowed
out quite a bit. It's really tough to get the edge of the image
area in focus. But in reality, most images could stand to be
de-edged a little bit anyway. ;)
The supplied software with the Nikon V-ED is very good. I'm
serious about this. Nikon has done an outstanding job on this
software and you can really get the final image close enough to
pretty much eliminate post-processing to correct contrast,
curves, color, etc. However, scans are as slow as a mastless
sailboat in the doldrums with the rowers on strike. This is
because the ICE software is really tubby. The grain-reduction
software works quite well and seems to have just enough
intelligence to be useful without having to tweek every shot.
One fault of the software with the V-ED is the inability to
overscan. I consider this to be a huge idiocy and something that
the software supports with the 4000 and 5000. ICE-4 does a
phenominal job when you don't want to do any post-processing. A
scan with all the features of ICE-4 enabled is downright amazing
as you can send the output straight to the printer without
further work. Think of it as JPEG straight from a digital
camera--not perfect, but good enough for the farmers.
Vuescan is my standard axe of choice when I'm doing one-off
scans for high-res printing or whatever. Standard stuff being
scanned for stock just goes through the Nikon software with
minimum fuss. Vuescan allows me to overscan, which provides
dimensionality to the grain and increases resolution ever so
slightly. The resolution increase is almost entirely due to
localized contrast increase. In otherwords, overscanning gives
the grain more accutance.
Vuescan also allows you to deal with the IR channel seperately
and has an algorithm to subtract the IR channel from the RGB
channels. It's MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than ICE, but ICE tends to
do a little better job at fixing scratches and fingerprints. Ok,
quite a bit better. Dust blobbies clear out about the same with
either method. ICE is adaptive in it's approach to cleaning the
dust where Vuescan's method is more of the subtractive method
and the "nearest neighbor" fill isn't quite as smooth and
realistic as ICE. ICE tends to recreate the film grain into the
blotted out areas where Vuescan is doing more of a straight
interpolation using a variation of Cubic Smoother. ICE seems to
mimick the "Healing Brush" in Photoshop.
As to dynamic range, The V-ED running at 8-bit mode is more than
sufficient for 99% of everything I do. I only scan in higher
bit-depth if I'm going to be doing extensive tonal adjustment
and I need as much data as possible. Otherwise, in controlled
A-B comparison testing, the difference in output is nearly
identical and not worth worrying about. This is a testiment as
to how good the V-ED really is.
I don't get to scan nearly as much as I'd like to, and needed to
vacate the kitchen table so I found that my larger Tamrac camera
bag was a perfect storage place. It fits in one half, the film
loader in the other with other supplies such as canned air,
cords, brushes, anti-static cloths, etc. Perfect fit. Usually,
the only time I have an opportunity to scan is when I'm
travelling and sitting in a hotel room. This camera bag is just
large enough that I can set a hanging folder with a dozen slide
sheets in it. I do everything on a laptop. This setup works
great for me as I can unload and be scanning in about two
minutes--takes longer to boot the computer than anything else.
One other thing about the V-ED (and 4000). It has this 6-frame
motorized film holder. Just feed the end of the cut film into
the slot and it sucks it the rest of the way in and lines things
up. Vuescan is much more effecient at controlling this beastie
than the Nikon software, and I can batch scan a roll with hardly
any effort.
The only major grouse with the Nikon is light leakage. Just like
the LS-20, it doesn't hurt to toss a black T-shirt or something
over the front to keep daylight out. A book leaned up against
the face works fine too--as long as it blocks any bright light
from shining into the slot.
AG
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|