Minolta Scan Dual IV

[scott_mcloughlin]

A good buddy of mine is interested in this film scanner. It's a good

bargain. I'm using a Nikon V and am reasonably happy, but that's

considerably more expensive.

 

If price is a consideration, how does the Minolta scanner perform? Or

is it better to do without and save up for a Nikon scanner?

 

Thanks for all and any advice.

 

Scott

[doug andrews]

The biggest difference is going to be the lack of Digital ICE in the Scan Dual IV. I own the Scan Dual IV and think it does an excellent job for the $280 dollars I paid for it. I don't have a problem with the ability of the Auto Dust Brush feature and any follow-up dust spot cleaning; however, some folks think Digital ICE is worth the extra cost of the Coolscan. It ultimately depends on how much of a consideration price is with your friend and only he can answer that question.

[johnclinch]

Totally echoe Doug's comments

 

I just paid the extra for an elite 5400 mainly for ICE (although I think the scans are cleaner than the dual scan III I tried at the same resolution)

 

However the dual scan is capable of good results

[leonard_evens]

I have a Scan Dual IV, and I'm very happy with it. Its optical quality is not as high as that of more expensive scanners, so if maximizing detail is important for you, you would be well advised to get a more expensive scanner. With my SD IV, I can make good 8 x 10 prints and perhaps some even larger ones with careful massaging of the scan in a photoeditor. I'm using mine to scan my old collection of 35 mm negatives, mainly b/w. With some of my old color negatives, dust really is a problem, and if you have a lot of such slides or negatives, IR dust reduction would be important. However, my b/w negatives seem pretty clean, and I have to do little or no spotting with the clone tool in my photoeditor.

[malcolmdwyer]

<p>I've been pretty happy with mine... For the price it's good. However I did have one problem which I asked about <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=008u6n">Here</a>.</p>

 

Malcolm

[johnclinch]

Also worth saying its well worth downloading the polaroid dust and scratch programme/plugin

 

its free and excellent

 

for example it tells you what it thinks is dust before removing it and you can manually deselect things wrongly identified

 

http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html

[paul_henderson1]

Malcom: Did you ever resolve the haloing problem on your SD IV? I have noticed the same thing on mine, which is very exaggerated on negatives taken using flash. I had assumed that it was not the scanner until I saw your reference of your prior question.

 

Paul

[malcolmdwyer]

Paul,

 

No, I never resolved it. My dad and I shared the cost of the scanner, and after I did my initial batch of slides he took it, so I haven't messed with it any more. At some point I will probably try again, and I'll post an update to this forum if I figure anything out (No ETA on that).

 

Malcolm

[matt_kennedy1]

I had a Scan Dual IV for a few months and it did a very nice job for the price. I decided to replace it with a DSE 5400 II because I want to do some volume batch scanning and I wanted ICE so I don't have to clean each image by hand.

[scott_mcloughlin]

Thanks all.

 

Scott